Microsoft has multiple layers of redundancy and backups of your information at their datacenters. SharePoint data is backed up every 12 hours and retained for 14 days. Microsoft has a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 45 minutes and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 2 hours. Meaning if there is a disaster at a datacenter that requires a failover to a secondary datacenter, you will have SharePoint Online available again within 2 hours with a copy of your data that is less than or equal to 45 minutes old at the time of service disruption.
1. Disaster recovery plan
If data is lost, you will need to contact Microsoft for support. As an Aerie Consulting client if this situation ever arises, you can contact someone here instead. We are Microsoft Gold Partners which helps us get in contact with the correct person more quickly. Once contacted, their technicians will restore your content within 2 hours from your most recent backup.
2. Will SP ever become unavailable
Microsoft has a 99.9% service availability guarantee so the answer is yes, it may become unavailable but the chances are extremely low. If it does become unavailable, it will be restored within 2 hours.
3. Where is our data stored
Miscrosoft stores data at an undisclosed datacenter in the United States. For security reasons Microsoft doesn’t disclose where exactly the datacenters are (with the exception of 3: Quincy, Washington; San Antonio, Texas; Chicago, Illinois). Microsoft has between 10 and 100 datacenters globally.
4. How is data backed up
Your SharePoint Online tenancy is backed up every 12 hours and retained for 14 days. Microsoft keeps these backups in their datacenters and will restore your content from them if needed. There are third party tools available if you would like to back up your data to a location on your network.
For more information see Microsoft's Cloud Platform here or contact us to learn about creating your own SharePoint recovery plan.
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