When using cloud-based services as a customer, it’s easy to forget about one’s own responsibilities: cloud is elastic, agile, scalable, and you don’t have to buy, place and cool big, power-hungry server machines in your datacenter. You pay your monthly bill, and the services are available without long maintenance windows and multi-digits capital expenditure bills. It’s all true, your cloud provider takes off numerous responsibilities from your shoulders, nevertheless you shouldn’t forget about the greatest value: your organisation’s data. All the servicing models, including the least manageable SaaS defines clearly that data is customers’ responsibility. It’s always your best interest and responsibility to protect your data against incidents affecting its availability and integrity as well, even if you store it in cloud.

Shared Responsibility Model

A recent incident (another article) affecting the Australian fund UniSuper illuminated that even seasoned cloud providers such as Google Cloud aren’t infallible and underscored the significance of the care required by customers on data protection. Google’s cloud customer mentioned in the article would have been in big trouble if they didn’t have adequate backup solution implemented. Google Cloud’s CEO, Thomas Kurian admitted that due to an “inadvertent misconfiguration” the customer’s private cloud services were deleted, affecting multiple regions. The joint statement elaborates that “UniSuper had duplication in two geographies as a protection against outages and loss. However, when the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription occurred, it caused deletion across both of these geographies.” It may seem to be an edge case, although a great occasion to think over how much danger is out there threatening to compromise your data or its availability.

Importance of an adequate backup solution

The most important countermeasure you can take to protect against threats like this is using a sophisticated, well-designed backup system. Given the cloud services’ shared responsibility model, it’s clear why backup solutions are indispensable. Data loss can occur due to various reasons, such as accidental deletion, cyberattacks, or even provider outages. A robust backup strategy ensures that your data remains intact and accessible under all circumstances.

Here are some of the essential parts of an adequate backup strategy:

• Multiple Copies: Maintain at least three copies of your data. This includes the original data and two backups. This approach minimizes the risk of data loss due to hardware failure or other issues affecting a single storage location. An immutable backup copy is highly recommended to protect against ransomware.
• Offsite Storage: At least one backup copy should be stored offsite or with a different cloud provider. This protects against site-specific failures, such as natural disasters or localized cyberattacks.
• Regular Testing: Regularly test your backup and restore processes. This ensures that your backups are functional, and that data can be recovered swiftly and accurately when needed.

To sum up, while cloud providers offer significant advantages and take many responsibilities off your hands, data protection remains a critical area where the customer must remain vigilant. Implementing a comprehensive backup strategy is not just a best practice but a necessity to safeguard your most valuable asset: your data.

Black Cell now offers robust protection for your cloud data with a comprehensive backup solution powered by Veeam. This service covers Microsoft 365 services and more, hosted in IBM’s global data centers to eliminate reliance on Microsoft cloud services. Our cloud backup solution includes unlimited storage for all M365 data (Exchange, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive), various data retention periods (1, 3, 5, or 10 years), and user-based pricing, accommodating needs as small as a single user.