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OneDrive Online Backup Video

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Introducing Our OneDrive Backup Video 

Microsoft OneDrive is a cloud storage solution that allows you to get access to your files anywhere, on any device. It’s an incredible tool that enables you to share your content and work together with anyone in your work and life. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, OneDrive makes it easy to access and share your files and photos for seamless communication and collaboration in your personal life and business.

There’s just one problem, with endless collaboration opportunities, you open yourself up to potentially sticky situations. For example, what if one of you delete a document and empty the recycle bin, by mistake? That’s where a cloud backup and restore solution is key to your business’ success.  OneDrive data can be accidentally or maliciously deleted or corrupted, and is vulnerable to ransom-ware attacks.

You can’t afford to lose file and documents that are vital to your entire organization without a way to recover it. The good news is that, in just a few minutes, you can set up CloudAlly to protect your OneDrive data with automated daily backups.

CloudAlly’s backup solution is compatible with all business plans. No matter how many employees are in your organization or how much data you create and modify on a daily basis, CloudAlly can protect your company data with a backup solution hosted in secure Amazon S3 storage. And as an added benefit, CloudAlly gives you the ability to keep track of all your OneDrive backup activity. So, you can see exactly what’s going on.

About Our OneDrive Backup Video Demo Video

In our newest demo video, we show you how easy it is to start protecting Microsoft OneDrive for your company. Activating your CloudAlly backup is simple, safe, and can be completed in just a few easy-to-follow steps. You’ll notice how user-friendly our software is as well as how many options you have for customizing your backup solution.

Let our two-minute activation video take you through the step-by-step process of backing up your OneDrive cloud storage solution, so you can sit back and relax knowing that your data is safe and that you can restore like an expert. We cover everything from:

  • Correctly setting up your OneDrive backup using a user name and password that has global admin rights.
  • Gathering your OneDrive URL, which will be https://tenantname-my.onedrive.com
  • Choosing which sites you’d like to backup, you can activate backups for all sites with a single click, or selectively activate backups as needed.
  • Checking the appropriate backup preferences including “automatically detect and activate new accounts,” scheduling, etc.
  • Picking a friendly name for each backup
  • And, indexing your archived data.

And if you’re still concerned about using CloudAlly’s OneDrive backup solution, don’t forget, we have a risk free 15-day trial available! We want to show you how easy it is to protect your data from all threats no matter the problem.

Don’t choose software to protect your data that you haven’t seen in action. Choose CloudAlly as your OneDrive backup and restore solution, and rest easy knowing that you’ve already seen how it works and don’t have to worry about hidden processes or errors.

When you’re ready to know more, contact CloudAlly by calling +1.917.338.0385 or filling out our Contact Form. We can’t wait to work with you to keep your OneDrive data safe and sound.

View the MS OneDrive video demo to see how easy to use, secure and reliable CloudAlly’s MS OneDrive

MS Office 365 Backup Video

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Introducing Our Office 365 Exchange Backup Demo Video

Take control of your Office 365 Exchange data with CloudAlly. Our automated daily backup services ensure that you always have access to your data and that you can restore and recover your data at any point and from any point in time.

Our backup services are compatible with all Office 365 plans and features including Mail, Calendar, Contacts, and Tasks. It’s simple and easy to backup your Office 365 data with CloudAlly, and our newest demo video we’ll show you exactly how uncomplicated the process is.

About Our Office 365 Backup Video Demo Video

Everyone always claims that their software is “easy” and “simple” and “requires little to now time to set up.” The problem is that many of these claims are false, but you don’t realize you’ve been duped until you’ve made the commitment.

That’s why we’ve decided to prove how convenient it is to use CloudAlly as your Office 365 backup and restore solution. We’re removing the guesswork and offering complete transparency with our latest demo video.

Not only will we walk you through the easy steps to activate your backup, but we’ll show you how it works in real-time, on a real account. This isn’t a demo with a “sample” system. This is CloudAlly at work, in real life.

