Category: Microsoft 365 Services

Microsoft 365 blog topics, including specialized Microsoft 365 Backup, Disaster Recovery and Managed Services. Discussions around the benefits of automatic Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365 apps including Exchange Online, Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, as well as retention and e-discovery.

3 Steps for Effective Data Backup and Recovery

March 30, 2023

Storagepipe Shares Data Protection Insights on World Backup Day 2023

Events around the world over the past few years have highlighted the importance of preparing a backup plan for all of your critical business operations – customer-facing, backend technical, and organizational alike. Especially since ransomware attacks grew by 41% in 2022.

Naturally, disaster recovery planning with comprehensive data backup, testing, and implementation should be at the top of the priority list given the positive impact on all three areas.

When done right, reliable disaster recovery planning and data backup services help businesses to retain and repair their reputation in the midst of a crisis. Businesses utilizing service providers can also tap into domain expertise and practical hands-on support to provide clear roles and direction to employees, partners and vendors in the event of an emergency.

When done poorly, recovery during a disaster can be challenging and leave an organization reeling with significant consequences and without a clear path out of the mess.

Here are our top 3 steps to ensuring effective data backup and recovery:

Step 1: Empower Your Workforce and Protect Your Cloud Data

Given the continuing prevalence and necessity of remote work into 2023 and likely beyond, providing flexible and protected collaboration and communication applications like Microsoft Office 365 is critical to the viability of many organizations. Enabling secure remote access to Teams, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and OneDrive for Business will protect your business functions and ensure that entry points are inaccessible to external intruders.

User-generated data must also be synced and backed up at regular intervals. Protect application data and your business against user error and insider threats, malware and ransomware, and unexpected downtime with Storagepipe’s Microsoft 365 Cloud to Cloud Backup.

This service securely connects to your Microsoft 365 tenant and captures all the changes to ensure rapid and automated protection across your critical Microsoft 365 apps for continued accessibility and reliability.

Explore Storagepipe’s Endpoint Protection solution for details on how to also securely protect remote workers’ devices and their data with Managed Anti-Virus and Endpoint Backup services.

Step 2: Enable a Multi-Layered Data Loss Prevention Strategy

There are many proactive data protection options for businesses to choose from, and oftentimes a multi-layered approach works best. While it takes time and effort to configure, monitor, patch and upgrade systems and applications, as with most situations in life, it’s less costly to prevent a data loss problem than to attempt to cure it.

Experienced service providers can alleviate the day-to-day burden on your IT resources and provide you with an additional line of defense by ensuring your systems are always up to date through regular server monitoring and management. You may also be able to take advantage of services to help with patching, updates and testing, and cool-headed emergency response.

Reliable Backup and Recovery enables businesses to meet their Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and is an absolute must for any DR response. Many companies happily optimize their resources and slim down their operating expenses by utilizing Backup as a Service (BaaS) to extend their on-premise backups to the cloud. Backup and Replication with Veeam Cloud Connect plus Cloud to Cloud Backup enables you to seamlessly protect your data across VMware, Hyper-V and your critical SaaS applications such as Salesforce, Microsoft 365 and G Suite. And if you are already using the public cloud, make sure to enable cloud mobility as well as safeguard your AWS, Azure, and IBM Cloud data with Public Cloud Backup.

Are you a Veeam or IBM user? We have specialized options for both platforms!

How strong is your safety net? Download our Ransomware and Disaster Recovery Insights for Hybrid IT Environments report to discover the concerns, predictions and challenges of engineering, security, IT and operations leaders in hybrid IT environments.

Step 3: Take Advantage of World Backup Day to Assemble Your Team and Disaster Recovery Plan

Regardless of internal user error, ransomware attacks, or when a natural disaster strikes, ensure your business continuity by meeting your operational demands while protecting and recovering your most valuable asset – your data

No matter the size, location, or industry, organizations need to take the time to put together a well-thought-out and practical strategy for implementing DR best practices and scheduled maintenance. Organizations should have an easy-to-understand step-by-step guide on what to do in a data emergency so that employees, partners and vendors understand their roles, responsibilities and the resources available to them before, during and after crisis strikes.

This critical operations and management strategy is also known as a Disaster Recovery Plan. Storagepipe has put together a template to guide you through the process and information that you need to gather, assess, and build upon for effective data Backup and Disaster Recovery. Download your copy of our DR Plan Template here!

Involving key stakeholders in your DR Plan creation can help to ensure that the information is thorough and clear to those that rely on it the most. World Backup Day is the perfect opportunity to raise the importance of having a DR Plan, or if one is already in place, to review, update and conduct a run-through using its instructions as your guide.

As a part of the DR Plan run-through, test your systems and assess if you are meeting your company’s recovery goals. Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) enables businesses to meet their Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) on budget and on time, with offerings such as High Availability Replication and DRaaS for multi-platform systems, and Warm Site and DRaaS for virtual machines such as VMWare, Hyper-V and Nutanix. Specialized options are also available with Veeam Replication and DRaaS and IBM Replication and DRaaS.

Not sure what’s the best fit for you? Ask our Backup and DR Heroes today!

Storagepipe to the Rescue

Your Backup and Disaster Recovery Heroes

Storagepipe is a trusted global DRaaS provider of comprehensive Cloud, Data Protection and Cybersecurity services and can help to provide guidance as you work through your SMB or enterprise DR planning process.

Since 2001, Storagepipe has provided these robust and secure Managed Cloud and Disaster Recovery solutions from a scalable multi-tenant infrastructure, supported by our first-class in-house technical team. Storagepipe delivers highly flexible and responsive solutions with outstanding value and service, using state-of-the-art technology to offer ultimate protection and peace of mind.

We are driven to be your trusted partner and to ensure that we deliver a Storagepipe Experience that meets your business requirements with the reliability, scalability and support that your business demands.

Questions? Ask Our Experts!

Microsoft 365 Backup as a Service is Available on IBM Cloud Marketplace

March 7, 2023

At Storagepipe we are always looking for opportunities to expand the availability of our solutions to cloud users globally. Storagepipe is excited to share that our Microsoft 365 Backup as a Service offering is now available on IBM Cloud Marketplace.

