In today’s data-driven world, businesses rely heavily on their OpenStack clouds to store and manage critical information. However, with the ever-increasing volume and complexity of data, protecting against data loss and ensuring rapid recovery in the event of a disaster is paramount. This is where Storware’s Instant Restore for OpenStack comes in as a revolutionary solution.

What is Instant Restore?

Instant Restore is a feature introduced in Storware Backup and Recovery version 6.1 that enables instant recovery of OpenStack instances directly from backup storage. This eliminates the need for lengthy restore processes, ensuring business continuity and minimizing downtime.

Key Benefits of Instant Restore

Instant Restore offers a multitude of benefits for OpenStack users, including:

• Rapid Recovery: Recover instances in seconds, not hours or days, significantly reducing downtime and ensuring business continuity.
• Reduced Complexity: Eliminate the need for complex restore procedures, simplifying data recovery operations.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Streamline data protection processes, reducing IT overhead and associated costs.
• Enhanced Disaster Recovery: Strengthen disaster recovery capabilities by enabling rapid restoration of critical workloads.

How Instant Restore Works

Instant restore for OpenStack requires a few configuration steps on the storage side.

• First, you need to expose your synthetic backup destination to your cinder. Every node requires a separate volume type that is defined in the cinder.conf file. This storage class is going to be used during instant restore for newly created volumes (to be replaced by the actual data from backup destination). Note, that your synthetic backup destination may be external to the node – i.e. external DataDomain or simple NFS 4.2 on the remote host, so the idea is just to have contents of the backup destination presented as the volume type in OpenStack and the node.
• Once this part is done and inventory synchronization detects new volume types, you need to map them to each of the nodes that you have. From this moment when you run instant restore the volumes that are created using the empty volumes created using these volume types, will be replaced by the ones kept in the backup destination. From the OpenStack perspective, nothing changes and the instance boots from them without the need to restore data back to the OpenStack environment – the I/O operations transparently are happening in the Storware Backup and Recovery.

• There is also an option to invoke automatic volume migration once this instance is created. This is useful if you want to immediately start using this instance, but you already know that this instance needs to run on your production storage.

Impact on OpenStack Data Protection and Disaster Recovery

Instant Restore is a game-changer for OpenStack data protection and disaster recovery. Its ability to restore instances in seconds significantly enhances business continuity and reduces the impact of data loss or system failures. Moreover, it simplifies disaster recovery procedures, making it easier for organizations to prepare for and respond to unforeseen events.

Conclusion

Instant Restore is a must-have feature for any organization running OpenStack. Its ability to provide rapid recovery, reduce complexity, and enhance disaster recovery capabilities makes it an essential tool for data protection and business continuity.

Big announcement! Storware Backup and Recovery 7.0 is launching soon, bringing a host of new features designed to enhance your data protection strategy.

Here’s a sneak peek of what you can expect:

📈 Broad Platform Compatibility: Support now extends to Debian, Ubuntu, and seamless integration with Canonical OpenStack and KVM.

🔒 Expanded Backup Sources: VergeIO and Proxmox environments with CEPH storage are now supported, ensuring robust and flexible data protection.

☁️ New Storage Options: Back up your data to Impossible Cloud Storage, adding more flexibility to your backup locations.

⚙️ Easy Deployment: Our new ISO-based installation process makes deploying backup and recovery solutions simpler than ever.

🧑‍💻 Enhanced User Experience: The redesigned configuration wizard streamlines the process, making setup quick and easy.

🔍 Advanced Features: Transition to Quarkus server framework for better performance and security, with automated network storage detection for added convenience.

Get ready to experience the future of backup and recovery with Storware 7.0!

Online work platforms, like Microsoft Teams, have helped organizations transition to hybrid and remote work models, ensuring the efficiency of online work processes. Microsoft Teams has made it easier to organize online meetings and ensures effective communication between team members, helping them stay connected anywhere and at any time.

However, like every other solution, it has its problems, and one of the most notable problems is data protection. Although Microsoft Office 365 offers a native backup tool it doesn’t offer 100% data security. Thus, adopting other backup solutions ensures a robust system that can effectively prevent permanent data loss in data disaster scenarios.

This article explores seven reasons to back up your Microsoft Teams data whether its the general chat or one-on-one chats, enabling you to take the proper steps toward preventing data loss.

7 Reasons to Backup Microsoft Teams

Below are seven reasons why Microsoft Teams backup is essential for any business:

1. Increased Recovery Time and Lower Risk of Data Loss 

In a data disaster event where your Microsoft Office 365 environment has either experienced data loss or is compromised, having a robust backup system dramatically reduces downtime and lowers the risk of data loss. With backups, disaster recovery is quicker, allowing your company to return to normal operation quickly. Since external backups perform regular backups, there will be little to no loss if data is corrupted or accidentally deleted.

Enhanced data retention policies offered by third-party backup services further reduce the risk of data loss. These solutions typically provide more flexible and comprehensive retention options than native Microsoft 365 tools. Organizations can customize these policies to meet their specific needs, ensuring that data is retained for the appropriate duration.

