SaaS platforms have become foundational to how organizations operate, but native SaaS protections were never designed to support recovery scenarios involving data loss, identity compromise, or configuration failure. As reliance on Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and cloud platforms grows, those gaps surface during incidents, audits, and recovery events — not during normal operations.
This was the focus of VLCM’s recent Cover Your SaaS webinar, which examined how Veeam Data Cloud approaches SaaS data protection across Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and multi-cloud environments.
In this article, we break down where native SaaS protections fall short, why identity has become a primary point of failure, and what effective SaaS data protection looks like when backup, recovery, security, and visibility are treated as a single operational problem rather than disconnected tools.
TL;DR
If recovery, audits, or identity restoration depend on native SaaS controls, gaps will surface when it matters. Veeam Data Cloud delivers independent, immutable backup and precise recovery across Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and cloud workloads from a single platform.
SaaS Adoption Is Increasing Operational Complexity for IT Teams
SaaS platforms support many of the core systems organizations depend on, from email and file sharing to identity and customer-facing applications. Gartner’s 2024 trends show increased use of backup as a service as organizations balance protection across on-premises and cloud environments.
This evolution does not come without challenges, including:
- Explosive data sprawl. Rapid data growth increases the operational burden of knowing what exists, where it lives, and how quickly it can be recovered.
- Multi-cloud dominance. 92% of enterprises now span multiple providers (e.g., Azure VMs, AWS EC2, Azure SQL), increasing complexity and vendor lock-in risks.
- Sophisticated threats. Modern ransomware playbooks increasingly include backup deletion or corruption as a standard step after encrypting production data.
- Resource constraints. IT teams must ensure uptime, compliance, and cost control — often without additional headcount.
The Shared Responsibility Model Leaves Critical SaaS Data Gaps
A common misconception fuels much of this risk: assuming cloud providers fully protect customer data. In reality, the shared responsibility model clearly divides duties. Providers handle infrastructure and uptime. You own applications, identities, access controls, configurations, and data.
This means:
- Microsoft keeps Microsoft 365 and Entra ID services running.
- You must protect mailboxes, SharePoint sites, OneDrive files, Teams content, user objects, group memberships, app registrations, conditional access policies, and audit logs.
Native retention and recycling features were not designed to support rapid, large-scale recovery, forensic investigation, or long-term operational resilience. They are susceptible to deletion, misconfiguration, or administrative change during incidents.
Accidental deletions, misconfigurations, insider threats, or cyberattacks exploit these gaps, often leading to irreversible loss when no dedicated protection exists.
Why Identity Now Sits at the Center of SaaS Risk
Identity has become one of the most efficient paths to operational disruption. Rather than targeting infrastructure directly, attackers increasingly focus on identity systems because they control authentication, access, and permissions across the environment.
Microsoft security reporting has shown sustained growth in Entra ID attack attempts over recent years, now reaching hundreds of millions per day. Misconfigured conditional access policies, deleted application registrations, corrupted group memberships, or lost audit logs can stall business operations just as effectively as a server outage — and often take longer to unwind without dedicated identity protection.
These attacks do not require sophisticated malware. Without Entra ID backup, restoring identity objects is complex and slow, especially at scale. That’s why Entra ID backup has become just as critical as Microsoft 365 backup.
Data Resilience Requires More Than Backup
Effective SaaS data protection is measured by recovery outcomes — how quickly and precisely systems, data, and identity can be restored when something fails.
Effective SaaS data protection typically requires five operational capabilities:
1. Backup That Works at Scale
Policy-based automation removes complexity and ensures coverage across Microsoft 365 and Entra ID without worrying about storage limits or tenant growth.
2. Recovery That’s Fast and Precise
Most recovery scenarios do not involve rolling back entire environments. They require restoring specific data or identity objects without disrupting active users or services.
Veeam Data Cloud enables recovery at multiple levels, including:
- Individual emails or files
- Entire mailboxes or OneDrive accounts
- SharePoint sites or Teams workspaces
- Entra ID objects, metadata, and audit logs
This approach reduces recovery time, limits operational impact, and avoids unnecessary rollback of unaffected data.
3. Security Built In (Rather Than Bolted On)
With ransomware recovery a top concern, immutable backups are key. Essential safeguards include zero-trust architecture, encryption by default, air-gapped storage, and least-privilege access.
4. Intelligence and Visibility
Centralized dashboards, activity logs, and reporting provide insight into what is protected, what is changing, and what requires attention.
5. Portability Across Clouds
The ability to restore or migrate data across environments supports disaster recovery and long-term strategy without vendor lock-in.
Why Native Microsoft 365 Protections Fall Short for Recovery
Microsoft 365 includes native retention and recovery features such as recycle bins, versioning, and retention policies. These capabilities support basic recovery and compliance scenarios but were not designed for ransomware events, identity compromise, or large-scale configuration failures.
Native retention operates inside the production tenant, making retained data subject to the same permissions, policies, and security events as live data. It lacks immutable storage, consistent point-in-time recovery, and long-term audit retention at scale.
Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 addresses these limitations by maintaining independent, immutable backups outside the tenant with granular recovery across Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams.
Storage as a Service Simplifies Backup Security, and Recovery
Managing backup storage traditionally adds complexity through capacity planning, infrastructure maintenance, and unpredictable cloud costs.
Veeam Data Cloud Vault delivers backup storage as a fully managed service with predictable pricing, immutability, encryption, and air-gapping by default.
By isolating backup data from production environments, Veeam reduces recovery risk while simplifying cost control and operational overhead.
Veeam Data Cloud Reduces Operational Risk Through Platform Consolidation
Managing SaaS data protection across multiple tools increases operational risk. Disconnected solutions create inconsistent policies, limited visibility, and manual handoffs during incidents.
Veeam Data Cloud consolidates backup, recovery, security, storage, and visibility for Microsoft 365, Entra ID, and multi-cloud workloads into a single platform with a shared policy model and control plane.
This unified approach reduces configuration drift, speeds recovery, and simplifies incident response.
Covering Your SaaS with Veeam Data Cloud
SaaS risk surfaces during recovery events, audits, and security incidents — not during normal operations. Organizations relying solely on native controls often discover gaps only when recovery is required.
Treating SaaS data protection as part of enterprise resilience means planning for recovery outcomes, not just service availability.
VLCM works with IT teams to identify these gaps, align protection strategies with operational risk, and implement SaaS data protection approaches that support reliable recovery, audit readiness, and long-term resilience.