Many companies using cloud-based SaaS applications are losing data, often due to employee errors or malware. To ensure data protection, business continuity and meet compliance demands, you need to protect yourself. Regardless of whether data is on-premises or in cloud infrastructure, ultimate responsibility for data protection lies with the customer or the data owner — you.

Storagepipe’s M365 Backup as a Service on IBM Cloud provides you with critical data loss prevention through automated backup and storage.

IBM Cloud Marketplace provides a sales channel for IBM Ecosystem partners to buy and sell their enterprise applications to IBM Cloud clients worldwide. Through the IBM Cloud Marketplace, customers can access Storagepipe’s Microsoft 365 Backup as a Service offering on IBM Cloud with single invoicing from IBM, IBM account integration, and a streamlined approach for deployment and management of these cloud solutions.

Storagepipe’s Microsoft 365 Backup as a Service offering joins over 400 existing offerings on IBM Cloud Marketplace.

ELIMINATE THE RISK OF DATA LOSS FROM ACCIDENTAL OR MALICIOUS ACTS

Features & Benefits:

Automated and on-demand backup.
Minimizes risk of data loss and assures availability of data.
Point-in-time backup with built-in rules for selective user and content targeting.
Accurate, granular recovery of Microsoft 365 content—including mailboxes, tasks, calendars, files, Public Folders, Groups, and Teams.
Restore your data to its full and original state –including folder structures, categories, and more.
Helps meet retention, audit and compliance requirements for recovery.
Protection from accidental deletion, security threats and retention policy gaps.
Meet legal and compliance requirements with efficient eDiscovery.
Reduces employee downtime by easily restoring lost data.
Keeps email and files protected indefinitely without upgrades or purchasing more licenses.
Export and report on backed up data.
Stores all your Microsoft 365 data in secure offsite storage, separated from Microsoft’s platform.

The catalog of offerings on the IBM Cloud Marketplace empowers over 600,000 individual site visitors monthly, including users from Fortune 500 companies, with the solutions they need to support their digital transformations.

Storagepipe provides an easy way to help protect business critical Microsoft 365 information. Cloud-to-Cloud backup and recovery services integrate seamlessly with your normal use while meeting your policy, compliance and disaster recovery requirements. This offering can prevent customers from losing access and control over Microsoft 365 data, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams and OneDrive for Business. By using Storagepipe’s Microsoft 365 Backup as a Service, customers can ensure that their data is always hyper-available and protected.

For more information, visit
• Storagepipe
• Storagepipe on IBM Marketplace

About IBM Cloud Marketplace

For more information on IBM Cloud offerings, click here.

Data Protection, Backup & Recovery Trends Report 2022: Wrap Up the Year with Storagepipe

November 30, 2022

Hello friends,

We’re wrapping up the year with our annual Data Protection, Backup and Recovery Trends Report, where we share the most urgent, prevalent, and emerging challenges that we helped our customers solve with managed Cybersecurity , Backup as a Service and Disaster Recovery Services.

As we look back on 2022, we appreciate all the customers, partners, and supporters that joined us through a challenging winter, a fast-paced summer, and an autumn jam-packed with new opportunities.

Understanding this past year’s trends helps you to establish a benchmark as you consider your organization’s Data Protection opportunities and challenges and begin to plan for 2023.

Microsoft 365 Migration Shifted to M365 Data Protection

After a rapid adoption phase in 2020 – 2021 spurred by expected growth in digital transformation initiatives and the unexpected Covid-19 pandemic necessitating a massive shift to remote and hybrid work models, IT departments began reassessing their data protection needs in 2022.

In the rush to adopt, migrate, and deploy, data protection considerations can be overlooked. While many appreciate the collaboration made possible with Microsoft 365, some are unaware that the protection of data generated by these applications is their business’s responsibility. Microsoft does not perform backups on a company’s behalf, and they do not provide recovery services.

Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Model states that they are responsible for ensuring that the platform remains accessible and available, while the customer is responsible for ensuring that their data is backed up and recoverable in the event of a disaster. If an adverse incident such as a security breach or ransomware attack strikes, Microsoft will not recover your data for you.

The risk of falling victim to ransomware is ever-present, with phishing emails and their mishandling by end users continuing as the #1 vulnerability vector. Malicious actors took advantage of the trust people have in Microsoft’s brand by embedding well-known file types such as Excel and Word with malicious links and code and adding them as email attachments from addresses that include ‘outlook’ in their domain. These tactics almost doubled in popularity between Q1 and Q2 2022.

Throughout 2022, Storagepipe has spread awareness of these dangers to your data and worked with businesses of all sizes to put effective managed anti-spam, backup, and disaster recovery plans in place.

Learn how organizations can achieve complete Microsoft 365 Data Protection in our helpful guide here.

All Businesses At Risk For Ransomware

In 2020, bad actors attacked big, enterprise targets – companies that had the deep pockets to pay out. As those businesses strengthened their cybersecurity posture and disaster recovery plans in response, they became more challenging to victimize. This spurred a shift in tactics from the private to the public sector, as large healthcare, infrastructure and energy, and government organizations became the new favoured prey throughout 2021.
After several headline newsworthy incidents, the public sector began taking notes from the private sector’s hard-won lessons and shored up their backup and recovery, as well as their cybersecurity monitoring, detection, and response capabilities.

As large entities in both private and public sectors came under attack, insurance companies bore the brunt of hefty ransomware payouts and criticism that their policies were rewarding bad behaviour. Fast-forward to 2022, and the terms – and costs – of cybersecurity insurance policy renewals have become eye-watering and for some SMBs, prohibitive.

Large businesses and government agencies may be able to absorb the increased expenditures and resources needed to meet the new compliance requirements. However, small and medium sized businesses can struggle to justify the spend when comparing risks, costs, and benefits. Especially with the added assumption that malicious actors only focus their attacks on enterprise sized organizations.

In 2022, that assumption proved to be disastrously wrong. For starters, data protection safeguards against more than just ransomware. It protects organizations from insider threats, accidental deletion or other user errors. It also protects against facility and hardware failures triggered by outdated equipment, misconfigured networks, connection downtimes, and natural disasters that wipe out entire regions.