2. Accidental Deletion 

Errors are prone to occur in the workspace, and one such error is the accidental deletion of crucial messages, files, or even entire channels from Microsoft Teams. Fortunately, accidentally deleting data from Microsoft Office 365 doesn’t always mean total data loss. There are two deletion methods available: soft and hard. While soft-deleted data can be recovered, hard-deleted data can’t. In such situations, you may be unable to recover the data; hence, there is a need for other backup methods. Thus, employing external data backup methods mitigates against such data loss caused by human errors.

3. Corrupted Third-party Apps 

While Microsoft Teams offers beneficial third-party support, these apps could be corrupted, putting your data at risk. Corrupted third-party apps can cause data loss in Microsoft Teams by introducing vulnerabilities that expose data to unauthorized access, manipulation, or deletion. If third-party apps lead to data loss, recovering it could be impossible because Microsoft is not responsible for such problems. Thus, it’s crucial to create additional backups when utilizing third-party applications with Microsoft Teams.

4. Company Leavers 

When an employee leaves a company, data loss on Microsoft Teams can occur for several reasons. One primary problem is that deactivating or deleting the user account from the organization’s Microsoft 365 subscription could permanently lose the employee’s data if third-party backups are not in place.

Files and chats, especially one-on-one chats, are often tied to the individual user’s account. Thus, if the employee-owned or held specific permissions for certain Teams or files, removing their account can cut you off from these resources. Moreover, suppose an employee stored files in their personal OneDrive, which were not properly shared or transferred before they left. The files and the user account could be deleted.

5. Ease of Data Migration and Recovery 

As organizations grow and expand, the need for backup solutions becomes crucial. A robust backup solution makes migrating and recovering data in Microsoft Teams easy. During migration, external backups ensure a clear and organized archive of existing data to help streamline the transition to a new environment. This could be done with a different Microsoft Office 360 platform or by integrating other collaboration platforms. Hence, you can minimize the risk of data loss or migration errors.

6. Information Compliance  with Data Retention and Regulatory Rules 

Many industries have strict regulations regarding data retention and protection, and you must comply with these legal policies. For example, some industries require companies to store data for a specific time. Such requirements will require a third-party Microsoft Teams backup to offer extra security for your data during a disaster. Also, external backup solutions often include features like audit logs and encryption that help organizations meet these regulations. This capability not only simplifies compliance but also provides peace of mind that your critical data is safe and accessible when needed.

7. Internal security risks 

Another important aspect of Microsoft Teams backup is the internal security risk. In addition to other risk factors like accidental deletion and cyber attacks, internal risks could also threaten your Microsoft Teams data. One significant risk is malicious intent from resentful employees. If they have the right access, such employees could delete or compromise data. In such cases, it could take a while for the company to notice the breach, and Microsoft Office 365 only retains deleted data for 30 to 90 days. This gives you a short window; if not detected on time, you could lose the data. However, with backup solutions, you can roll back and retrieve data after a long time, preventing permanent data loss.

Backup for M365

Storware stands out as the most cost-effective enterprise solution for safeguarding your critical Microsoft 365 data, including OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and crucially, even private channels within Microsoft Teams. Unlike other backup solutions, Storware empowers you to protect these sensitive communications, providing an extra layer of security and peace of mind.

Our agentless, Linux-based architecture ensures a lightweight and secure deployment, while advanced security features like encryption keep your data safe from unauthorized access. With Storware, you can rest assured that your business information is always protected and readily recoverable in case of accidental deletion, ransomware attacks, or other unforeseen circumstances.

We are thrilled to unveil a significant update to our licensing model – a move driven by the dynamic needs of our esteemed Partners and Customers. Our commitment to delivering adaptable and efficient solutions has led us to introduce changes that will revolutionize the way you approach data management.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the key highlights of this announcement: 

Capacity-Based Licensing for NAS, Ceph and other remote storages

Addressing the demands of modern data management, we are introducing significantly cost-effective, additional licensing model tailored for remote storage, like NAS, Ceph, Ceph RBD and so on.

Extension of the Front-end Terabyte license to all supported sources

Updated frontend terabyte license brings unmatched versatility by allowing its usage across all supported backup sources. Whether you are dealing with Virtual Machines, Containers, Cloud Instances, Microsoft 365, or any other source, our licensing model provides a unified approach across different platforms, ensuring simplicity and efficiency in your operations.

Most Affordable Microsoft 365 Backup

As part of this exciting update, we are proud to offer the most cost-effective backup solution for Microsoft 365.

Extension of the OS Agent license

The scope of endpoint support falls under the OS Agent. This enhancement offers unparalleled flexibility, allowing customers to choose between desktop or server licenses based on their specific needs.

These updates represent a pivotal moment in our commitment to innovation and customer satisfaction. We believe that by introducing these enhancements to our licensing model, we are not just keeping pace with industry trends but setting new standards for flexibility, affordability, and efficiency. Thank you for your continued trust in our solutions.