Is Microsoft 365 data backed up by Microsoft?

Not in the sense most organisations assume. Microsoft provides service resilience and limited retention, not a backup you can restore from after a deletion or ransomware event outside those windows. For anything with a compliance or recovery requirement, a separate backup is necessary.

What are the sovereign open-source alternatives?

Mature European and open-source stacks covering file collaboration, mail, calendaring and video conferencing, deployable on infrastructure you control. They reduce dependency on non-EU providers and suit organisations with residency requirements. The trade-offs are integration depth and internal operational effort, both of which we will quantify before you commit.

Layer 04 · Operate · Project or subscription

Enterprise Workplace & Collaboration

STP deploys, secures and administers enterprise workplace platforms (Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, and European sovereign open-source alternatives) including migration between them and ongoing tenant administration.

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Patch field with consistent service loops

Workplace platforms are bought quickly and configured once, usually by whoever set up the first mailbox. Years later the tenant carries permissive sharing defaults, orphaned accounts, no retention policy and no conditional access: and it holds most of the company data.

We take these platforms seriously as security boundaries: identity and conditional access, device compliance, data loss prevention, retention and backup, and administration that keeps working as staff change.

For organisations with data sovereignty requirements or a deliberate strategy of reducing dependency on US hyperscalers, we also deploy and operate European sovereign and open-source alternatives. We will give you an honest assessment of what you gain and what you give up.

What is included

Microsoft 365 tenant deployment, hardening and administration
Google Workspace deployment, hardening and administration
Migration between platforms, and from on-premises mail
Identity, single sign-on and conditional access policy
Multi-factor authentication rollout
Device compliance and endpoint management
Data loss prevention and information protection
Retention policy, archiving and third-party backup
European sovereign and open-source collaboration platforms
Licence optimisation and tenant cost review
Ongoing administration and user lifecycle management

What you get out of it

A tenant configured as a security boundary rather than a mailbox host
Sharing and retention behaviour that matches your actual policy
Licence spend matched to real usage

Questions

Is Microsoft 365 data backed up by Microsoft?: Not in the sense most organisations assume. Microsoft provides service resilience and limited retention, not a backup you can restore from after a deletion or ransomware event outside those windows. For anything with a compliance or recovery requirement, a separate backup is necessary.
What are the sovereign open-source alternatives?: Mature European and open-source stacks covering file collaboration, mail, calendaring and video conferencing, deployable on infrastructure you control. They reduce dependency on non-EU providers and suit organisations with residency requirements. The trade-offs are integration depth and internal operational effort, both of which we will quantify before you commit.

Enterprise Workplace & Collaboration

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