Backup for Microsoft 365

Although the market perception is shifting, it is still a common misconception to think that Microsoft automatically backs up all your Microsoft 365 data inherently within the cloud service you purchased. Microsoft provides great resiliency and built-in tools for all types of capabilities, but they do not provide a comprehensive backup solution within Microsoft 365 plans. 

There is a Microsoft 365 Shared Responsibility between what is provided within the Cloud Service, and the responsibility of organizations to protect their own Microsoft 365 data. Check out our blog about how Microsoft 365 Shared Responsibility works. 

To back up Microsoft 365 data, it is recommended that you use a third-party backup provider or service. A Microsoft 365 backup vendor will be able to provide simple processes to create backups and provide enough scheduling flexibility to meet any RPOs or RTOs. Backup vendors are also able to provide fast and granular data recovery that comes with advanced search capabilities so administrators can quickly find items to meet their legal and compliance needs. It is also recommended to separate a copy of your data from the source, to ensure you are better protected from an attack.

To back up Microsoft Teams, it’s important to understand how Teams works on the back end. Teams is not a self-contained application, which means it acts as an abstraction layer that brings data together from other applications, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business. It’s important to back up your data from these other sources, but it’s equally important to back up configurations as well (i.e., settings, members, and team structure). For this purpose, you should leverage a third-party backup provider armed with the latest Microsoft APIs to ensure that you can back up not only the data from key sources but the metadata and configurations for comprehensive data protection and efficient recovery.   

Retention for deleted Microsoft 365 data can vary by the application. For instance, an Exchange Online mailbox keeps deleted items for 14 days by default, but this setting can be changed up to 30 days. When using the SharePoint Online application within a browser, items deleted are retained in the Recycle Bin for 93 days from the time of deletion.

When an employee leaves an organization, their Microsoft account can be removed. Their user data will be deleted after 30 days and will no longer be available unless you have that data saved in a backup solution.

It’s worth noting that retention policies can take time to set up correctly, and data loss can and does occur due to human error during retention policy configuration. So, it’s vital to have a backup of Microsoft 365 data as an insurance policy.

All of them! Every user in your organization generates data every day, and most if not all that Microsoft 365 data, will have some value, and your organization will suffer if it is lost. It would be a mistake to not protect all your organization’s data. No matter how large your organization is, Veeam is built to protect Microsoft 365 data at scale. 

To calculate the number of licenses you need for Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 or Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, count the number of users within your Microsoft 365 subscription. You do not need to count the same user more than once across multiple Microsoft 365 services (e.g., the same Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business user = one Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 user).

Here are additional details for each Microsoft 365 service: 

Exchange Online or Exchange On-Premises: A user mailbox can be a personal mailbox, an online archive mailbox or both; you only need one license for that user. Please note that shared and resource mailboxes do not need to be licensed and can be backed up free of charge. 

OneDrive for Business: OneDrive for Business user licenses are automatically aligned with their matching email accounts. This means you cannot use the same license to back up one user’s email and another user’s OneDrive for Business account. Please note that OneDrive (without “for Business”) is a separate storage service and is not supported by this solution.

SharePoint Online or SharePoint On-Premises: Each SharePoint user inside your Microsoft 365 subscription (or on-premises deployment) that has been granted access to the SharePoint sites you are looking to protect needs to be licensed to back up and protect your organization’s SharePoint environment. If you have a hybrid SharePoint deployment (i.e., SharePoint On-Premises and SharePoint Online) and the same user has access to both, only one Veeam license is needed for that user. Please note that external SharePoint users do not need to be licensed. An external SharePoint user is someone from outside your Microsoft 365 subscription to whom you have given access to one or more sites, files or folders. External authenticated users are limited to basic collaboration tasks and external anonymous users can edit or view specific documents when given specific permissions.   

Microsoft Teams: When protecting a team with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 or Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365, you must have a license for each user that is an active team member and who has a paid Teams license in Microsoft 365. 

Microsoft has integrated its backup solution, Microsoft 365 Backup Storage with select backup vendors like Veeam. This partnership offers customers the ability to leverage the speed and scale of Microsoft 365 Backup storage combined with the flexibility and control that Veeam provides. To compare and contrast the features in Microsoft 365 Backup Storage with Veeam’s native capabilities, visit this page.