From Classroom to Cloud: The Case for Backing Up Education’s Most Critical Data

From admissions to graduation, education runs on data - here’s why protecting it across every cloud platform is essential.

In today’s education sector, data is every bit as essential as classrooms, labs, and lecture theatres. Admissions. Class registration. Learning management systems. Student records. Faculty collaboration. Research projects.

Every part of the academic journey now runs through cloud platforms like Salesforce Education Cloud, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Entra ID, Okta, and increasingly Microsoft Power Platform, Dynamics 365, and Zendesk. These systems have transformed how schools, TAFEs, and universities operate - enabling personalised learning, instant collaboration, and streamlined administration.

But there’s a catch: no cloud provider automatically protects your data from every risk.

From accidental deletion to malicious insiders, ransomware to misconfigurations, the threats are constant. In education, downtime or data loss isn’t just an IT problem - it disrupts learning, stalls admissions, damages research, and can even jeopardise compliance with strict Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), state archive mandates, and funding requirements.

This is why an independent, immutable backup and recovery strategy is no longer optional. It’s now one of the most critical components of educational resilience - ensuring that every dataset, across every platform, is safe, compliant, and recoverable when the unexpected happens.

And the unexpected does happen. Every day.

The Shared Responsibility Model in Education

The SaaS Shared Responsibility Model makes it clear - your provider secures the infrastructure and uptime, but protecting, recovering, and ensuring compliance for your data is on you.

Every school, TAFE, and university running cloud platforms operates under the SaaS Shared Responsibility Model - even if they’ve never heard of it.

Your provider secures the platform. You secure the data.

Cloud vendors like Salesforce, Google, Okta, and Microsoft are responsible for the security of their infrastructure: servers, networking, uptime, and disaster recovery for their service.

But they’re not responsible for protecting you from accidental deletion, malicious insiders, ransomware, or configuration mistakes that affect your own data. That responsibility sits squarely with your institution.

Here’s what that means in real life:

• Salesforce won’t stop an admissions officer from overwriting thousands of student records during a bulk data load.

• Google Workspace can’t restore a deleted student portfolio after the 30-day trash window.

• Microsoft 365 won’t rescue your Teams chats or SharePoint permissions from a faulty sync.

• Entra ID can’t roll back a misconfigured identity policy that locks staff and students out of critical systems.

• Okta won’t recover a deleted group, broken attribute mapping, or security policy that blocks access to your LMS or HR systems.

• Power Platform won’t restore a corrupted Power App faculty built to manage research projects.

• Dynamics 365 can’t roll back overwritten donor or alumni records after a failed import.

• Zendesk won’t retrieve lost student support tickets after an API integration glitch.

  
  

If it’s on your side of the shared responsibility line, you’re on the hook, whether the cause was human error, a bad update, a cyberattack, or a third-party integration gone wrong.

For education, that means one preventable incident can cascade across multiple platforms, halting admissions, cutting off communications, delaying grading, and damaging your institution’s reputation.

The solution? An independent backup and recovery platform that protects every system you depend on, with the ability to restore fast - before disruption becomes disaster.

When the Unexpected Hits: Real Incidents, Real Impact on Education

Ransomware doesn’t just lock up files - it can shut the school gates and stop learning in its tracks.

Data loss in education doesn’t just come from cybercriminals. It can be a flawed update, a cloud outage, or a single misconfiguration - and the effect can be just as devastating as a ransomware attack.

Below are real-world events that show how quickly normal operations can collapse, and why independent, immutable backups are the only true safety net.

🎓 Ransomware That Ends Institutions

• Lincoln College, Illinois (2022) - After 157 years, the college closed permanently following a ransomware attack that froze admissions, recruitment, and fundraising systems for months. No new enrolments meant no path to recovery.

• Newcastle Grammar School, NSW (2020) - Ransomware crippled systems for over 900 students, leaked sensitive data, and came with a $1 million ransom demand. Recovery took months and diverted budget away from teaching.

⏳ Critical Data Lost Forever

• NHS Trust, UK (2022) - 150,000+ patient records were lost when emails aged beyond Microsoft 365’s retention window. Swap “patient” for “student” and the outcome is identical: permanent loss of vital records.

💻 Updates Gone Wrong

• CrowdStrike Update Meltdown (July 2024) - A faulty security update bricked 8.5 million Windows systems worldwide. For universities, this meant locked-out faculty, suspended classes, inaccessible LMS platforms, and frozen admissions.

• Microsoft MFA Outage (2019) - A misconfiguration in Azure Active Directory caused a global MFA failure, locking millions of M365 users out for hours — leaving educators cut off from grading systems, resources, and students.