While other threats have always existed, small and medium-sized businesses were often considered less profitable targets than the Fortune 500 set. And while malware incidents were common, expensive, and disabling, ransomware attacks before 2022 were less common for SMBs. This meant that their backup, recovery, and cybersecurity requirements weren’t as high as their larger peers’, and in turn less investments were made in keeping critical data and systems secure.

As 2022 progressed, that norm rapidly changed.

Ransomware has transformed into a business type of its own, with Ransomware-as-a-Service models, organized programmers providing regular patches and updates, and entire departments dedicated to extorting and processing payments that enable malicious actors to grow their attacks at scale. Some ransomware groups even have toll-free phone numbers that victims are told to call for more instructions, and chat support teams that have queues of victims waiting to pay.

Like all businesses, they need to produce a profit. Cyberattacks on enterprises have become time-intensive, with uncertain success. Even if malicious actors can breach the increased defenses made possible by improved firewalls, anti-spam tools, and virus blockers, their intrusions are increasingly discovered and rooted out by sophisticated cyberthreat detection and response before they can launch the full attack and lock down the victim’s systems. When the attackers can make their ransomware demand, they are increasingly being rebuffed thanks to their victims’ growing ability to fully recover their data and environments with managed backup and recovery services, and reluctant insurance companies balking at the claims.

From the attackers’ point of view, shifting their efforts to less protected, unsuspecting small and medium businesses makes good business sense. While the revenue per attack may be less, the number of attacks and success rate more than makes up the difference. As a result, many SMBs have been devastated in 2022 by downtime, data loss and egress, system corruption, compliance liabilities, steep insurance deductibles and premiums, and reputational damage. For some, these impacts have led to permanent business closure.

As we near the end of 2022, businesses and organizations of all sizes now require enterprise-grade data protection, disaster recovery, and cybersecurity to ensure their business continuity into 2023 and beyond. Thankfully, there are flexible and cost-efficient services available such as Warm Site Disaster Recovery.

Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Has Changed the Playing Field

As threat actors become more prevalent, organized, and multi-pronged in their attacks, businesses need a more coordinated strategy to guard their three main attack surfaces – endpoints, networks, and cloud/SaaS – 24/7. Realistically, most businesses lack the resources to ensure that level of coverage, or the expertise required to keep up with the rapidly evolving threat landscape.

With the necessity, came the invention. Managed Detection and Response Services simplify cybersecurity management with all-in-one 24/7 analyst-verified threat data and prioritized, actionable observations and recommendations to identify and counter cyberthreats before they take hold.

Now businesses of all sizes can block, discover, and disable attacks before they lock down systems and data, denying bad actors the chance to ransom organizations out of business and completely changing the threat landscape playing field.
What are your thoughts on our Trends Report? Let us know!

Data Protection with Cybersecurity, Backup and Recovery Services 2023 Trends Forecast

For forward-looking insights, check out what we’re expecting to trend in Cybersecurity services and Backup and Disaster Recovery services in 2023 as we help organizations plan and implement their cyber resilient Data Protection strategies.

Questions? Contact Us!

How Can Organizations Achieve Complete Microsoft 365 Data Protection?

October 20, 2021

Who’s Responsible for Microsoft 365 Data Protection?

Even seasoned IT professionals can receive an unpleasant surprise when disaster strikes their Microsoft 365 or other SaaS and Cloud-based applications and they haven’t planned for a recovery.

This occurs when businesses forgo implementing cloud-to-cloud backup and disaster recovery for their cloud-based data, applications, and systems, and instead rely only on the platform providers such as Microsoft, Salesforce, Google, and others to restore data as well as services.

While these providers maintain the infrastructure that hosts the cloud application and are responsible for its availability and general security, many of these providers have policies such as Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Model that state that clients are responsible for backing up their own data and having disaster recovery in place for business continuity.

For more information on why organizations are wise to invest in Microsoft 365 Backup, get your copy of our M365 protection whitepaper today!

‘Your data is your business,’ and data protection extends into individual applications as well as the overall ecosystem. For example, while Microsoft Exchange Online has some built-in default outbound spam filters and inbound malware and spam filters available, IT administrators are responsible for making company-specific filtering customizations and policies that are designed for and applied to specified users, groups, or domains in their respective organizations.

Organizations are also responsible for implementing a multilayered cybersecurity strategy such as additional anti-virus and anti-spam solutions that can catch zero-day attacks and other evolving threats that are not included in off-the-shelf Microsoft Exchange Online filters.

How Important is Cybersecurity for Microsoft 365 Data Protection?

Email is the #1 malware and ransomware vector, ensnaring well-intentioned employees with increasingly sophisticated attacks. These include targeted campaigns that impersonate someone’s manager or another high-ranking colleague (known as whale-phishing), malicious attachments seeded with malware, and links leading to convincing faux login portals to familiar online services.

These security breaches can lead to extremely costly losses and expenditures for businesses, including downtime, interrupted sales revenue, operation and employee productivity disruptions, damages to reputation, legal issues with compliance and running afoul of regulatory mandates. In the worst-case scenarios, some companies make desperate and ill-advised ransomware payments that often fail to return the business to normal and verify for the attackers that the business is a paying target that they should hit again.

Why is Microsoft 365 Data Protection Complex to Manage?

Microsoft 365 is becoming more complex as new features are being introduced, which many organizations are discovering is a challenge to keep on top of as the technology evolves and their business grows. While extensive options and customizations for filtering can provide some security, they can also increase management time. Expansion of M365 adoption and use across applications like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business is also making the system more complex to manage, and the resulting data is becoming increasingly valuable and critical to protect.

Faced with this complex landscape of time and expertise-intensive responsibilities in a hostile environment, many organizations seek out specialized services for cloud-to-cloud backup, and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) to supplement their IT capabilities and ensure data protection for their cloud-based applications and overall business continuity requirements are met.

Strengthen Your Microsoft 365 Data Protection and Cybersecurity Posture with Bundled Managed Cloud Backup and Anti-Spam Services

Cloud-to-cloud Backup as a Service (BaaS)

The redundancy that Microsoft 365 provides only ensures the availability of the present state of the data. It does not backup the data to protect against data loss events or retain data for longer-term policies of compliance.

