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Small Business Summer Savings

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Small businesses and solopreneurs depend on their technology in ways that differ from larger organizations. Our laptops and desktops are critical to daily operations and access to cloud services, including Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, is our lifeline. Without IT staff and spare equipment, we rely on our own abilities and outside help to keep things running and to respond to problems. Too often, we face disruptions and unexpected costs. Our Small Business Summer Savings options give you protection and security without busting your budget.

The Need

To ensure the availability and reliability of our IT services, small businesses need to protect their systems and be able to quickly recover should something bad happen. Essential services should:

  • Prevent malware, phishing, ransomware, and other cyber attacks
  • Protect files and data on computers and in the cloud
  • Secure access to systems and services
  • Help you and your team with issues, problems, and questions

As important, when something does go wrong, we need to be able to return to work quickly and efficiently.  We cannot sit idle for the 3 to 7 days it can take to repair or replace and restore a laptop.

The Services

Cumulus Global’s Managed Cloud Services provide the security, protection, and support services you and your business need.  Our Essential and Basic packages tailor to the specific needs of small businesses.

Our PC Continuity solution goes beyond backup/recovery for laptops and PCs.  In addition to backing up your files, we capture images of your entire system. In an emergency, we can spin up the image of your computer in a cloud data center.  Within a few hours, you are up and running from any device with a browser and Internet access.  You business keeps running while your computer is fixed or replaced.

The Offer

Through August 31, 2023, bundle our Essential or Basic Managed Cloud Services with our PC Continuity solution and save:

  • No setup fees
  • Up to 30% on monthly recurring fees for the first year

The Action

To learn more and get a quote, click here to schedule a call with a Cloud Advisor or send us an email.

About the Author

Allen Falcon is the co-founder and CEO of Cumulus Global.  Allen co-founded Cumulus Global in 2006 to offer small businesses enterprise-grade email security and compliance using emerging cloud solutions. He has led the company’s growth into a managed cloud service provider with over 1,000 customers throughout North America. Starting his first business at age 12, Allen is a serial entrepreneur. He has launched strategic IT consulting, software, and service companies. An advocate for small and midsize businesses, Allen served on the board of the former Smaller Business Association of New England, local economic development committees, and industry advisory boards.

Backup Your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 Cloud: Use Cases Beyond Restore

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google workspace and office 365 backup

As we discussed in recent blog posts, Google and Microsoft clouds operate under a shared responsibility model for data protection. Google and Microsoft run internal backup systems to protect you should they have hardware or software issues. You, however, are responsible to backup your cloud, including Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. You need to protect your data from user deletions, user overwrites, malware, hackers, and other risks. This all starts with the proper backup solutions for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365.

A good backup solution for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 does more than restore.

Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace Backup Solutions

These four use cases provide added value when you backup your Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 cloud.

1 Preserve Data From Past Employees

If you want to preserve data from past employees you have a few options:

  • In both clouds, you can continue paying for licensing for past/suspended users
  • In Google Workspace, you can also pay for Archive User Licenses
  • Subscribe to a third party archiving solution
  • Preserve backups for past employees after you remove their Google or Microsoft accounts.

With the ability to restore data to other accounts, you can use the backup as a long-term archive.  Doing so is less costly than maintaining licenses or moving to archive user licensing, and is comparable in cost to third party account archive solutions.

2 Transfer Data to New Owners

Both Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace provide administrative tools to transfer data and ownership between users.  These transfers, however, lack granularity and are generally available at the service level.  For example, you can transfer all documents to one user and emails to another user.

With a good backup solution, you can selectively restore data to any users.  As such, you can transfer specific files, folders, sites data, emails, etc. to different people as needed. An added benefit, you can also transfer data between employees as they change positions and responsibilities.

3 Archive Documents (and other data)

A third party backup solution can preserve and archive documents, as well as email, calendars, contacts, and sites data in support of your document retention policies or regulations.  Granted, both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 offer several licensing options that include the compliant archive/e-discovery services for your data.

You may not need the rigor and cost of an upgrade or add-on service. With one or more backups per day, your preserve data as it exists at specific points int time.  Options for unlimited retention allow you to recover information, even after malicious deletions.

4 Escape Hatch

As a “best-practice”, backups should not be stored in immutable systems without altering the format.  Doing so protects your backups from cyber attacks by segregating your backup systems from your operating environment while preserving content.  With data preserved and the ability to export, the right backup solution provides an easier and efficient means of exporting data from Google Workspace and Microsoft Office.

Cumulus Global Can Help You With Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 Backup Services

We offer a range of backup/recovery, and business continuity services that we match to your needs and budget.

Schedule time with one of our Cloud Advisors or contact us to discuss which backup solutions for Google Workspace or Microsoft 365 backup solutions are right for you. The conversation is free, without obligation, and at your convenience.

About the Author

Bill Seybolt bio pictureBill is a Senior Cloud Advisor responsible for helping small and midsize organizations with cloud forward solutions that meet their business needs, priorities, and budgets. Bill works with executives, leaders, and team members to understand workflows, identify strategic goals and tactical requirements, and design solutions and implementation phases. Having helped over 200 organizations successfully adopt cloud solutions, his expertise and working style ensure a comfortable experience effective change management. 