🌐 Cloud Outages That Freeze Operations

• Salesforce Global Outages (Oct & Nov 2024) - Two separate events halted Salesforce access worldwide, pausing admissions, donor relations, and critical reporting.

• Heroku / Salesforce Cloud Outage (June 2025) - Multi-hour failure blocked authentication, deployments, and data syncs - leaving IT teams unable to maintain student portals or research tools.

• Microsoft Exchange & Teams Lockout (2023) - Faculty lost access to email and Teams mid-term, cancelling online lectures and halting admin coordination.

🔑 Identity & Access Meltdowns

• Entra ID Compromise – Adesys Incident - A single compromised admin account triggered 1,800+ unauthorised changes across multiple tenants, potentially locking out entire universities for days.

• Okta Policy Misconfiguration (2025) - A routine update misapplied an identity policy, blocking thousands of students and staff from LMS, HR, and collaboration tools. Without configuration backups, recovery took days.

🛠 Supply Chain & Malware Attacks

• SolarWinds Attack (2020) - Malicious updates gave attackers months of access, with potential sabotage of backup systems themselves.

• NotPetya Outbreak (2017) - A ransomware worm destroyed data at major organisations. If backups are connected to compromised systems, they can be wiped too.

Lesson: Every one of these incidents had a single point in common - once the damage was done, the only way to recover was from clean, independent, immutable backups. In education, that difference isn’t just between a fast recovery and a slow one. It’s between continuity and collapse.

Why Backup Across All Platforms is Critical for Educational Institutions

Every platform matters. From student records to collaboration tools, independent backup ensures nothing in your education ecosystem is left unprotected.

Education no longer runs on a single system. Admissions, teaching, research, and campus operations rely on a complex ecosystem of SaaS platforms - each one critical in its own right.

But most institutions still protect one or two systems and leave the rest exposed. That’s like locking the front door while every window is wide open.

📌 The Cross-Platform Reality of Modern Education

A typical institution’s digital ecosystem might look like this:

• CRM & Admissions - Salesforce or Dynamics 365 manage prospective student data, alumni engagement, and donor relations.

• Collaboration & Content - Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace handle email, lecture materials, research documents, and group projects.

• Identity & Access - Entra ID and Okta control authentication and access to every other platform.

• Low-Code Innovation - Microsoft Power Platform supports custom learning tools, workflow automations, and analytics dashboards.

• Student Support - Zendesk powers helpdesk and case management for IT, academic, and welfare services.

Every one of these is a mission-critical system - and losing any one of them can stall your institution.

📅 The Peak-Season Scenario

Imagine it’s peak admissions season:

• Applications are stored in Salesforce.

• Recommendation letters live in Google Drive.

• Interview schedules sit in Outlook.

• Identity authentication runs through Entra ID.

• Applicant support tickets are logged in Zendesk.

Then a single misconfigured integration wipes a dataset. Suddenly:

• Applications can’t be matched to transcripts.

• Faculty are locked out of grading portals.

• Students can’t access their email or LMS.

• The helpdesk is blind to open requests.

Admissions grind to a halt. Funding deadlines are missed. The start of term is in jeopardy.

Meet Australian Compliance and Funding Requirements - Without Paying for Unused Licences

Keep records as long as required - without paying for inactive licences.

In Australia, educational institutions face a web of compliance obligations - from state and federal privacy laws to sector-specific funding rules and archival mandates.These requirements don’t go away when a student graduates, a project ends, or a staff member leaves.

📜 Key Regulatory Pressures

• Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) - Mandate secure retention of personal data for the legally required period, followed by safe disposal.

• State Archives Legislation - For example:

  • NSW requires schools to keep student assessment records for at least 25 years.

  • Victoria mandates retention of enrolment records for 7 years after the student leaves.

• University & Research Funding Bodies - May require retention of research datasets for up to 15 years post-project to satisfy grant conditions and reproducibility requirements.

Failing to meet these standards risks funding loss, legal penalties, and reputational damage that can directly affect enrolments.

💡 The Cost Trap

Most cloud platforms tie long-term retention to an active licence:

• Need to keep a graduate’s Microsoft 365 email for 7 years? You pay for a licence every month.

• Have 5,000 former students whose Google Drive content must be retained? That’s 5,000 ongoing licences.

For large universities and school systems, this adds up to six-figure annual costs just to comply with retention rules.

✅ How Keepit Solves This

With Keepit, you can:

• Prove compliance instantly - Produce historical records from Salesforce, Dynamics 365, or Power BI during an audit in seconds.

• Retain inactive accounts at no cost - Store M365, Google Workspace, and Zendesk data for the mandated period without paying for the backup seat licence. And retire the M365 license for example

• Secure all records - Maintain unalterable, compliance-ready archives for decades if required by state or federal mandates.