Storagepipe’s managed backup as a service (BaaS) securely connects to your Microsoft 365 tenant and captures all the changes to ensure rapid and automated protection.

Experience specialized online Backup and Disaster Recovery services for Microsoft 365, including automated daily backups, point-in-time backup and accurate, granular restore, and long-term retention and storage capacity options.

Managed Anti-Spam as a Service

Achieve superior multiplatform, multilayered threat protection against ransomware, malware, spear phishing, email DDOS and undesirable emails with AI-powered filtering enabling an industry-leading 99.9% spam catch rate and a low false positive rate of 0.03%.

Unlike some off-the-shelf solutions, Storagepipe’s managed anti-spam services feature predictive technology that protects against zero-day attacks, frequently updated rules based on heuristics and Bayesian auto-learning, and configurable, detailed quarantine reports.

Ensure email continuity with inbound email queuing, automatic email resumption, and a personal email portal, enabling end users to never miss an important email.

Questions? Ask Us!

Microsoft 365 Services

Microsoft CSP

Microsoft 365 Data Protection Services

Specialized Microsoft 365 Backup, Disaster Recovery and Managed Services

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Specialized Online Backup and Disaster Recovery for Microsoft 365, Salesforce and G Suite

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Data Protection Trends: Storagepipe Veeam Cloud Service Provider Partner Fireside Chat

October 8, 2021

Listen to our fireside chat interview with Anthony Spiteri, Senior Global Technologist at Veeam Software®, and Steven Rodin, CEO at Storagepipe as they discuss data protection trends impacting businesses, service providers, and platform vendors. Learn how Veeam Cloud Service Provider Storagepipe is rising above the challenges with a focus on customer-centric responsiveness and automation and providing innovative backup and disaster recovery service offerings tailored to customers’ specific requirements.

Get Anthony and Steven’s hard-earned insights around future-looking business risks and opportunities that are developing out of the disruptive shift from office-based workforces to flexible remote work-from-anywhere models, and what that means for IT professionals and the data workloads that they protect.

Key Data Protection Trends

“THEY NEEDED A PARTNER THAT COULD TAKE ACTION QUICKLY, THAT COULD RESPOND TO THEIR NEEDS, COULD TURN AROUND COMPLEX SOLUTIONS RAPIDLY.”
– STEVEN RODIN, VEEAM CLOUD SERVICE PROVIDER STORAGEPIPE

Steven commented that with the almost overnight shift to remote work, everyone had to quickly adjust; the Storagepipe team and their customers alike. “There were more people wanting to make decisions more rapidly. Organizations needed to make important IT decisions even during the pandemic, and they needed a partner that could take action quickly, that could respond to their needs, and could turn around complex solutions rapidly. So that was what we were focusing on, not just that we had the right solution but that we were delivering it quickly and effectively, even from a team working remotely.”

“THE TIME IS JUST RIGHT FOR BUSINESSES TO MOVE INTO THEIR TRANSFORMATIONAL JOURNEY.”
– ANTHONY SPITERI, VEEAM SOFTWARE

When asked what the important trends he’s seen come out of the pandemic, Anthony shared, “I think when you think about where we’ve come from over the past 10 years, with the move from on-premises service, virtualization, modern data platforms, software as a service, infrastructure as a service, just general cloud adoption, it’s been almost this Goldilocks situation where the time is just right for businesses to move more into their transformational journey.” What was his second big data protection trend? Watch the video to find out!

Many businesses with on-premises workloads are migrating some systems to the cloud and often end up with hybrid cloud environments in need of unified protection. Discover how Veeam managed services are developed and supported by Storagepipe’s in-house technical team of certified Veeam Architects and Engineers, who work closely with Veeam as new and enhanced functionalities continue to be added to the data protection platform.

For example, over the past 18 months Storagepipe has seen several services boom in popularity as businesses and organizations accelerate their digital transition to cloud-based data protection. “We’ve seen some tremendous momentum behind our Office 365, Microsoft 365 backup solution. That’s been a really big driver, from one of Veeam’s key products,” shared Steven. “Customers at first were looking to do that themselves and looking to do that on-prem, but we saw more customers moving to outsource that, moving to a managed service especially when they were out of the office.”

“WE’VE TAKEN THE TIME DURING THE PANDEMIC TO INVEST IN OUR PUBLIC CLOUD SERVICES, AND THAT’S BEEN BOOMING.”
– STEVEN RODIN, VEEAM CLOUD SERVICE PROVIDER STORAGEPIPE

When discussing data protection trends, the conversation often naturally turns to how to safeguard workloads living in the public cloud, or in a hybrid cloud model. “We’ve taken the time during the pandemic to invest in our public cloud services, and that’s been booming,” Steven shares. “We’ve seen the Azure and the AWS backup solutions that we’ve launched as a managed cloud service during the pandemic, really grow in the last year since launching with Veeam’s Backup for Azure and Backup for AWS.”

Listen to the interview below for more details on the latest data archiving, cloud backup, and disaster recovery capabilities from Veeam and Storagepipe, and where Anthony and Steven see the data protection industry going next.

Veeam and Storagepipe Data Protection Trends Fireside Chat

Storagepipe Managed Services for Veeam Software

Storagepipe offers Veeam Backup and Replication in an as-a-Service model — including hardware, software, and offsite storage — for complete data protection. Our experienced and dedicated team of data storage and recovery experts including certified Veeam Architects and Engineers provides proven solutions for your business.

Storagepipe Veeam managed services include:

Storagepipe is an Award-winning Veeam Platinum Cloud Service Provider

Customer Success: Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) Protects Cultural Programming with Cloud-based Backup and Disaster Recovery

September 30, 2021

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) has been a critical provider of Indigenous peoples’ programming for over 20 years in Canada and is the world’s first Indigenous broadcaster. APTN is an important source of news, entertainment, and educational programming celebrating Indigenous peoples’ cultures, sharing their journeys, and honoring the wisdom of their elders. The network broadcasts more than 50 hours of programming each week in 23 languages and in multiple time zones across Canada, servicing more than 10 million households.

