Unitrends and Office365
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Some of the things I am learning from CISSP
Here is the answer this question of whether Microsoft's backup is sufficient:
- BIA needs to be done to assess how much downtime is acceptable.
- We must also determine at what level are restorations necessary (email, mailbox, etc)
- Once the downtime and level is determined, a policy should be made stating acceptable backups for the organization
- At this point, we can assess if Microsoft's Office 365's default retention is acceptable for your organization.
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I would say that is the textbook answer to your question @wirestyle22
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@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@Dashrender said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@dafyre said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
Example... CEO wants to know if there are backups.
CEO asks IT Manager: "Manager needs someone else to restore so says no backups."
CEO asks Backup Manager: "Backup manager says yes, there are backups"
CEO asks end users: "End users have no control and say No, our data is not backed up."
CEO asks senior admin: "Senior Admin has backup access and says Yes, we have backups."
CEO asks junior admin: "No, no backups for me."
CEO asks janitor: "Jantor says no backups."That is why the backup team sends out emails a time or two per year reminding folks that Yes, we do have backups, and they are taken at such and such a time every night.
Everybody's on the same page (yes, we did this at my last job for a while).
Remember, Microsoft could remind you every day that you HAVE backups.
Sure, as long as they also remind us that they only thing they are useful for is if MS has a glitch that they, MS, has to recover from.
Dafyre's example specifically tells the users what capabilities IT has for recovering their end user's data. i.e. daily single backups, hourly, etc. Keep for 2 weeks, etc.
Sure, but in both cases, if you consider that YOUR ability to restore defines something as a backup, the MS = IT and they say "there are backups " and to everyone else, there are no backups.
I totally get what you are saying here - but I'm not in the Dayfre camp - my ability to restore does not mean no backup - but in this case it means backups that are 99.999% useless to me. Most of the time I'm going to care about the backups that I CAN access to do recovery from.
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@Dashrender said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@Dashrender said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@dafyre said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
Example... CEO wants to know if there are backups.
CEO asks IT Manager: "Manager needs someone else to restore so says no backups."
CEO asks Backup Manager: "Backup manager says yes, there are backups"
CEO asks end users: "End users have no control and say No, our data is not backed up."
CEO asks senior admin: "Senior Admin has backup access and says Yes, we have backups."
CEO asks junior admin: "No, no backups for me."
CEO asks janitor: "Jantor says no backups."That is why the backup team sends out emails a time or two per year reminding folks that Yes, we do have backups, and they are taken at such and such a time every night.
Everybody's on the same page (yes, we did this at my last job for a while).
Remember, Microsoft could remind you every day that you HAVE backups.
Sure, as long as they also remind us that they only thing they are useful for is if MS has a glitch that they, MS, has to recover from.
Dafyre's example specifically tells the users what capabilities IT has for recovering their end user's data. i.e. daily single backups, hourly, etc. Keep for 2 weeks, etc.
Sure, but in both cases, if you consider that YOUR ability to restore defines something as a backup, the MS = IT and they say "there are backups " and to everyone else, there are no backups.
I totally get what you are saying here - but I'm not in the Dayfre camp - my ability to restore does not mean no backup - but in this case it means backups that are 99.999% useless to me. Most of the time I'm going to care about the backups that I CAN access to do recovery from.
I find that odd, as an end user that is very rarely what I want. I want backups that my IT department can restore from.
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@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@Dashrender said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@Dashrender said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@dafyre said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
Example... CEO wants to know if there are backups.
CEO asks IT Manager: "Manager needs someone else to restore so says no backups."
CEO asks Backup Manager: "Backup manager says yes, there are backups"
CEO asks end users: "End users have no control and say No, our data is not backed up."
CEO asks senior admin: "Senior Admin has backup access and says Yes, we have backups."
CEO asks junior admin: "No, no backups for me."
CEO asks janitor: "Jantor says no backups."That is why the backup team sends out emails a time or two per year reminding folks that Yes, we do have backups, and they are taken at such and such a time every night.
Everybody's on the same page (yes, we did this at my last job for a while).
Remember, Microsoft could remind you every day that you HAVE backups.
Sure, as long as they also remind us that they only thing they are useful for is if MS has a glitch that they, MS, has to recover from.
Dafyre's example specifically tells the users what capabilities IT has for recovering their end user's data. i.e. daily single backups, hourly, etc. Keep for 2 weeks, etc.
Sure, but in both cases, if you consider that YOUR ability to restore defines something as a backup, the MS = IT and they say "there are backups " and to everyone else, there are no backups.
I totally get what you are saying here - but I'm not in the Dayfre camp - my ability to restore does not mean no backup - but in this case it means backups that are 99.999% useless to me. Most of the time I'm going to care about the backups that I CAN access to do recovery from.
I find that odd, as an end user that is very rarely what I want. I want backups that my IT department can restore from.
