World Backup Day 2024: Navigating Cloud Backup Myths to Separate Fact from Fiction

World Backup Day, taking place on March 31, serves as a timely reminder of the vital importance of data backups in safeguarding business continuity amid a dynamic digital environment. With the escalation of cyber threats, the intricacies of AI integration, and the exponential increase in data generation, organizations are navigating a minefield of data security risks. The threat is compounded by the potential for data loss through inadvertent deletions or human mistakes. As a result, embracing a forward-thinking approach to data security is not just advisable, it’s imperative.

For those seeking a robust backup solution to safeguard their data and maintain business operations, the cloud backup landscape is fraught with perplexing claims from numerous providers.

Let’s take a closer look at three of the most common cloud backup myths we hear, working with more than 21,000 customers worldwide, and discuss how we dispel them with AvePoint Cloud Backup so you can meet your data retention, data protection, and management needs.

Myth #1: All data recovery from the cloud is the same.

A common misconception is that all data recovery from the cloud is the same. There are claims of so-called granular data recovery, but often, such claims are unclear about what “granular” truly means.

For example, some vendors say they offer granular restore for Microsoft SharePoint. In reality, they can only restore the libraries, folders, and documents on that SharePoint site, leaving out the permissions, app settings, and system configurations. This means if an organization were to experience a data incident, they would face longer downtime because they would need to reconfigure permissions and app settings from scratch.

Two features set AvePoint Cloud Backup apart from the rest: app-aware recovery and unmatched granularity.

• App-aware data recovery means we can understand the structure, connections, and dependencies of the SaaS applications we are protecting. When data is restored, it’s not just files and data that are recovered. Instead, the entire application – including its settings, configurations, and the relationships between different pieces of data – can be restored to its previous state. This ensures that the application can continue to function correctly after a data loss event.
• Granular recovery gives customers the ability to restore specific items on demand. This means you can recover individual documents, and versions, or even perform security rollbacks to undo unintended permissions changes. Granular recovery also allows you to restore content and conversations to different locations, not just to their original home. In addition, you can export and restore content outside of the original platform, such as restoring mail items to a PST or documents to a file share. This kind of granularity is unlike any other in the industry.

Simply backing up your data to the cloud is not sufficient. In the event of a disruption, you need to be able to fully restore your systems and data exactly as they were before and do it quickly.

AvePoint provides comprehensive recovery solutions that allow organizations to rapidly restore their entire digital environment to its previous state, resuming normal operations with minimal downtime and disruption.

Myth #2: All cloud backup solutions are scalable.

Scalability is a term many cloud backup vendors use loosely. The ambiguity that results leads to two important questions:

1. What should scalability in a cloud backup solution look like?
2. Are the cloud backup solution options out there truly scalable?

Let’s consider two real-world examples to shed light on this point. First, suppose your firm is in the process of a merger and acquisition that will double your workforce. Could your cloud backup solution be able to support adding hundreds – if not thousands – of new employees in a short time span?

Second, your company is implementing AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot, which has the potential to significantly increase the volume of data you generate. Would your backup provider charge you more to protect this influx of new data?

AvePoint Cloud Backup is designed to automatically scale as data storage needs to grow, without requiring additional effort from your IT team. It is built to take full advantage of the cloud, allowing you to scale in the following ways:

1. It covers multiple workloads (including Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Google Workspace, and Salesforce), so you can add or remove workloads as your tech stack grows to support your organization.
2. It allows organizations to manage multiple workloads from a single platform, offering necessary data protection without requiring additional resources or administrative burdens.
3. It provides unlimited storage so even as your storage needs expand (such as when you adopt generative AI solutions and produce more data), you can scale your backup requirements without worrying about storage limitations.

Myth #3: Backup archiving is the same as storage management.

We hear our customers tell us many cloud backup vendors claim that backup archiving serves the same purpose as storage management. However, this isn’t true. Backup archiving merely involves moving backup copies to tiered storage.

Tiered storage is a method of managing and organizing data across different types of storage systems based on their performance, cost, and usage characteristics.

This helpful capability improves backup efficiency, reduces costs, and provides organizations with multiple copies or replicas, but it is not a replacement for storage management.

Why? By simply moving the archived data to lower-cost storage, customers still need to pay for retaining needless data, which does not lead to any storage cost savings and only leaves the underlying data mess unaddressed.

AvePoint Cloud Backup is designed to automatically protect your data and help you recover with great features like:

1. Tiered storage allows you to move data as it ages to cheaper storage platforms to reduce costs.
2. Granular recovery and intelligent protection allow you to back up only important, critical data and waste no time backing up redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) data.
3. Automated retention responsibly deletes backup data once you no longer need it. It also allows you to bring your own storage so you can take advantage of existing storage investments.

It’s essential to understand that backup archiving alone won’t address information lifecycle management challenges. Addressing these requires partnering with a separate solutions provider, which often leads to increased expenses and complexity due to the need to integrate services from multiple vendors.

AvePoint streamlines this process and reduces costs by offering a unified solution. With AvePoint Cloud Backup and AvePoint Opus, you gain access to both cloud backup and information management in one seamless platform.

AvePoint offers true archiving and true information management by enabling you to classify data when it’s created; protecting it in both your production environment and backup environment; archiving old data, and defensibly deleting data once it reaches the end of its lifecycle.

We simplify your approach to robust data protection with one platform built on a common data engine and data layer, so as you add these capabilities, we provide more intelligent data insights and automation. This approach means you just need to maintain one relationship, one agreement, one connection, one support team, one security review, and one service with access to your environment.

AvePoint: Your Modern Cloud Backup Partner

In a testament to AvePoint’s unwavering commitment to safeguarding organizations’ digital assets, the company has recently garnered prestigious recognition from industry leaders. As the cloud landscape evolves and data proliferates at an unprecedented pace, AvePoint has emerged as a beacon of trust, fortifying digital resilience for businesses worldwide.

Further solidifying AvePoint’s reputation for excellence, AvePoint was named a Leader for Spring 2024 by G2, the largest and most trusted software marketplace. This prestigious distinction, earned by only 3 percent of companies, spans three critical categories: Online Backup, SaaS Backup, and File Recovery. Earning the Leader badge from G2 is a powerful affirmation of AvePoint’s product performance, as it is based on stringent evaluation criteria and authentic user reviews.

Want to build a more comprehensive approach to data protection to help you boost your security stance? Download our latest guide, “Demystifying Secure Data Protection,” to take the first step.