Key programs include Nation to Nation, which follows the effect of politics on Indigenous peoples, and inFocus, a live interactive call-in show covering top news stories that impact their way of life, health, or employment.

APTN utilizes a variety of IT systems that are critical to enabling everything from cross-platform scheduling with Avatega, to enterprise resource planning with Microsoft Dynamics supporting APTN’s financial management and marketing departments. Microsoft SQL Server underpins both systems. These systems need to stay online to serve the community that depends on them. In the past, APTN was experiencing challenges with their backup and disaster recovery services from Backup Exec, putting their programming and operations continuity at risk.

APTN made the critical decision to look for alternative solutions and services to ensure that they can restore systems quickly and get programming back on the air. When APTN’s IT Manager Steve Ens identified that their key data protection metrics such as Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) were going unmet, he quickly recognized the opportunity to improve their resiliency in the event of a data disaster with on-premise Veeam Backup and Replication.

Choosing the best cloud-based Backup and Disaster Recovery Services

After several years of successful data protection utilizing on-premise Veeam Backup and Replication, Mr. Ens decided to explore options to extend that same data protection into the cloud and improve their cybersecurity posture to safeguard against unexpected downtime and the escalating threats of malware, ransomware, and the ever-present risk of user error.

Veeam Platinum Cloud and Service Provider Storagepipe stepped in to assist Mr. Ens in evaluating their needs and matched them with the best mix of cloud-based data protection solutions and services for their systems, budget, and future growth servicing the aboriginal and global communities.

“Working with Storagepipe has been a great experience. They were very responsive to my questions and concerns before we agreed to do business as well as when I had technical questions after implementation. Storagepipe seems to have all their ducks in a row when it comes to a being preferred partner of Veeam which is my backup and recovery software vendor of choice. Either they know all the ins and outs, or they can get answers very quickly,” said Steve Ens, Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) IT Manager.

The data protection challenges:

After Storagepipe conducted an in-depth discovery process with APTN, it was determined that APTN faced the following challenges:

Since ransomware is a constant threat for every business and organization, they wanted to explore options around cloud-enabled data protection and disaster recovery
While many of their systems were backed up with on-premise Veeam Backup and Replication, they still needed to protect their cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 data against disaster; Microsoft’s Shared Responsibility Model states that while they are responsible for ensuring systems continuity, customers are responsible for data protection and continuity
They had 15 TB of data across 36 Microsoft Hyper-V virtual machines (VMs) on-premises to a local server and were looking for a way to replicate that data to an off-premises disaster recovery site
Knowledgeable, reliable, and responsive managed cloud-based backup and disaster recovery services and technical support are critical in ensuring their programming can continue uninterrupted

Based on these findings, the Storagepipe team recommended:

Veeam Cloud Connect to extend Veeam Backup and Replication to the cloud for complete system, application and data protection
Veeam Insider Protection (available exclusively through Veeam Cloud Connect)
Managed Veeam cloud-to-cloud Backup for Microsoft Office 365 for comprehensive protection of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Teams
Aligning Storagepipe expert managed services and responsive technical support with internal resources for seamless operations

Have Questions? Contact Us!

Customer Success! APTN ensures uninterrupted cultural programming for audiences near and far

This means that in addition to backing up and replicating APTN’s VMs on-premises, Veeam also sends backup and replica copies to Storagepipe’s secure, managed private cloud through Veeam Cloud Connect. The Veeam Cloud Connect solution enables Veeam infrastructure in the cloud with just a few clicks, and with the Veeam Insider Protection functionality strengthens APTN’s ransomware protection by fulfilling the 3-2-1-1-0 Rule (3 different copies of data on 2 different media with 1 copy offsite and 1 copy that is air-gapped, immutable or offline with 0 backup recovery errors).

Storagepipe’s managed cloud-to-cloud Backup for Microsoft Office 365 provides APTN with complete protection and total control of their Office 365 data, including the ability to restore mailboxes from Exchange Online as well as data from OneDrive, SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. APTN is effectively backing up to Storagepipe’s managed cloud infrastructure, enabling cloud data archiving for their Microsoft 365 environment.

“Storagepipe’s Account Executive has been very attentive to our needs and I would recommend Storagepipe to any of my IT colleagues as the ‘insurance policy’ for their business,” shares Mr. Ens.

With these new managed cloud-based backup and disaster recovery services from Storagepipe, Veeam Software ® protects all IT systems supporting programming and business operations so that APTN can continue its invaluable work of celebrating Indigenous peoples and helping the world to understand their significance and value.

Want to know more?

Download the APTN Customer Success Story

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Storagepipe Awarded 2020 Veeam Impact Partner – Veeam Cloud Service Provider VCSP Growth Partner of the Year, North America

March 3, 2021

Storagepipe awarded 2020 Veeam Impact Partner Award for Veeam Cloud Service Provider (VCSP) Growth Partner of the Year.

(TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA) – March 03, 2021: Storagepipe proudly announces that it has been selected as the 2020 Veeam Impact Partner Award – Veeam Cloud Service Provider Growth Partner of the Year, North America by Veeam® Software, the leader in Backup solutions that enable Cloud Data Management™.

These sixth annual awards recognize North American Veeam ProPartners and Veeam Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) partners who have not only demonstrated success in providing Veeam solutions to their customers, but who have also provided first-class support, expert knowledge, continued product education, and a true Veeam strategy incorporated into their business.

The Veeam VCSP Growth Partner of the Year, North America award recognizes Storagepipe for demonstrating the most progress, growth, and dedication toward Veeam business, and selling Veeam-cloud-based solutions. Storagepipe’s exceptional growth across North America around its strategic pillars of Cloud Services, Disaster Recovery, Cybersecurity and Managed Services has positioned it for this award.

Storagepipe is dedicated to continuing to build on this success through innovation and delivering world-class customer experiences into 2021 and beyond.

