Forum Discussion
Back-up tools for Office 365
Rylan King wrote:It means that one should stop you using MS Outlook also. If you think so that PST is a bad format then you should recommend Microsoft stop giving new updates.
Still, the large number of organizations have their data stored in PST file format.
You don't need to stop using Outlook. PSTs were invented a long time ago when mailbox quotas were small (like 50MB to 100MB) to give users more space. We're talking 20 years ago... But time moves on and Office 365 makes 100GB quotas available to users, so there is no need to continue using PSTs.
The PST is an insecure (passwords are easily cracked) and fallible file format. Storing content in PSTs means that it is not indexed and discoverable. Companies cannot apply policies to content held in PSTs (DLP, retention, classifications). In short, PSTs are a horrible thing to have. They should be eradicated from all Office 365 deployments as quickly as you can, which is what many major companies are doing now. The problem is that PST eradication takes lots of preparation and is costly, but it has to happen... IMHO.
See https://www.quadrotech-it.com/what-are-pst-files-and-why-do-they-matter/ for more...
Great message from TonyRedmond. We should not only do, what a customer or a business unit wants, we should always advise on best practices and recommendations. Only in this way, when thinking pro-actively, the business prepares for the future and stays competitive. Otherwise, companies are in danger to fail the digital transformation and then fail their business.
For the OST vs. PST question. The first one is only a local temporary copy of PST content, hence, it's even worse to use this as a backup. There are a couple of good 3rd party solutions in the market (like AvePoint, Veem, Skykick, etc.) to backup in a more secure format including encryption. This does not only apply to email, but also to the other data stored in Office 365. In line with Tony, I'd recommend to go away from those PST "backup" and use real backup tools.
Consider this like a car insurance. You don't really want to use it, but if something happens, you're happy when you have an insurance, which covers everything (and not only the tires ;-) ).