02-16-21 | Blog Post
While the IDC forecast goes on to predict a “post vaccine” 50% decrease in WFH; reducing the total to 22% of the global workforce, clearly the significant and durable increase in the percentage of WFH employees requires some additional policy and security considerations. It’s also time to address some policy gray areas that naturally occur any time organizations experience change. Especially change like that experienced in 2020, with policies typically focused on centralized business locations being adapted to the emergency distribution of millions of employees.
Rapid Growth of Apps That Support WFH
Growing to over 250 million users by mid 2020, Microsoft 365 is an example of a suite of applications capable of meeting the needs of companies redeploying vast numbers of employees to WFH locations. It is interesting that, in alignment with Microsoft 365’s accelerated 2020 growth, Veeam Software, a partner with Otava for Cloud Backup solutions, experienced 73% Year over Year growth with their Backup for Microsoft 365 product. A primary driver for growth of Microsoft 365 backup services is 365’s inherent backup and disaster recovery limitations: “While Microsoft provides protection against infrastructure interruptions, it’s the clients responsibility for all other potential issues” which leaves a significant portion of data backup and disaster recovery as the client’s responsibility. According to Veeam- “Of over 1,000 IT Pros surveyed, 81% experienced data loss in Office 365 – from simple user error to major data security threats.” This issue becomes even more critical if your data backup is governed by compliance regulations. You can read more information here about the fully compliant Otava Backup for Microsoft 365 and get complete protection against accidental deletions, malware, insider threats and more.
Backing Up Data from WFH Employees
Remote workers using local storage for backup can potentially create a huge problem. Does the business know what documents or information they are storing locally and the accessibility and security of that storage? Add in potential concerns for data protection and compliance in a regulated environment, and WFH can significantly increase the risk associated with your business’s records, data, and intellectual property. Two of the most important measures a business can take to protect themselves from increased risk due to WFH employees are, first, to assure every employee receives a fully updated, written WFH security policy and all employees (and anyone that has network access) are frequently trained on the updated WFH security policies. Second, take the complexity and risk out of backing up employee devices by considering a fully managed backup service. By automating the process of backing up any WFH devices that touch business data, records, or intellectual property, you protect your business against the employee not performing their own regular backups to a secure location. The business also off-loads the IT department’s responsibility for management of potentially hundreds of backup sites. Fully managed and automated cloud backup is also a vital component of Disaster Recovery for any organization that has experienced growth in their WFH staff.
If you’re looking for the expertise and services to automate and enhance your Data Backup and Disaster Recovery capabilities, or desire a comprehensive backup and recovery solution for Microsoft 365 in a simple “as a Service” package, Otava can help. Consider our secure, compliant cloud solutions managed by a team of experts trained in the latest security best practices. Call 877-740-5028 or contact us to learn more.
Additional Blogs:
Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365
According to Veeam research, a staggering 74 percent of Microsoft 365 users have no protection strategy – despite the fact that Microsoft 365 does not come with comprehensive or long-term backup.
Do You Have the Right Levels of DR and Backup for each Workload?
An analysis of the value of each workload and its overall impact on the business, in the event of disruption or loss, is a critical precursor to determining the level of disaster recovery required
Disaster Recovery Lessons We All Can Learn
Thanks to the cloud, disaster recovery has evolved from a complex beast that was difficult and expensive to manage into something a little simpler and tamer to handle. Does that mean DR is something where we “set it and forget it”?