“We are excited to recognize and honor Storagepipe as the Veeam Impact Partner Award – VCSP Growth Partner of the Year, North America,” said Matt Kalmenson, vice president of Americas Cloud at Veeam. “2020 brought many challenges, but the dedication and perseverance of our partners made it one of the most successful for Veeam, and we recognize that. Storagepipe’s investment in building and delivering Veeam-powered solutions and services is an invaluable part of Act II for Veeam – our evolution into hybrid Cloud and containers. Storagepipe is a model partner who has developed a collaborative relationship with us and leverages the Veeam program for mutual business opportunities. We congratulate Storagepipe on this award and look forward to more collaborative success and even greater profitability in 2021.”

“The Storagepipe team is extremely excited to have once again been recognized by Veeam as one of North America’s leading Veeam Platinum Cloud Service Providers”, said Steven Rodin, CEO of Storagepipe. “We are rapidly growing our Veeam services and are honoured with this award as recognition of our focus on delivering a Storagepipe Experience that centers on our customers’ success and delivering exceptional and responsive services in backup, disaster recovery and cloud services. We are continuing to strengthen our market leading position as a premier Veeam Platinum Cloud Service Provider, by building deep technical expertise and expanding the breadth of our service offerings for small business and enterprise customers in cloud and disaster recovery services across North America.”

Storagepipe’s successful collaboration with Veeam has enabled multiple cloud services and made them stand out in the market, including Veeam Cloud Connect, Veeam Managed Appliances for VMWare and Hyper-V, Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365, and Veeam Replication for Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). A world-class in-house technical team and rapid and reliable services provides a Storagepipe Experience that is responsive and trusted by customers across North America. Cloud and DR Services are offered with exceptional service, security and compliance, along with flexible pricing to address changing business needs. Storagepipe has Veeam support for both VMWare and Hyper-V along with extensive Veeam certifications, and we are looking forward to showing customers all of the incredible new features recently released as part of the new Veeam Availability Suite v11.

Recognition of Storagepipe’s growth and collaboration with Veeam based on the VCSP Growth Partner of the Year, North America award will help fuel expansion across Canada and the United States as they build on existing and develop new relationships. Storagepipe’s Platinum Veeam Cloud & Service Provider partnership and its vCloud Verified status in the VMware Cloud Provider Program offer immense future opportunities to drive customer benefits. Our team delivers a customer-centric Storagepipe Experience and are truly Your Backup and Disaster Recovery Heroes.

“Storagepipe’s award was only possible thanks to the incredible relationships we have with with Veeam leadership and team members in both Canada and the United States. We look forward to continuing to grow and collaborate with Veeam’s dedicated and collaborative team in the years to come,” says Rodin.

“Thank you, Veeam Cloud North America!”

Questions? Ask Storagepipe’s Award-winning Team Today!

Enterprise DR Planning: Disaster Ready Means Ready to Compete

September 30, 2020

We usually think of being ready for a disaster as a kind of insurance policy against a low probability event. This approach treats SMB and enterprise DR planning as necessary, but hardly strategic, and most of us would never consider it as a competitive advantage. We should.

In the spring of 2007, just before the 2008 financial crisis hit, Nassim Taleb presciently published a widely read book called The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. As if reading from a crystal ball, Taleb laid out his thesis that as our global economy scales and becomes more and more complex, we would begin to see the unforeseen and unpredictable more and more often. He argued that to be competitive and truly profit from these unpredictable “black swan” events, you have to organize your business strategy to be ready for them, even if they seem very unlikely.

Effective Enterprise DR Planning Includes Cybersecurity, Public Health, and Natural Disasters

Since then we have had at least two of these worldwide seismic events. The most recent, the current pandemic, has been a wakeup call for every business worldwide. Disasters on a global scale do happen and, as it turns out, some businesses have been better prepared to meet the needs of their customers during this event. These companies have not only realized a short-term competitive advantage, they have secured a firm foundation for their future growth.

But if disasters are unpredictable black swans, how do you plan for them? Taleb shows through a series of examples how important it is to think through the worst kind of risks that you might face and take out insurance against those possibilities. If the risk seems low to everyone else, then it will probably turn out that it doesn’t cost that much to insure yourself against it. And a corollary of this principle, if the worst happens, you will also probably be one of the few survivors. Which can put your business in a very strong competitive situation.

One of the important pieces in your disaster insurance strategy has to be a good disaster recovery plan for your company’s data. Cybersecurity events fall into that class of newly emerging black swan threats that face every business. As we embrace autonomous technologies built around IoT, AI and machine-learning, we are unleashing tremendous productive potential, but we are also setting ourselves up for a potential perfect digital storm.

Much as public health professionals have been warning us of the possibility of a pandemic for the last few decades, cybersecurity professionals have been trying to alert the world to its precarious state around digital security. No one knows exactly how or what will occur, but most who work in this field are concerned that we have a good chance of seeing a major cybersecurity event in the coming decades. Will your business be ready to survive and potentially even profit from it?

Key Considerations for SMB and Enterprise DR Planning

As gloomy as these threats are to contemplate, effective enterprise DR planning has to start with thinking through the worst-case scenarios that you might face so that you can ensure that resources and processes are in place to prevent or rapidly recover from a disaster.

Here are some key considerations at-a-glance. For a complete framework and further step-by-step details, download our free Disaster Recovery Plan Template.

Start by looking at what parts of your business systems, applications and data that you simply cannot afford to lose.
Then take it to the next level by asking, “If all of my competitors were knocked down by the same event as me, what kinds of data recovery would give me an immediate advantage?” There could be an easily achievable difference between being minimally operable and able to pounce on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
In developing a good data disaster recovery plan, you need to analyze the vulnerabilities in your IT infrastructure and identify the critical components of your operations. This has to be linked to a thorough analysis of your business functions and an assessment of which are the most critical to your ability to not only survive but successfully compete.
You must also ensure that your disaster recovery plan is well understood by your teams. Ensure that they are prepared to execute the DR plan when the time comes. This is difficult to do when the threat is a black swan event that is unpredictable and looks to most people consumed in their daily to-dos as highly theoretical, at best.
For this reason, it is important to fully script out the responses to a wide variety of emergency scenarios. Training and periodic trial runs — fire drills — are also a good way to ensure that when the moment comes, people will have developed some engrained patterns that they can fall back on when their amygdala has gone into overdrive.
To ensure that you have the skill sets and coverage needed during a disaster, also think about engaging the services of a third-party disaster recovery team. We have fire-fighters and other first responders for a very good reason. Training and constant practice in dealing with disasters is the only good way to be prepared for them when they strike. However, most businesses and organizations want to avoid having ‘constant practice’ with recovering from disasters for obvious reasons.