Activating your Office 365 Exchange backup on your CloudAlly account can be completed in just a few steps. All you need is access to a computer and your CloudAlly login information. From there, you just follow the step-by-step activation process that we’ve laid out for you.

In this two-and-a-half-minute video, you’ll learn how to set up our Office 365 Exchange backup and restore solution like an expert. We cover everything from:

  • Correctly setting up your application impersonation using OAuth or Global Admin.
  • Choosing which accounts you’d like to backup (you can choose to backup each account and/or user individually or select all for a quick backup of every Office 365 user including all shared and public folders).
  • Checking the appropriate backup preferences including “automatically detect and activate new accounts,” scheduling, etc.
  • Picking a friendly name for each backup
  • And indexing your archived data.

And if you’re still concerned about using CloudAlly’s Office 365 Exchange backup solution, don’t forget, we have a risk free 15-day trial available! We want to show you how easy it is to protect your data from all threats.

Don’t choose software to protect your data that you haven’t seen in action. Choose CloudAlly as your Office 365 backup and restore solution, and rest easy knowing that you’ve already seen how it works and don’t have to worry about hidden processes or errors.

When you’re ready to know more, contact CloudAlly by calling +1.917.338.0385 or filling out our Contact Form. We can’t wait to work with you to keep your Office 365 Exchange data safe and sound.

Office 365 backup is bare without essentials – Part II

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How does Cloudally completes the needed slack?

In our previous post; Part I – deficiencies with existing default solutions, we explained how Microsoft’s current default services lack in protecting what really matters, when it comes to Office 365 file backup. The recycle bin and Exchange Online Archive do offer limited protection against data loss. However, CloudAlly is designed to make data loss a thing of the past.

While the recycle bin and in-place holds can help to keep files from being lost, they are not sufficient for disaster recovery in the event of data loss or corruption. CloudAlly provides that much-needed protection for all business users, including Office 365 SharePoint backup.

Unlike Office 365 Exchange Online Archiving or the recycle bin, CloudAlly performs a routine backup procedure of files and emails daily. This automated service allows users to keep working without having to remember to move files and emails into a special area. CloudAlly offers and added layer of protection by utilizing independent Amazon S3 storage in addition to Microsoft’s servers. There is no limitation to the amount of data backed up in this service, unlike with the recycle bin and EOA.

Due to CloudAlly’s nature of regular backups and saving all files deleted or modified, this service acts as a disaster recovery service. Users can recover lost or corrupted data due to accident or malicious attack from any point and time. Their backup services also allow users to restore data corrupted due to external systems or 3rd party application synchronization issues or automated tasks.

CloudAlly’s backup services protect users against ransomware attacks. This service allows you to regain data blocked off by ransomware viruses, such as CryptoLocker, without having to pay a fee to hackers.  When comparing CloudAlly’s services to Microsoft Exchange Online Archive, you can see there is a substantial difference between the services.

Office 365 file backup

With CloudAlly you get the complete backup solution:

  • Disaster Recovery/ Point-in-Time Recovery of lost or corrupted files
  • Includes all items deleted or modified
  • No limit to retention period
  • Unlimited storage
  • Simply select and restore restoration process
  • Item level restore available via granular search or date snapshot
  • Folder level restoration available via date snapshot
  • Mailbox level restoration available via date snapshot
  • Export available in .eml, .vcf, .etc or Outlook .pst format
  • Restore mailbox data to any specified destination
  • Pause backups to archive mailbox indefinitely
  • Auto-detect feature automatically activates backup for new mailboxes
  • ISO 27001 and HIPAA certified
  • Stored on secure AWS S3 storage with choice of datacenter location either US, Europe, Australia
  • Daily summary email with backup activity overview
  • Administrative audit capability

Office 365 users may think their data is already backed up on Microsoft Azure servers. While Microsoft does backup all data internally, it is only available to clients for 14 days. Microsoft’s Exchange Online Archiving is a viable, albeit limited, solution for archiving data for litigation. It is not, however, a suitable substitute for disaster recovery due to the lack of restoration capability.