• Eliminate the risk of gaps - Ensure every dataset, from student emails to research data, remains complete and retrievable.

The result?

Full compliance, complete protection, and significant cost savings - without compromise on resilience or recoverability.

Enable Safe Innovation and Power AI Insights - Without Risk

Backups protect live systems so innovation doesn’t put student services at risk.

Universities and schools are constant incubators for innovation. From new enrolment systems and AI-driven student advising to integrated learning platforms and self-service portals, fresh ideas are rolled out and refined every year.

Behind the scenes, IT and faculty teams are continually experimenting - testing new features, integrating third-party tools, and creating custom apps to improve the student and staff experience:

• In Salesforce, IT might trial a new workflow to streamline admissions or automate student communications.

• In Power Apps, a faculty member could design a custom attendance tracker for large lecture halls.

• In Dynamics 365, admissions teams may pilot donor engagement automation to boost fundraising efficiency.

  
  

But every innovation carries risk. A single misconfigured field mapping, faulty data import, or overlooked API change can overwrite or corrupt production data. One small error in a sandbox push can cascade into broken integrations, missing records, and downtime for critical student services. In education, that can mean stalled enrolments, inaccessible course materials, or delayed exam results.

At the same time, AI and advanced analytics are transforming education - predicting at-risk students, personalising learning pathways, optimising timetables, improving campus operations, and even forecasting enrolment trends years in advance.

The challenge? AI models are only as good as the data feeding them. If key historical records are missing, corrupted, or incomplete - whether through accidental deletion, ransomware, or a system outage - the insights you generate will be flawed, biased, or unusable.

With a truly independent, immutable backup and recovery solution, you can:

• Restore known-good datasets into test environments or roll back production in minutes after a failed change.

• Train AI models on years of clean, rich datasets from Salesforce, Dynamics 365, Power BI, Microsoft 365, and Google Workspace.

• Run longitudinal studies tracking student performance and engagement over time without gaps or anomalies.

• Support regulatory reporting with compliance-ready datasets.

• Accelerate research by giving faculty instant access to point-in-time historical records without weeks of manual reconstruction.

  
  

The result: Innovation doesn’t have to come at the cost of stability, and AI insights don’t have to be limited by incomplete data. The right backup strategy lets you push boundaries in teaching, research, and operations - knowing your single source of truth is protected, recoverable, and ready to power whatever’s next.

In short, backups don’t just protect your operations today - they preserve the historical context your AI needs to innovate, predict, and improve outcomes tomorrow

Strengthen Cybersecurity and Ransomware Resilience

Ransomware can lock systems, but immutable, independent backups keep learning and operations running.

From small K–12 schools to Australia’s largest universities, the education sector has become a prime target for ransomware. Attackers know these institutions often operate with lean IT budgets yet face immovable, high-pressure deadlines - end-of-term grading, major exam periods, and peak admissions seasons.

One well-timed attack can:

• Derail enrolments during the busiest intake period.

• Delay exam results and prevent final grades from being published.

• Lock faculty and students out of vital learning materials.

• Damage an institution’s reputation and jeopardise funding.

When ransomware strikes, there’s no time to negotiate - and no guarantee you’ll get your data back even if you pay. The only real safety net is a backup strategy built for resilience, combining:

• Immutable storage that can’t be altered or deleted - even by an administrator account.

• Air-gapped copies kept completely isolated from production systems and attacker access.

With this in place, you can recover clean, uninfected datasets across your entire environment, from:

• Salesforce student records and admissions data.

• Google Drive faculty files, lesson plans, and research papers.

• Microsoft 365 email, Teams chats, SharePoint sites, and OneDrive files.

• Entra ID identity configurations and security policies.

• Dynamics 365 donor and alumni engagement histories.

• Zendesk student support and IT helpdesk tickets.

All restored without paying a cent in ransom - and without weeks of disruption.

Ransomware might lock your doors. The right backup ensures learning never stops.

Platform Coverage: Protecting All Corners of Campus Data

Educational institutions don’t run on a single system anymore. From admissions and teaching to research and campus operations, every function depends on a complex ecosystem of SaaS platforms - each mission-critical in its own right.

Protecting just one is like locking the front door while leaving every window wide open.

A truly independent, immutable backup strategy ensures every dataset, across every platform, can be restored in minutes - not weeks. That means:

• Enrolments stay on track even if Salesforce or Dynamics 365 goes down.

• Lessons continue even if Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace is hit.

• Access is restored instantly if Entra ID or Okta settings are corrupted.

• Innovation can continue safely in Power Platform without risking production data.

• Student services remain available because Zendesk histories are preserved.

