What's the advantage of an on-premises Microsoft 365 backup solution compared to a cloud backup solution?
Many popular Microsoft 365 backup solutions only offer cloud backup services. This may allow easier deployment and does not require a local server or storage, but it comes with inherent limitations as well. As an on-premises Microsoft 365 backup solution, CubeBackup has many advantages over cloud-only competitors:
Maintain control over your own data
While cloud-based backup solutions may look promising, they place your data into someone else's hands, creating additional privacy and security concerns. With CubeBackup, all your backup data is stored locally inside your company, protected by your firewall (or in your private cloud storage) and encrypted by default. As an administrator, you can breathe easy, knowing that your backups are protected by both your company's security policies and CubeBackup's authorization and encryption methods.
More cost-effective
Cloud-to-cloud Microsoft 365 backup solutions typically cost about $50 USD/user/year. CubeBackup, on the other hand, is only $5/user/year - 1/10th of the price! Furthermore, Microsoft 365 Education/Nonprofit organizations only need to pay $2/user/year.
Even though on-premises backup tools, such as CubeBackup, require a server and local storage (or an additional fee for cloud storage, if you choose to store backups on cloud storage), the total cost is still much lower than cloud-to-cloud backup solutions.
Pricing comparison
between CubeBackup and other Microsoft 365 cloud backup solutions
| CubeBackup on premises backup | CubeBackup on cloud storage | Other cloud backup solutions | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 for Business and Enterprise | $5/user/year | $5 + $5(estimated) = $10/user/year | $40-50/user/year |
| Microsoft 365 for Education and Nonprofits | $2/user/year | $2+ $5(estimated) = $7/user/year | $40-50/user/year |
Note: The cost of cloud storage may vary depending on the cloud service provider and how much data each user has on Microsoft 365. These estimated prices assume that each user has 30GB on average and backup to AWS S3. Detailed pricing links can be found here: Amazon S3, Google Cloud and Azure Blob Storage. To generate a cost estimate for your backup plan, try CubeBackup pricing calculator.
Less hassle when new users arrive and old employees leave
Most other backup solutions require you to adjust your subscription each time a new user is added to your Microsoft 365 organization, or when an old user leaves. For large organizations, this can be quite a burden on Microsoft 365 administrators. CubeBackup subscription pricing is much more flexible.
CubeBackup will automatically recognize when new users are added to your Microsoft 365 organization and when old users are suspended or deleted and adjust the backups accordingly. There is no need for tedious manual modifications of the user list.
There is also no need to constantly change your subscription every time a user is added or removed. Subscriptions only need to be updated once a year when they are due for renewal.
Backup data can be always restored
When using a cloud backup solution, you will lose the access to your backup data if you stop renewing your subscription. However, with CubeBackup, you can have confidence that your backups can always be restored because:
- Your backup data is controlled in your hand.
- CubeBackup's restore feature will be available forever even after your subscription expires, or even if, one day in the far future, CubeBackup Inc. no longer exists or shuts down all services.
Flexibility in data migration and management
Cloud backup solutions keep all your Microsoft 365 backups inside the vendor's cloud. With this kind of black-box model, there is no way to access or control your data, except through their services. CubeBackup gives you full control over your data:
- You can migrate your backups to whichever storage solution you prefer. For example, you can move from a local hard disk to a NAS, or a data center, or even to your own private Amazon S3 storage.
- Since you control the data, you can apply your own security policies to the backup storage, for instance, only allowing CubeBackup and the administrator access to the storage.
Make full use of your data storage
Many organizations already have available servers or even large data centers, so using a Microsoft 365 on-premises backup solution can take advantage of equipment and storage that is already available. This can save your company money compared to cloud-to-cloud backup solutions.
GDPR compliance
The General Data Protection Regulation ("GDPR") is a regulation in EU law about data protection and privacy for all individuals within the European Union and the European Economic Area. The GDPR became enforceable on 25 May 2018. Since CubeBackup is an on-premises Microsoft 365 backup tool, it doesn't directly manage backup data for any Microsoft 365 users, and therefore already aligns with the GDPR. CubeBackup is firmly committed to GDPR compliance. More information can be found at CubeBackup and GDPR
Satisfy national, state or company security policies
Some countries, states, and companies have strict requirements that organizations must have at least one local copy of their business data. In this situation, an on-premises Microsoft 365 backup solution is the only choice for compliance reasons.
Never lose any changes
CubeBackup not only secures your data and files from intentional or unintentional deletion, it also keeps a history all versions of the data, complete with folder structures. In this way, it behaves much like Git or Time Machine backups, giving you the freedom to view or restore any historical version of your data. Many other backup solutions do not have this feature.