Microsoft 365 Backup & Archive

Some of the reasons you need to back up Microsoft 365 data include:

• Accidental data deletion: Data loss can happen by accident due to human error or technology failure.
• External security threats: Cyberattacks happen more frequently than ever, with malware, SQL injections, phishing, and zero-day exploits being the most serious.
• Internal security threats: Malicious insider actions may happen from a bribed or terminated employee.
• Compliance and legal requirements: Sometimes, you're required to retrieve files last accessed months ago for legal or compliance purposes. Without a backup, there's no guarantee that these files weren't permanently deleted, even by accident.
• Teams data structure: Since Teams is often used as a central hub for M365 data from other apps like SharePoint and OneDrive, protecting Teams data is important.
• Managing hybrid email deployments and migrations: M365 backup solutions can make managing hybrid email deployments easier while also treating exchange data the same.

The Office 365 Shared Responsibility Model states that it's the IT organization's responsibility to protect and control its data, regardless of whether they use Microsoft's SaaS applications.

On the other hand, Microsoft's responsibility is limited to maintaining its global infrastructure and increasing uptime for its services to keep the customers satisfied. It doesn't have any native backup options.

Based on that, Microsoft recommends customer organizations that use the M365 suite adopt a 3rd party backup solution to be able to restore data in case of accidental data loss or cyberattacks.

When it comes to M365 security, both Microsoft and the customer share responsibility for data security.

Microsoft’s security responsibilities are limited to:

• Securing the physical data centers
• Protecting the identification and authentication of its cloud services, and
• Securing the admin and user controls in Office 365.

On the other hand, the end user organization is responsible for the protection of its data from ransomware, accidental data deletion, and other threats. This is only possible with a 3rd party solution like Probax Microsoft 365 Backup & Archive powered by Veeam and AWS.

Microsoft's data retention policy is used to protect Office 365 data from being permanently deleted. These include emails, documents, and files.

Retention policies can be applied with retention labels that enable users to customize retention settings for individual documents, folders, emails, and files.

You can store M365 on local on-prem storage or0 object storage cloud solutions such as Wasabi, AWS S3, Azure Blob, IBM Cloud, and other S3-compatible providers.

Another practical alternative is to create backups of your M365 and store them on budget-friendly, long-term storage solutions like Azure Archive and Amazon S3 Glacier.

With Probax, we make storage easy for you with AWS S3 solutions.

Yes, you can back up Teams data with Microsoft 365 Backup & Archive. However, you must familiarize yourself with how Teams work first. 

Teams is actually not a self-contained app; it’s basically an abstraction layer that combines data from other M365 apps, such as OneDrive and Exchange Online, in one place.

So why is it important to back up Teams data? Can’t you just back up the data of the other apps? Well, while backing up Exchange data, SharePoint Online data, and OneDrive data will protect the data associated with those apps, you’ll lose all the members, settings, team structure, or other configurations you’ve set up in Teams.

Not every M365 backup tool is capable of creating backups for Teams data. The backup provider must have access to the latest Microsoft APIs, and that's one of the reasons Veeam’s M365 backup solutions deliver more value than other providers in the market. 

The APIs allow you to back up all the files of your M365 app from their sources as well as the configurations and metadata in applications like Teams, providing you with a well-rounded backup and recovery solution.

Yes, third-party SharePoint backup services can help you backup and restore SharePoint data. This includes protecting your SharePoint admin center documents and library lists, as well as SharePoint sites and all your SharePoint data.

Microsoft incorporates built-in data replicas in its M365 products, which basically replicate data from one data center to the other. This feature can be useful in case one of Microsoft's data centers is down for some reason. So, instead of losing your data or being unable to access it, the replica will help you continue your operations normally. 

However, it’s important that you don’t confuse replication with backups. You should also keep in mind that you don’t actually “own” the replica, Microsoft does. In other words, you don’t have any control over the replication process.

That's why Probax Microsoft 365 Backup & Archive is so important.

While a replica continuously replicates data to another location to get rid of application downtime, it’s not the best way to protect your data. This is because deleted or broken files will also be deleted or broken in the replica, meaning you won’t be able to recover permanently deleted data.

For maximum protection, it’s recommended that you implement both backups and replicas in your strategy. Replicas are already built into your M365 system, but you’ll only get the benefits of M365 backups with a third-party solution.

Probax Microsoft 365 Backup & Archive powered by Veeam and AWS provides the best level of protection and built-in tools `you can get for your backed-up data, with a short Recovery Time Objective (RTO) and Recovery Point Objective (RPO).

Yes, Probax Microsoft 365 Backup & Archive is a turn-key, standalone solution that bundles Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and AWS storage costs into a fixed monthly cost per user. All configuration and management of Microsoft 365 data is performed in our multi-tenant customer portal, Probax Hive.