A Disaster Recovery partner can allow you to focus on your day to day operations, while also having access to reliable and specialized backup and recovery support. A DR partner can apply the deep expertise that they have honed with disasters day in and day out to your specific business needs. They can help you think through your business priorities, identify vulnerabilities in your systems, design backup systems and protocols, and provide critical and rapid response support. This will ensure that you cannot only recover gracefully but seize the moment when your competitors cannot.

Storagepipe to the Rescue

Your Backup and Disaster Recovery Heroes

Storagepipe is a trusted global provider of comprehensive cloud, data protection and security services and can help to provide guidance as you work through your SMB or enterprise DR planning process.

Since 2001, Storagepipe has provided these robust and secure Managed Cloud and Disaster Recovery solutions from a scalable multi-tenant infrastructure, supported by our first-class in-house technical team. Storagepipe delivers highly flexible and responsive solutions with outstanding value and service, using state-of-the-art technology to offer ultimate protection and peace of mind.

We are driven to be your trusted partner and to ensure that we deliver a Storagepipe Experience that meets your business requirements with the reliability, scalability and support that your business demands.

Contact us today to discover your options around data loss prevention and rapid ransomware recovery with services such as DRaaS Veeam managed appliance for VMWare and HyperV, DRaaS physical server replication, and other Storagepipe DR services. Ensure your business continuity by meeting your operational demands while protecting and recovering your most valuable asset – your data.

Questions? Ask Our Experts!

Remote Workers and Office 365 Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery

May 7, 2020

SaaS applications such as Office 365 are part of what is allowing the global shift towards remote working. Having everything in the cloud means that employees enjoy much greater flexibility about where and when they work, and organizations can reduce their real estate footprint. However, using cloud-based services does not mean that IT can forget about data backup and disaster recovery. While there are lots of good reasons to enable remote work in your organization, cloud services don’t end the need for complete data protection, wherever your employees are located.

Microsoft Office has long been the preferred communications, collaboration and productivity application suite for organizations. So, when Microsoft shifted Office to the cloud with Office 365, it was a strong signal to organizations that SaaS was here to stay. All of which was good news to IT departments that are weary of the time and money spent on supporting the old on-premises model.

Now, with automatic updates, employees always have the latest version of the software and can collaborate seamlessly on documents. When integrated with Microsoft’s other powerful cloud platforms like Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams, any size organization can have the full benefit of this powerful platform for communicating, sharing, and creating information to help drive their business.

Whether employees are working in the office, remotely or while on the move, they can utilize the Microsoft SaaS suite of applications thanks to support for operating systems ranging from Windows to Mac OS and Linux, including IOS and Android tablets and other mobile devices. With all of their data in the cloud, employees can move from device to device with complete confidence that the latest version of their documents and files are available to work on from anywhere, via any device.

As easy as this all sounds, there are still a bunch of requirements and policies that IT departments need to consider when implementing remote workers and Office 365.

BYOD Security Policies

Employees love the freedom that Office 365 gives them to use their own devices. While it may still be best practice for employees to use only business-supplied equipment, for many organizations, BYOD is here to stay. Thus, it is important to set up the right policies for remote workers. For instance, not sharing work devices with family members or, if that’s not possible, ensuring a separate password-protected account for the remote worker on the family machine.

Collaboration and Communication Policies

If the remote employee is using equipment provided by the business, the policy should be to disallow any sharing or personal computer use on the office-supplied laptop — or, at the very least, personal email and social media communications must have a separate account on the device. Email best practices are the same for all employees, and they should be well trained to spot phishing attacks. Documents of importance to the organization should be worked on in SharePoint with proper version control and access controls implemented.

Configuration and Remote Access

Remote updating of laptop configurations is not so different for remote and office workers if remote desktop software is installed. OS updates have to be scheduled with the employee but are easily managed with an internet-facing WSUS server. Management of Office 365 licenses is also similar. Don’t forget that with more workers accessing internal servers remotely, you have to have enough certificates on hand to support NSA multi-factor authentication for those times when remote working volume spikes.

Office 365 Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery

Finally, the need for regular data backup and disaster recovery planning does not go away just because the data is in Microsoft’s cloud. It is true that with cloud services, hard drive failures and lost laptops do not pose the same level of concern regarding data loss as they once did. But these are by no means the only ways to lose precious data.

The most common cause of data loss is user errors. Unfortunately, businesses often learn the hard way that many SaaS applications, including Office 365, lack comprehensive support to remedy these issues. In fact, many SaaS providers specifically exclude covering user error issues in their terms and conditions. Users can overwrite files by mistake, accounts get deleted, folders disappear, and malicious emails are opened. In addition to the applications themselves, you need to have a comprehensive data backup and disaster recovery policy, and workstation backup services that allow you to recover to previous versions of a file, folder, or even an account.

There are other serious considerations around archiving and searching records. If you delete a user license when an employee leaves, Microsoft Office 365 will only keep a backup of an employee’s email, contacts and calendar for 30 days. OneDrive files are kept for longer, but not forever. Thus, when employees leave the organization, it is critical to have a full backup of their files and protection of historical email in case you need them later to maintain continuity with suppliers or customers. You may also need those long-term backups and archives because of legal actions and compliance with audit regulations such as GDPR, PIPEDA, and HIPPA, which require businesses to maintain intact records for multiple years.

On the disaster recovery front, remote worker’s devices are more vulnerable to loss, damage and theft because of the public nature of the places they may work and their frequent mobility. They are just as exposed as any other part of the business to ransomware attacks, which are on the rise. Office 365 and other Microsoft services are often a primary target of such attacks.

