Many organizations make extensive use of software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions to run or support business-critical functions. Companies regularly deploy SaaS platforms such as Salesforce, Google Workspace, and Microsoft 365 to process valuable and potentially sensitive data. These cloud-based solutions foster productivity and collaboration in today’s diverse work environments.
SaaS platforms may present customers with the appearance of a complete business solution that does not require additional measures to protect their data. Some companies may feel they are fully protected by the native functionality of their SaaS applications. This assumption can be a dangerous and potentially very costly mistake.
Let’s look at why your company needs to adopt a supplemental backup solution to protect your SaaS data and support effective business continuity.
Understanding Cloud Computing’s Shared Responsibility Model
Organizations leveraging cloud resources must fully understand the cloud’s shared responsibility model. Most cloud providers implement a version of this model, which defines the extent to which they are responsible for supporting and protecting an SaaS application. Companies that fail to understand their role in protecting the SaaS environment expose themselves to business-impacting data loss that could have easily been avoided.
Cloud providers are responsible for maintaining the SaaS application, including the infrastructure components that support it. They are also tasked with ensuring the platform’s availability, enabling organizations to focus on using the application to meet business requirements. The backup and recovery capabilities they implement are designed to support the platform’s operation rather than the customer’s business requirements.
The provider is not responsible for protecting data residing in the SaaS application. Customers, whether they realize it or not, are responsible for protecting their data, including user accounts and configurations. They must also take necessary actions to address any compliance requirements when processing or storing regulated data in the SaaS application. Teams typically must adopt a third-party solution to protect this data effectively.
Why do Default SaaS Data Backups Offer Insufficient Protection?
The native data protection measures provided by default by SaaS providers are insufficient for companies using these applications for critical business data for multiple reasons. The following aspects of SaaS data protection make it essential for companies to adopt an additional backup and recovery solution.
Limited data retention periods
The SaaS platform may permanently delete data after it exceeds a limited, default retention period. Teams may not be able to modify these retention settings to address their business requirements. After the provider has deleted this data, it can only be recovered if the customer was protecting it with a supplemental backup solution.
Companies should verify the vendor’s SaaS data retention periods and determine whether the provider offers the necessary data protection. In many cases, these limits make it crucial to implement third-party backup and recovery protection.
Ransomware and account compromise
Threat actors that gain access to an SaaS environment can cause substantial damage by encrypting, deleting, or corrupting data assets. Ransomware is a major problem that can force a business to close if it cannot recover its affected systems. Simply paying the ransom may not resolve the issue, since the attackers are criminals and can just take the money and run.
Many providers host their SaaS recovery solutions in the same environment as production data. This architecture allows attackers to compromise backups, making it impossible to recover without paying the ransom. Modern ransomware attacks typically target backup media to limit the victim’s recovery options.
Organizations can obtain additional protection by creating immutable backups that cannot be modified and storing them separately from the production environment. This strategy of independent backups provides a level of protection required for critical data stored and used by SaaS applications.
Insufficient recovery options
User error is one of the most common causes of data loss. Companies must be able to effectively address data loss resulting from deliberate or accidental employee actions, such as rapidly recovering deleted files, folders, database records, and emails. Businesses must be able to recover user accounts and system configurations to address extensive data losses.
SaaS recovery may be hampered by the lack of granular options that enable teams to restore a single document or email. Native recovery capabilities may require teams to restore larger datasets than necessary. The provider’s default data protection solution may retain only a limited number of file versions, making it impossible to restore and review the original documents.
Lack of compliance support
Organizations that process regulated data must have backup solutions that meet compliance standards. Regulatory frameworks such as HIPAA, GDPR, and PCI DSS require long-term data retention and immutable, tamper-proof storage. They may also require teams to provide audit trails and place legal holds on specific data elements, which may be beyond the capabilities of native SaaS backup and recovery.
Companies may need to demonstrate an effective plan that makes sensitive data available as soon as possible. Once again, this may be impossible with the limited recovery capabilities of the SaaS platform. Businesses must use additional data protection solutions to ensure regulatory compliance.
VAST’s Comprehensive SaaS Data Protection Solutions
VAST offers its customers data protection solutions that fill the gaps left by basic SaaS capabilities. Our backup and recovery offerings provide the functionality you need to safeguard your business and meet compliance obligations. We offer companies both an efficient backup and recovery platform and a streamlined approach to disaster recovery and business continuity.
VAST’s Cloud Backup-as-a-Service (CBaaS) is a fully managed, cloud-based backup and recovery solution tailored to your unique business requirements. We utilize Druva’s cutting-edge data protection technology, which creates immutable backups to protect sensitive data, meet compliance regulations, and deliver fast, efficient recovery in the event of ransomware attacks.
Our CBaaS solution eliminates the need to build and maintain an on-premises backup environment. We offer fixed pricing for predictable budgeting and can scale with your company’s evolving requirements. The solution addresses the gaps in M365 and other SaaS native backup tools.
We offer customers Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS) that protects businesses from large-scale outages and disasters. Our team uses AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery to provide your company with flexible, resilient data protection. The platform provides your company with a unified environment to test recovery and failback strategies and enhance resilience.
Get in touch with our data protection experts today to learn more about how to protect your SaaS data.