 

The Cloud, Shared Responsibility, and You

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The vast majority of small and midsize businesses (SMBs) understand — or have learned the hard way — that the ability to recover lost or damaged data is critical to your IT services and business resiliency.  You need to be able to recover and restore files, databases, servers, and workstations from loss due to disasters, hardware failures, software errors, or human action. In the cloud, it is your shared responsibility to protect your data.

The Cloud

As we move data, services, and servers, we rely on infrastructure and security built into the services.  Google and Microsoft operate industry-leading, sophisticated services designed for security as well as performance, features, and functions.  The capabilities do three things:

  1. Continuity: Ensure the clouds run with little or no disruption
  2. Recovery: Enable the restoration of services without loss of failure do to hardware, network, or other issues
  3. Capability: Provide us with the ability to secure and protect our data based on our usage

Microsoft, Google, and other cloud services do not, however, protect us from how we use their services.

You

Microsoft and Google do not control how we use Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace services.  We, as subscribers, control how we manage and protect our data, including:

  • Who can access the services
  • Which applications can connect and integrate
  • Which other applications and services will share user identities
  • Which users can manage, edit, suggest, or view files and folders
  • Which users can access various services within each of the productivity suites

With these controls comes great responsibility.  You are responsible for how your data is stored and used.  You are responsible if that use causes data loss or damage.

Shared Responsibility

Microsoft and Google  both use a “Shared Responsibility” model for security and data protection. The model defines which aspects of the cloud service security and data protection are your responsibility and which are the responsibility of the service provider.

Microsoft

Microsoft Shared Responsibility ModelMicrosoft discusses Shared Responsibility as a component of its terms of service.  A recent Microsoft Learning article notes the following:

“In an on-premises datacenter, you own the whole stack. As you move to the cloud some responsibilities transfer to Microsoft. The following diagram illustrates the areas of responsibility between you and Microsoft, according to the type of deployment of your stack.”

For Microsoft 365, a “Software as a Service” (SaaS) offering, Microsoft expects you to take responsibility for protecting and recovery of your information and data; devices; accounts and identities; and portions of your identity and directory infrastructure. Microsoft has a detailed white paper covering shared responsibility for Azure services.

Google

Google Shared Responsibility ModelThe Google Workspace Data Protection Guide includes a section dedicated to the Shared Responsibility model. Google states:

“Data protection is not only the responsibility of the business using Google Workspace services; nor is it only that of Google in providing those services. Data protection on the cloud is instead a shared responsibility; a collaboration between the customer and the Cloud service provider (CSP).”

“As a Google Workspace customer, you are responsible for the security of components that you provide or control, such as the content you put in Google Workspace services, and establishing access control for your users.”

As a SaaS offering, Google warns that you are responsible for the access control, security, and protection of any and all content you place in the Google Workspace service. The Google Cloud Platform: Shared Responsibility Matrix provides a detailed overview of shared responsibility for Google Cloud Platform.

Back to You

Understanding your shared responsibility, you can meet your data security and protection obligations.

First and foremost, configure and use the security and data protection features included within your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace subscription. These services range from multi-factor authentication to secure user identities and access to advanced data loss prevention services in enterprise level subscriptions.

Your next step is to add additional services to cover aspects of data protection not provided with your Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace subscriptions.  These services may include:

  • Advanced threat protection for inbound email
  • Backup/recovery of all user content in Google Workspace (including shared drives) and Microsoft 365 (including Teams)
  • Archive/eDiscovery services to meet internal data policy, industry guidelines, or regulatory requirements
  • Backup/recovery for data located on end user devices and on-premise or hosted servers
  • Continuity services for mission-critical servers and end user device
  • Message-level and file-level encryption for compliance with industry or regulatory requirements

Your business may or may not need all of the services listed.  Which services you deploy should be part of a larger assessment of your cyber security and data protection needs.

Call To Action

Contact us or schedule time with one of our Cloud Advisors to discuss how you are meeting your shared responsibility and/or your broader security needs, priorities, and solutions.

For a broader look at your cyber security, complete our Rapid Security Assessment (free through June 2023) for a review of your basic security measures.

About the Author

Chris CaldwellChristopher Caldwell is the COO and a co-founder of Cumulus Global.  Chris is a successful Information Services executive with 40 years experience in information services operations, application development, management, and leadership. His expertise includes corporate information technology and service management; program and project management; strategic and project-specific business requirements analysis; system requirements analysis and specification; system, application, and database design; software engineering and development, data center management, network and systems administration, network and system security, and end-user technical support.

Webcasts

Cloud Cover: Strategies for Small Businesses

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(04/18/2023) – As small businesses, we can do more with the cloud then Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace. But if we want to take advantage of the benefits of managed cloud services, we need better cloud strategies.

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Cyber Security: 3 Questions and Shared Responsibility

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(03/21/2023) – The cloud’s Shared Responsibility Model places most of the security and data protection burden on you. Our webcast explores 3 key questions and the shared responsibility model to help you plan, deploy, and manage effective, and cost-effective, security..

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