Companies interested in keeping costs low may be surprised at the affordability of CloudAlly’s backup services. Instead of charging per license, CloudAlly’s flat rate of $3 per month or $30 per year can help keep overhead down. Larger companies, academics, and non-profit organizations may be eligible for a discount.

Coming up in our next blog post: A quick guide to backup & restore – Part III, we’ll show you how easy it is to back-up your Office 365 backup for files using CloudAlly’s automated Office 365 file backup solution.

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8 Disaster Recovery Best Practices for Office 365 Online Backup & Restore

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Office 365 Online Backup and Restore

Disaster can strike at any moment, and it’s impossible to plan for every eventuality. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, no one was prepared for the devastation. Flooding destroyed countless businesses while others went weeks without power and still others were reduced to rubble. In fact, many companies were down for weeks or, even, months. And downtime is devastating.

But it’s not just natural disasters that you have to be worried about. Accidental and malicious data loss happens regularly. In fact, according to Richmond House Group, 20% of small to medium businesses will suffer a major disaster causing loss of critical data every five years. Whether natural or otherwise, data loss hurts your bottom line and can, potentially, cause a catastrophic end of all business events.

For example, in July of 2016, Southwest Airlines experienced a system outage that lasted for more than 12 hours and resulted in canceling more than 1,850 flights, delaying hundreds more, and worse. Southwest had no warning before their network router shorted and that’s why it’s vital to have a plan of action in place far in advance.

Your company needs to be ready to not only deal with the after-effects of any disaster-level event but to make it through successfully. And that’s where a cloud-to-cloud backup plan comes into play.

Don’t be like 32% of companies that lost data from the cloud (Aberdeen Group). Instead, follow our top eight disaster recovery and data backup best practices that we recommend for every organization that believes business continuity is a high priority.

1. Understand the Total Risk and Opportunity

You can’t protect your company from disaster if you don’t first understand the total risk and total opportunity presented by the disaster. The risk and opportunity might be slightly different for every situation but, in general, you can prepare by looking at all sides of the equation.

To understand total risk, each department within your organization from IT to operations, sales, marketing, and finance should ask themselves a few simple questions. “What disasters could strike (natural or otherwise)? What operations are most critical for us and where are they located (on the cloud or on hardware)? How would a disaster effect us?” For example, if you were a shipping company, do you have Office 365 Online Backup and Restore, so even if the unexpected happens, you’re able to access your data from anywhere in the world and you know that it’s been automatically archived daily (even the recycle bin)?

The opposite side of risk is opportunity. Disasters don’t just affect your company but also your competitors. You should be prepared to take advantage of various situations in any way you can. For example, you should consider how your business can help from a monetary, humanitarian, or social good standpoint when a natural disaster strikes. You should also be prepared to demonstrate to your clients how you have Salesforce Backup in place, unlike your competitors, so your critical data is never at risk.

2. A Well-Trained Leadership Team

Your company is only as successful as its leadership. An empowered and dedicated staff can turn any disaster into a success story. This is especially true for small- to mid-sized businesses that aren’t required by industry regulations to have a specific disaster recovery or backup plan in place. A well-trained leadership team should ensure that data loss is never a point of no return.

The first key is to empower your leadership team to take control of the data and operations in their department with an all-in-one-tool. For example, when you sign up for CloudAlly, all of your data from Salesforce to Office 365 and Google Apps is stored in one location. From there, all you need to do is to train your leadership team to manage the daily backups through reports, to control user access for security, and to recover lost or corrupted data when the worst happens. Without CloudAlly, the training required for your leadership team is much more complicated. With CloudAlly, all you have to do is trust your leadership team to support your efforts and to manage business continuity within their realm.

3. Use the Right Tools

In today’s highly digital and complex business world, old-school backup systems and disaster recovery plans developed in Excel and Word won’t suffice. Your data is a living system that constantly changes during day-to-day operations. That’s why daily, automated backups for all of your software platforms from Google Drive to Salesforce and Box are necessary. A backup tool that requires manual saving or only covers certain operational functions can leave you wanting.That’s why CloudAlly offers a simple three-step process for managing your data.

