Cyber security has never been more important for businesses. Considering the amount of data businesses hold concerning their financial data and employee personal data, there is a lot to be lost in the event of a cyber security breach. But that’s not all – businesses also hold a lot of customer data, and if this data is compromised, the impact can be even more dire. The success of a business can rest on how it manages its data and compliance.
We discussed this topic with TechQuarters, an IT company, and Microsoft Solutions Partner, from London. The managed services and business IT support London-based providers like TechQuarters specialise in always includes advise and solutions for data protection and compliance, because of how many businesses in London are in sectors that require strict data protection.
Microsoft Solutions for Data Protection and Compliance
Microsoft is one of the biggest names in both the tech industry and the wider business community. This is because of how much experience (nearly 50 years, in fact) that they have in developing IT solutions specifically for businesses. According to TechQuarters, the range of solutions and features that the Microsoft Cloud has for managing data protection and compliance is impressive. Below are some of the things that the Microsoft Cloud can help businesses achieve, which will in turn help them manage their compliance more effectively.
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Discover and Explore Data
In order for a business to effectively manage and protect the data they hold, in accordance with regulations they must comply with, is for them to have an easy way to know exactly what data they hold on individuals. Microsoft have an entire category of products relating to data governance and compliance, known as Microsoft Purview. This product family have immense functionality, and one its primary features is its ability to create a unified data map (with the product Purview Data Map), which encompasses all of the data that an organisation possesses.
In conjunction with the data map, there is also the Purview Data Catalog – which makes it easy for an organisation to discovery and locate data. Purview even has functionalities relating to data conflicts – such as when information pertains to multiple individuals.
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Control Geolocation of Data
One of the most important regulations to do with data governance is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and one of the key components of this regulation is about ensuring that the data an organisation holds about individuals is stored in a region that has been issued an ‘adequacy decision’ – which simply means the local regulations are deemed to be in line with GDPR standards. The bottom line of this is that businesses need to be able to choose where their data is stored. For on-premise infrastructures, this is less of an issue, but for cloud-based infrastructures, there needs to be a certain degree of control given to the organisation.
Microsoft 365 supports advanced data residency controls, meaning organisations using M365 will usually (dependent on where they are) be able to choose where their data is stored at rest, thus ensuring their remain compliant with regulations.
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Migrate Data to the Cloud
With Microsoft, businesses can easily perform the most highly recommended measure for ensuring data governance and compliance: Migrating their data to the cloud. Organisations that use a leading public cloud service (like Microsoft) can benefit from the billions of dollars’ worth of research and development that goes into the service and platform’s security – this means businesses can access excellent data protection potential.
There are a few different options around cloud migrations with Microsoft. According to TechQuarters, whose work as a SharePoint provider has helped many businesses get their governance and compliance in order, Microsoft SharePoint is an excellent platform for managing company data. Exchange Online – the enterprise email server – also guarantees that emails are backed up with a high degree of protection.
In terms of customer data, Microsoft Azure – the cloud infrastructure platform – protects the data at-rest and in-transit; it also ensures that data is redundantly backed up in case of cyberattacks, and customer data is segregated.
