There are multiple threats to data within Microsoft Teams, and fewer advanced data protection features within Microsoft 365 for these products, compared to Exchange Online. Items in the recycle bin are unrecoverable after 186 days, but items can be intentionally purged making them unrecoverable.

Many small businesses may not be aware that the risk of data loss also extends to the cloud. As reported by Help Net Security, an information security news firm, 42% of companies experienced a data loss in 2020 while 41% reported lost productivity due to lack of timely restore. Data loss can occur from any number of causes – from accidental deletion to malicious attacks like viruses and ransomware – and the detrimental costs from these incidents can be severe; one hour of downtime can cost a small business approximately $8,000, with around 40-60% of small businesses never reopening after data loss (FEMA, 2021 study). Leveraging a cloud service like Microsoft Teams thus doesn’t necessarily protect you from these threats. For this reason – and the fact that native data retention policies provided by Microsoft may not be adequate – it is just as important to backup Microsoft Teams data as it was when these services were being managed on-premises.

SkyKick Cloud Backup for Microsoft Teams provides a number of benefits both to MSP partners and their downstream end customers – the small businesses they serve.  For partners, it helps them provide a critical and highly valued service to their end customers – one that operates much like an insurance policy for key productivity data – and which extends Microsoft native data retention policies. Specifically, it gives these partners a powerful backup tool for the critical Microsoft Teams collaboration tools used by small businesses. These customers can thus quickly and accurately recover from unfortunate data loss incidents involving this mailbox data with minimal disruption, mitigating possible data loss costs.

SkyKick Cloud Backup for Microsoft Teams provides data protection of all the critical collaboration components of these services, including standard and private channels, associated SharePoint online sites, document library to store team files, posts, versions, and membership data.

SkyKick Cloud Backup is a premium data protection service for Office 365, giving partners a powerful tool to help small businesses quickly and accurately recover from productivity data loss. Its differentiating features as a Microsoft Teams backup solution are:

• Backup coverage of Microsoft Teams critical collaboration components, including standard and private channels, associated SharePoint online sites, document library to store team files, posts, versions, and membership data.

• Ability to offer unlimited backup storage and retention – including deleted users 

• Powerful search and restore capabilities to quickly recover from data loss 

• Industry-leading security and privacy policy support – HIPAA and GDPR compliance at no extra charge 

• Full cloud to cloud solution built exclusively on industry-leading public cloud provider Microsoft

Many small businesses may not be aware that the risk of data loss also extends to the cloud and includes services such as Microsoft Teams. As reported by Help Net Security, an information security news firm, 42% of companies experienced a data loss in 2020 while 41% reported lost productivity due to lack of timely restore. Data loss can occur from any number of causes – from accidental deletion to malicious attacks like viruses and ransomware – and the detrimental costs from these incidents can be severe; one hour of downtime can cost a small business approximately $8,000, with around 40-60% of small businesses never reopening after data loss (FEMA, 2021 study). For this reason, it is just as important to backup Microsoft Teams data as it was when these services were being managed on-premises.

The SkyKick Microsoft Teams Backup solution operates adjacently, but distinctly from an Office 365 subscription. It is developed by SkyKick but operated and brought to market by partner MSPs, who offer this as an additional service to their small business customers. As a fully managed cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS), it operates seamlessly in the background for Office 365 subscribers, without the need for any onsite hardware or software. All backup data is stored in a secure and encrypted state by SkyKick on Microsoft Azure, its exclusive public cloud infrastructure provider.

Partners can try SkyKick Cloud Backup for free on their own Office 365 tenant by registering on SkyKick.com and then requesting an Internal Use Rights (IUR) subscription. We highly encourage this as a first step for any MSP interested in learning more about SkyKick offerings.