Well, I suppose from that POV, I could purchase some option from MS that they could restore from that fits my requirements. Which for me are 2 weeks worth of once a day backups. Does MS have an option for this?
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@Dashrender said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@Dashrender said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@Dashrender said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@dafyre said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
Example... CEO wants to know if there are backups.
CEO asks IT Manager: "Manager needs someone else to restore so says no backups."
CEO asks Backup Manager: "Backup manager says yes, there are backups"
CEO asks end users: "End users have no control and say No, our data is not backed up."
CEO asks senior admin: "Senior Admin has backup access and says Yes, we have backups."
CEO asks junior admin: "No, no backups for me."
CEO asks janitor: "Jantor says no backups."That is why the backup team sends out emails a time or two per year reminding folks that Yes, we do have backups, and they are taken at such and such a time every night.
Everybody's on the same page (yes, we did this at my last job for a while).
Remember, Microsoft could remind you every day that you HAVE backups.
Sure, as long as they also remind us that they only thing they are useful for is if MS has a glitch that they, MS, has to recover from.
Dafyre's example specifically tells the users what capabilities IT has for recovering their end user's data. i.e. daily single backups, hourly, etc. Keep for 2 weeks, etc.
Sure, but in both cases, if you consider that YOUR ability to restore defines something as a backup, the MS = IT and they say "there are backups " and to everyone else, there are no backups.
I totally get what you are saying here - but I'm not in the Dayfre camp - my ability to restore does not mean no backup - but in this case it means backups that are 99.999% useless to me. Most of the time I'm going to care about the backups that I CAN access to do recovery from.
I find that odd, as an end user that is very rarely what I want. I want backups that my IT department can restore from.
Well, I suppose from that POV, I could purchase some option from MS that they could restore from that fits my requirements. Which for me are 2 weeks worth of once a day backups. Does MS have an option for this?
Yes, but it has some end user controls so doesn't meet your actual needs, I don't think. That's one of the problems - if end users can restore, it often defeats other components of the system.
But you saw my link above, they do offer several different kinds of protections. But each service is unique so you have to check them one by one.
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I'd also like to add that data retention is usually a C-level policy that IT follows. If it fulfills policy requirements then it is sufficient.
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@IRJ said in Unitrends and Office365:
I'd also like to add that data retention is usually a C-level policy that IT follows. If it fulfills policy requirements then it is sufficient.
And in the SMB, many C level requirements come down to things like "does it have a backup", which is how we get into these kinds of problems
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@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@IRJ said in Unitrends and Office365:
I'd also like to add that data retention is usually a C-level policy that IT follows. If it fulfills policy requirements then it is sufficient.
And in the SMB, many C level requirements come down to things like "does it have a backup", which is how we get into these kinds of problems
I came from SMB and the last two places I worked there was already a BIA done or I worked on one. At a minimum there has to be some type of prioritization for restoration of network services in case of disaster. Acceptable downtime should be defined by service. Which opens up a good discussion of backups on each service.
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@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@BRRABill said in Unitrends and Office365:
@scottalanmiller said in Unitrends and Office365:
@BRRABill said in Unitrends and Office365:
Office365 backup always seems to get a thread started every month or so...
Mostly people asking if they should.
And isn't the final answer (after much of the same wandering) usually backup if you can?
It's "do the right thing for you."
I am trying to help answer this question. After this was brought up we talked about having access to the backup. Which @scottalanmiller pointed out has nothing do with business requirements.
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@dafyre @Dashrender @BRRABill are all ignoring the fact that they are after application data. They are not actually after a backup.
This is a SaaS thing, that apparently incumbent IT does not understand.
With SaaS, the only "backup" that you as the user of the SaaS service care about is the recovery of the data that exists within the software if the service goes away.
This is not your service like an on site server. You are not the IT department for this service.
I cannot figure out what the fuck you are all locking up on with this.
It is a very basic concept.
If you want your DATA backed up in a method outside of the SaaS then purchase a product that connects to the service and provides that.
That is all there is to it.
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JB - I'll give you this on the email front. But I can't give it to you on the SharePoint or ODfB front.
If there are files in there that are not recoverable because of whatever reason - then there should be a way to recover them from backup, assuming the data existed inside the company retention policy. But it's clear that MS will not be recovering a single file in a situation like this.
Now that said - I believe that MS does sell a service to cover this level of recovery if your company feels it needs it.
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@Dashrender said in Unitrends and Office365:
JB - I'll give you this on the email front. But I can't give it to you on the SharePoint or ODfB front.
If there are files in there that are not recoverable because of whatever reason - then there should be a way to recover them from backup, assuming the data existed inside the company retention policy. But it's clear that MS will not be recovering a single file in a situation like this.
Now that said - I believe that MS does sell a service to cover this level of recovery if your company feels it needs it.
You answered it yourself from one paragraph to the next. It is possible.
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With many things on ML, it comes out to semantics and asking the right original question.
But often people don't know what original question they really want to ask!