What Full Coverage Looks Like in Education

Platform	Data Types Covered by Keepit	Special Notes for Education
Salesforce	Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Cases, Custom Objects, Attachments, Files, Chatter, Knowledge Articles	Protects CRM data for admissions, alumni, and donor management; point-in-time recovery for accidental or malicious changes.
Dynamics 365	Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Activities, Cases, Custom Entities, Attachments, Files	Secures student relationship and engagement data; supports compliance with state archive requirements.
Google Workspace	Gmail, Google Drive (My Drive & Shared Drives), Google Calendar, Google Contacts, Google Sites, Google Classroom, Google Keep	Covers all collaboration tools used for teaching, learning, and admin; includes retention for inactive accounts without licence cost.
Microsoft 365	Exchange Online (Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks), OneDrive, SharePoint, Microsoft Teams (Chats, Channels, Files), Groups, Planner, Public Folders	Full coverage of communication, collaboration, and storage; long-term retention for former students and staff without M365 licence.
Entra ID	Users, Groups, Roles, Conditional Access Policies, Application Registrations, Device Configurations, Directory Settings, MFA Configurations	Rapid restore of identity configurations after misconfiguration or breach; critical for campus-wide access continuity.
Okta	Users, Groups, Authenticators, Identity Providers, Attribute Mappings, Organization, Administration, Security Policies, Network Zones, Applications, API Service Integrations, Customizations	Protects identity and access settings for institutions using Okta SSO; prevents lockouts, supports rapid recovery, ensures compliance with governance requirements.
Microsoft Power Platform	Power Apps (Canvas & Model-Driven), Power Automate Flows, Power BI Dashboards & Reports, Dataverse Tables & Data	Protects low-code app structures and data; enables rollback of failed updates or experiments without disruption.
Zendesk	Tickets, Ticket Comments, Attachments, User Profiles, Macros, Groups, Organizations, SLA Configurations	Safeguards student support and IT helpdesk histories; ensures service continuity and compliance for case tracking.

With full coverage across every platform, you can meet compliance requirements, control costs, and guarantee operational continuity - so your institution can focus on what matters most: educating the next generation without fear of data loss, downtime, or compromise.

Keepit’s Architecture for Education Resilience

Keepit’s independent architecture stores tamper-proof backups outside Microsoft, Google, AWS, and Salesforce - ensuring every education SaaS platform is protected, compliant, and instantly recoverable.

Keepit’s independent architecture stores tamper-proof backups outside Microsoft, Google, AWS, and Salesforce - ensuring every education SaaS platform is protected, compliant, and instantly recoverable.

The risks are clear. The platforms to protect are many. The question is: how do you back them all up without adding complexity, cost, or reliance on the very vendors you’re protecting?

Keepit’s architecture is purpose-built for independent, immutable, instantly recoverable SaaS backup:

• Vendor-independent cloud - backups stored outside Microsoft, Google, AWS, or Salesforce infrastructure.

• Blockchain-protected immutability - tamper-proof, verified, and safe from insider threats.

• Twice-daily automated backups - continuous protection without manual intervention.

• Granular restore - recover down to a single email, Drive file, Teams chat, or identity policy.

• Role-based access control - only authorised personnel can restore data.

• Unlimited retention - keep former student/staff data for as long as required without licence costs.

• Compliance-ready - meets Australian Privacy Principles (APPs), state archive mandates, and audit requirements with transparent reporting.

With Keepit, every piece of your institution’s critical data - from admissions records to learning content, identity configurations, donor histories, and support tickets - is secure, independent, and instantly recoverable.

Closing Thoughts: Education Data Resilience Without Compromise

When it comes to protecting learning, funding, and reputation, resilience only works when it’s independent.

That means not just protecting against accidental deletion, ransomware, or misconfiguration - but also ensuring your backups remain sovereign and outside the reach of foreign jurisdictional claims like the U.S. CLOUD Act, which can compel data disclosure from providers operating on U.S.-controlled infrastructure.

By storing backups on an independent cloud platform outside Microsoft, Google, AWS, or Salesforce, Keepit helps Australian institutions:

• Avoid unnecessary exposure to overseas legal demands.

• Meet Australian Privacy Principles and state archive retention mandates.

• Keep critical student, staff, and research data accessible, compliant, and under your control.

And for the education sector, there’s another advantage: Keepit offers exceptional education pricing, making enterprise-grade protection affordable for schools, TAFEs, and universities of all sizes.

You already invest in student learning, staff development, and digital transformation. Now’s the time to secure the data that underpins it all - without compromise, without excessive cost, and without depending on the same vendors you’re trying to protect against.

💬 Ready to see how it works for your institution?

Let’s set up a no-obligation pilot using your own environment, so you can see the difference for yourself - without cost or commitment.

https://fullbackup.com.au/demo-and-pilot