Own Data targets SaaS backup and offers analytics insight

Cloud-based SaaS applications don’t have backup built-in, so third-party products have to fill that gap. Also, customers often never really gain the full benefit of information locked into software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that could provide insights of value to the customer.

That’s the view of Own Data, which provides backup and restore – with very fine levels of granularity, down to fields within a file – plus value-add analytics for data created in SaaS applications.

Own’s mission, according to its director of marketing intelligence Graham Russell, is to protect mission-critical data in SaaS applications, which often present limitations and challenges, while also adding value by giving enhanced access to SaaS data.

Own is one of a number of SaaS – or cloud-to-cloud backup – products and services that have arisen to fill the gap left by cloud providers not offering real backup natively for SaaS apps.

Own claims 6,700 customers, and offers backup, restore and some value-added analytics capabilities in Salesforce.com, ServiceNow, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Applications.

“Backup and recovery in SaaS is on a shared responsibility model,” said Russell. “The SaaS provider looks after the network and provides certain levels of availability, while the customer has the responsibility to protect data on the platform.

“Data loss and corruption is common in SaaS platforms, which can be the result of user error, bad code and corruption, or cyber attack,” said Russell, “with very significant effects on customer service, employee satisfaction, etc.

“So, what’s needed is to back up SaaS data, alert the customer to changes and restore effectively without having to restore everything – just what’s required, like the 50 corrupted fields, for example.”

“Backup and recovery in SaaS is on a shared responsibility model. The SaaS provider looks after the network and provides certain levels of availability, while the customer has the responsibility to protect data on the platform”