White paper: Benefits of third-party email archiving for businesses using Microsoft 365

Despite the increasing use of novel communication solutions such as Microsoft Teams, the email remains the primary means of communication in many companies.

As these emails can contain business-critical information, protecting and preserving this data should form part of your email governance strategy. But many businesses are unaware that even Microsoft 365* customers are not automatically protected against data loss. Companies, therefore, need to take action by themselves if they want to preserve and protect emails in the long term. It is here where archiving plays an important role in helping to ensure that emails remain unchanged and retainable over time.

White paper of the Market Research Institute Osterman Research

A survey conducted by the market research institute Osterman Research provides insight into whether business-critical data in small and medium-sized companies are better protected by a third-party solution or by the archiving options integrated in Microsoft Office 365.

“It is essential for decision-makers that are considering or using Microsoft 365 to understand what the native archiving capabilities within the platform can do – and cannot do.” – this is one of the most important core messages of Osterman Research.

The white paper was sponsored by MailStore, specialists in the development of innovative email archiving solutions for small and medium-sized businesses.

Main points of discussion in the white paper

The following main points are discussed and explained in detail in the white paper. Together with a comparison of the various archiving options in Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online Archiving (EOA), In-Place Archiving, AutoArchive (also known as “archive to .PST”, and the “Archive” button in Microsoft Outlook), these points form the main focus of the white paper.

  1. Taking responsibility for your own data

Responsibility for protecting and preserving data lies with the customer, not Microsoft (“shared responsibility model”).

  1. Risk of data loss

Emails should be protected against accidental or malicious deletion; otherwise, fulfilling legal, regulatory, and best practice obligations could be a difficult task. Even if Microsoft Office 365 is fundamentally capable of restoring accidentally deleted data, situations can arise that impede or even seriously jeopardize daily business operations.

  1. Difference between backup and archiving solutions

Backup and archiving solutions pursue different goals: backups are a snapshot of a single moment in time; they are necessary for tactical reasons so that data can be recovered quickly in the case of system failure or malfunction. In contrast, archiving is used strategically so that data can be preserved over a long period of time in an unchanged format and searched through.

  1. Self-service for end-users

Many third-party email archiving solutions allow end-users to search through their own data quickly and efficiently and restore emails, thus taking the strain off IT staff.

  1. Independence from Microsoft

Without a third-party email archiving solution, users would be unable to access their own emails if the Microsoft 365 service were to fail. So, a third-party solution can help to avoid a vendor lock-in while in many cases preserving the portability of your archived emails.

  1. Total cost of ownership (TCO)

As Microsoft’s Exchange Online Archiving is available only in specific plans offered by Microsoft, a third-party solution can be a much more affordable proposition.

Are you interested in finding out more about the results and guidance contained in the white paper? This 12-page whitepaper is available as a PDF file to download for free from MailStore.

*Product name (Microsoft 365/Microsoft Office 365) can vary depending on the purchased plan.

Sponsored by MailStore Software

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