Analysing SkyKick’s Data Protection For Collaboration Scenarios

Founded in 2011, SkyKick makes it easier to migrate, backup, and manage users in the cloud. With a commitment to delivering the most comprehensive data protection across the Office 365 tenant. In an ever-evolving space like productivity, this means staying ahead of the puck on innovative collaboration apps and services as they merge which is massive for businesses. Through this article, we will look to analyse SkyKicks offerings to give a more in-depth understanding of their offering. 

It’s no secret that valuable data once created through legacy applications like email and SharePoint Classic Team Sites, is now increasingly being created and shared through new Microsoft apps and services like Office 365 Groups, Microsoft Teams, and SharePoint Modern Team Sites.

These are not just new applications. These scenarios shift the very foundation of collaboration, including how applications are combined, delivered, deployed, and managed to ensure the greatest productivity.

These trends have been a perfect tailwind behind the rapid market adoption of forward-looking collaboration scenarios like Office 365 Groups and Modern Team Sites.

SkyKick’s commitment to protecting Office 365 data wherever it resides

A little history; SkyKick was one of the first Office 365 cloud backup solutions to protect SharePoint and OneDrive for business and is now one of the first to backup across multiple apps and services with Groups, Teams, and Modern Team Sites.

The challenge of backing up groups, teams, and modern team sites

Currently, few Office 365 backup solutions cover multiple collaboration apps and services in GRoups, TEams, and modern Team Sites. This is because GRoups and TEams are not products, but a combination of apps and services built across multiple products. For example, the conversations and calendar in an Office 365 Group takes life within Outlook & Exchange whereas the files and notebook come to life in SharePoint. Thus, a backup solution must not only back up data from both Exchange and SharePoint, but it must also package and store the data from each into the GRoup entity for it to be found and restored within the Group.

Choosing a backup solution for Groups, Teams, and Modern Team Sites

When selecting an Office 365 backup solution, it starts with understanding the comprehensiveness of the coverage across the Office 365 tenant. This must be assessed both in the breadth of products covered and depth of coverage within each product. For example, and Office 365 backup solution may claim to cover SharePoint, but only cover files, not full sites or lists.

Coverage of Groups and Teams requires a similar assessment. Due to the complexities of GRoups and TEams, simply asking, “Does this solution backup Groups, Teams, and Modern Team Sites?” will not provide the required clarity. Instead, a more granular approach is needed to understand the true extent and depth of the coverage. Therefore, the better question to ask is “What collaboration scenarios within Groups, Team Sites does the backup solution explicitly backup?”

SkyKick Cloud Backup coverage for Groups, Teams, and Modern Team Sites

As the leading Office 365 migration platform¹ and one of the first Office 365 backup solutions to support both Exchange and SharePoint, SkyKick has the Office 365 expertise that was required to become one of the first to backup multiple apps and services across Groups, Teams, and Modern Team Sites. And this expertise will continue to drive further expansion across more Office 365 apps and services, both present and future.

This year, Cloud Backup announced and specified its coverage of the four most commonly used apps and service in Groups and Teams (conversations, calendar, files, and notebook) as well as Modern Team Sites, which are SharePoint Team Sites that include an Office 365 Group.

Knowing at a more granular level what is backed up empowers partners to make more informed decisions and ensures that there is no misunderstanding that could lead to customer dissatisfaction. E.g. if a customer assumes that conversations are covered, but the solution only backs up Exchange and Group files, they may permanently lose valuable business data they assumed was backed up.

Assumption of protection

Usually, end users may assume that Microsoft backs up the data in Groups and Teams, when in fact, if data in a Group is deleted, it is only retained by Microsoft for 30 days. Others may wrongly assume that Group data is covered in their current Exchange Online backup solution. This is because conversations, calendar, files, notebook appear in the Outlook ribbon, and conversations appear in Outlook folders.

Once you understand the extent and/or potential growth of the valuable business data that is moving from traditional applications into modern scenarios like Groups and Teams, you can demonstrate how SkyKick Cloud Backup Suite for Office 365 can protect that data.

Our Conclusion

SkyKick Cloud Backup was one of the first Office 365 backup solutions to offer backup of SharePoint and OneDrive for Business and is now one of the first to offer backup of the four most common collaboration scenarios in Groups and Teams. This is consistent with our focus on delivering comprehensive protection across the entire Office 365 tenant.

We will continue to innovate our offerings on behalf of our clients and focus on bringing you the most comprehensive and Cloud Backup solution across the Office 365 Tenant. To learn more about leveraging SkyKick Cloud Backup in your practice, please reach out or contact our team.

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