  1. Set It: CloudAlly allows you to select your archive location, backup time, and frequency for every platform and user.
  2. Manage It: With CloudAlly, you receive daily backup reports containing all your activity, so you can double check it’s accuracy. You can also manage your users and export backups and archives.
  3. Access It: Finally, CloudAlly makes it quick and easy to search for and locate data in your archives. From there you can also perform non-destructive restores.

Before you choose your DR and backup tool, make sure it does what you want and need.

4. Maintain a Full Copy of Critical Data Outside of Your Business Location

This is vital particularly in cases of natural disasters or malicious data deletion. If your only backup data center is on site or just a few miles away from your current location, a single event could easily disable both your headquarters and your backup. In general, it’s best if you keep a full copy of your critical data at least 150+ miles away from your business or completely online. That distance is typically sufficient to ensure that both backup centers are not affected by a single disaster.

Ideally, your data backup should be stored safely in the cloud. Unfortunately, the cloud isn’t always safe. In fact, 47% of enterprises have lost data in the cloud according to Symantec. That’s why at CloudAlly our solution is ISO 27001 and HIPPA certified and uses advanced AES-256 bit encryption. This level of security ensure that your data remains private and is retained online as long as you need it.

Focus on Consistency

Nowadays, rarely does a business use a single software, application, or piece of technology to handle all operations. That’s why the biggest challenge of any backup and DR plan is to ensure consistency across all applications. CloudAlly offers data backup for multiple applications and software all within one interface because if you’re replicating a complex business ecosystem, it’s critical that all backups are in sync.

6. Test Your Plan Regularly and Realistically

There’s nothing worse than trusting in your backup and disaster recovery plan only to discover that it wasn’t up to the task when it was needed most. The truth is that untested plans are failed plans. If you’ve never tested your BC/DR plan realistically, your company won’t be ready to handle the situation when disaster strikes.

When it comes to testing, there are many kinds of tests and you should use them all. We recommend testing one particular process at a time before implementing a test that assumes your business has become nothing but a smoking ruin. The reason why testing is so important is that it helps to verify that your recovery procedures are correct while also helping your employees become familiar with crisis procedures. The most well-prepared companies implement testing at least twice a year.

With CloudAlly, testing is easy. All you need to do is login and look at your daily report containing all the details of your backup activity. You can even export data for local use or search and locate within your archives to ensure everything has been saved appropriately.

7. Update Your Disaster Recovery and Backup Plan Regularly

No company remains stagnant. Business practices constantly evolve and update based on new information, updated applications, and new infrastructure. Now, imagine you spent six months designing the perfect BC/DR plan but since then you’ve implemented new software that works off a physical server and not the cloud. Suddenly, your plan and tests are outdated and don’t protect you fully. In that situation, a disaster would make all your hard work for naught unless you consistently update your plan.

To stay protected, your company should practice rigorous change management that keeps your backup and disaster recovery plan in line with your current business practices. And when you use CloudAlly, changes in your business don’t have to mean a major change in your backup. CloudAlly works with all of your software, even Amazon Cloud, and it can even detect new users automatically. So, not matter how much your business advances, you don’t have to purchase a new backup solution, you just have to update CloudAlly.

8. Make Communication a Priority

Too often, a DR/BC plan is the work of a single IT person or small department. Unfortunately, this means that if a critical individual becomes sick, leaves the company, or is unavailable during an emergency, the entire plan falls apart. That’s why communication before, during, and after a disaster or incident is vital.

The disaster recovery planning process should involve several people and departments, and the plan should be well-written enough that it can stand on its own. That way, if a widespread problem or incident renders several people unavailable, the recovery program can still take place. The key is to outline work expectations, application procedures, and information dissemination for every department and individual.
Unfortunately, no matter how carefully and diligently you plan for every eventuality, you can’t prepare for everything. Anything and everything can and potentially will go wrong.

Office 365 Online Backup and Restore is crucial for professional business continuity, that’s why having a data recovery and business continuity expert is key to your success. Contact CloudAlly today to discover how we can help.