Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Model is clear: Microsoft keeps its cloud infrastructure available and secure, but customers are always responsible for their own data. This is especially true for Microsoft 365, which uses a SaaS model.
Microsoft offers built-in replication and high availability, but these replicas are managed by Microsoft and are not true backups. Customers remain responsible for data protection, retention, recovery from accidental deletion, cyberattacks, outages, and compliance. Microsoft also recommends making regular backups with third-party solutions.
Compliance adds complexity. Regulations like GDPR and HIPAA hold data owners, not cloud providers, accountable. Even with Microsoft 365’s built-in compliance tools, you do not have full control over data retention, sovereignty, or recovery, since all copies stay within Microsoft’s cloud.
In short, Microsoft secures the platform, but you are responsible for your data and how it is backed up, kept, and recovered. Knowing this split in responsibility is key to creating a strong Microsoft 365 data protection plan.
Read the full article to find out why having your own Microsoft 365 backups is important and how you can keep control of your data.
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