Managed Microsoft 365 for SMEs: licences, MFA and backup in order

Not in the way most people imagine. Microsoft ensures that the platform is available and that it does not lose information through a failure of its own infrastructure. Protecting your data against mistakes, attacks or carelessness within the company is another matter, and that responsibility lies with the customer.

Here is where the difference hurts:

• A folder deleted without anyone noticing The problem only surfaces months later.
• A compromised account The attacker gets in and deletes content.
• Ransomware Synchronised files are encrypted.

In all these cases, native retention has short time limits. Once they expire, the information is lost. If the company's email and documents live in Microsoft 365, you need a dedicated backup, with tested restores and retention you decide. The cost is small compared with what is safeguarded.

Almost always, something. The typical mistake is giving everyone the same plan. Someone who lives in Excel and PowerPoint does not need the same as someone who only reads email and stores a few files. Before the next renewal, answer for each user:

1. Do they use the installed applications, or is the web version enough?
2. Do they exceed the storage of the base plan?
3. Do they need advanced security and compliance features?

Done rigorously, this review finds licences that can drop a plan and others that should not exist at all.

The easiest waste to cut is the accounts of people who have left. An account forgotten for a year is paid for every month and remains an attack route. A quarterly check solves both at once.

• MFA for everyone Administrators first, because they are the favourite target.
• Legacy authentication disabled Old protocols allow the second factor to be bypassed.
• Alerts on forwarding rules Creating a rule that sends all email outside is the first move of anyone who has taken over an account.
• Sharing links audited Access open to anyone, created years ago and forgotten.
• Auditing switched on After an incident, it is the only record that shows what happened.

These measures should exist in any business subscription. In many, they do not.

Moving email holds no surprises these days. It is the files that go wrong, and rarely for technical reasons. The hard part is deciding where each thing belongs: individual, team and company documents belong in different places. A critical file stored in someone's personal area walks out of the door with that person.

Set three rules before copying the first file:

• What belongs to the team stays with the team In SharePoint or Teams, never in someone's OneDrive.
• Permissions assigned to groups Not user by user.
• Clean up before moving The old server's folder tree is simplified, not replicated.

And allow time for adjustment. The technology is swapped in a weekend; habits take weeks.

The platform changes constantly and an untended subscription degrades silently. Four routines are enough:

None requires deep technical knowledge. They require an owner. That is precisely where they tend to fail.

Someone who does it every day. DataRoad - IT Services and Consulting implements and manages Microsoft 365 and cloud for businesses: migration, security configuration and dedicated backup, integrated into our managed IT services. Request a no-commitment proposal.

More than 10 workstations · support contract · remote, on-site and telephone support. +351 211 459 950 * · sales@dataroad.pt

*Call to a Portuguese landline.