Thus, it is crucial to maintain endpoint security for remote devices, managing the remote user’s anti-virus and spam protection. Given the vulnerabilities associated with Wi-Fi, especially public Wi-Fi services, employees should use a VPN to access the enterprise intranet, as well as for connections to cloud-based applications like Office 365. Despite the higher risks that are associated with remote work, a comprehensive offsite or cloud data backup service is your ultimate backstop should they experience difficulties.

The need for these precautions shouldn’t outweigh the advantages of remote work, and there are ways to avoid the extra overhead associated with managing your remote workforce. Look for a partner who can help you get the most out of the Microsoft productivity platform with cloud-based data backup and disaster recovery, as well as management of Office 365 licenses, user account management, end-point security, training and set-up assistance.

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Storagepipe to the Rescue

Your Backup and Disaster Recovery Heroes

Storagepipe is a trusted global provider of comprehensive cloud, data protection and security services. Office 365 Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery are some of our top rated services.

Since 2001, Storagepipe has provided these robust and secure managed cloud and disaster recovery solutions from a scalable multi-tenant infrastructure, supported by our first-class in-house technical team. Storagepipe delivers highly flexible and responsive solutions with outstanding value and service, using state-of-the-art technology to offer ultimate protection and peace of mind.

Office 365 Cloud Backup and Disaster Recovery Services

Contact us today to discover your options around Office 365 Cloud to Cloud Backup services, and about other Storagepipe services that can help you to meet your operational demands while protecting and recovering your most valuable asset – your data.

Questions? Ask Our Experts!

How to Securely Support Remote Workers in the Cloud

May 1, 2020

In the past, it was often only the largest enterprises that could afford to put the systems in place to make flex-time, work from home options, or entirely remote workforces possible. For many small to medium enterprises, the logistics associated with remote access servers, VPNs, token systems for authentication, backing up home workers’ data, and implementing disaster recovery simply made remote working too costly. This has all changed in the cloud era, which is now allowing enterprises of almost any size to cost-effectively support part-time or full-time remote workers with the right resources.

For IT managers needing to set up cloud services for remote workers, there are a number of things to consider. These include services for hosting, security, backups and disaster recovery. Additionally, there are HR policies that need to change, extended employee training, new equipment and software licenses, and configuration of network access and permissions for these more mobile employees.

On the hosting front, the cloud solves one of the biggest issues — scaling. As employees become more mobile and move in and out of the office, the need for remote access infrastructure can become quite unpredictable. For instance, if a snowstorm closes schools, most of your staff may suddenly want to work from home. Fortunately, the cloud’s ability to scale on demand means that you can accommodate them.

Managed Cloud Services are based on multi-tenant virtual machines running environments such as VMWare, Hyper-V, and Nutanix. Because virtual machines can be spun up at a moment’s notice, you should have on-demand access to these resources with no practical limits. They are perfect environments for supporting business operations that are unpredictable such as remote work.

You may also want the option to use cloud infrastructure for more sensitive and predictable operations. The option may also be available to co-locate some of your own compute and storage hardware in the same facility alongside cloud infrastructure to create a hybrid cloud setup for added flexibility and security. Ideally, the two services can be bundled together in a single cost-effective offer.

On the most basic level, you will need your cloud supplier to provide the networking and data infrastructure to support remote workers. This includes remote access servers, data storage and operating software. This is known as Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Your remote workers will need fully redundant private networking with direct, secure connectivity including VPNs and firewalls. If your operations are widely distributed, the cloud provider should be able to offer you multiple certified datacenter options along with clear service level agreements (SLAs).

One of the most challenging aspects of working from home is ensuring that data backups are running regularly and are error-free. Unlike the in-office desktop PC, home PCs and laptops are not connected to the LAN 24/7; this can make running and managing backups difficult. Fortunately, cloud-based backup services are always connected to the user’s machine. Thus, it is possible to run continuous or scheduled backups of the contents of the remote machine throughout the day. A good backup service should also offer an internal backup system for the machine as well.

SaaS applications, like Salesforce, Microsoft 365 or G Suite help to ensure that remote workers are keeping their data in the cloud, but these SaaS services also need to be included in the backup service landscape. Most SaaS providers do backup their servers, but these backups are often limited in scope and have few recovery points to restore from. Many SaaS providers won’t take responsibility for partially or fully restoring your data, especially in the common scenario where user error has caused a failure, corruption, or breach.

Without strict enforcement and training, many end users tend to save their files on their PCs in local folders like “My Documents” rather than on company servers. These machines are often turned off during normal backup windows which complicates data protection. To prevent data loss, IT managers should search for a workstation backup solution that offers resume and cache functionalities, along with the ability to back up locally saved workstation data.

With remote work, risks around email phishing and other security concerns increase. Thus, it is critical to have continuous backups of user data so that it is possible to restore previous versions of files and rollback user error or outside threats such as ransomware or crypto-type attacks.

Finally, it is critical to have a disaster recovery service (DRaaS). There are, after all, worse things than snow days. Flooding, fire, disgruntled employees and outside cyberattacks can shut down your business, sometimes costing you days and weeks to recover. As businesses and organizations pursue their digital transformation, the stakes are only mounting.

Remote workers and their data have to be included in the recovery plan. The disaster may be something that occurs in their home or co-working space and yet not affect any of your offices. To complicate matters, if you have a BYOD policy, they may be working off of their own machines. You will have to quickly replace non-standard laptops, tablets or other devices and restore their data.

DRaaS providers can not only protect your data assets; they can also provide an entire disaster recovery service. Your IT department will obviously want to take the lead on recovery efforts, but they probably won’t have a lot of experience doing it and might also be feeling the pressure.

A DRaaS provider should be able to help. After all, it is their day-to-day business to help businesses and organizations of all kinds and sizes to recover from these kinds of events. They should consult with you beforehand to put a disaster recovery process in place, and they can help save you many hours and days by guiding the IT team in the right direction when you need to recover.

Working remotely is becoming increasingly popular and for younger generations of workers, it is often viewed as essential. The good news is that supporting these new, more flexible work patterns is much easier and cost-effective with the cloud and managed services. This is not only making the workplace more flexible and attractive, it also enables you to on-board workers faster, accommodate partners and suppliers that are collaborating with you and, generally, make your business or organization more agile — as well as safe and secure.

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