Beyond Microsoft’s clear position on data, “it’s your data”, it makes more sense to protect Microsoft Office 365 than potentially any other SaaS platform. Office 365 has on-premises versions, so when IT recovers data on-premises the organization can actually operate on that data.
IT professionals empowered with Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 version 2 can backup Office 365 data back on-premises or to an alternate cloud location. Veeam Backup for Office 365 enables backup of its data as often as every five minutes and stores those backups in Microsoft’s native Jet Blue database. Microsoft bases the achievable Jet Blue database on its Extensible Storage Engine (ESE).
Veeam Backup for Office 365 stores backups in any location the organization chooses. One option is Microsoft Azure itself but IT planners may want to consider storing Office 365 data on-premises or in an alternate cloud provider like KeepItSafe. Protecting data on-premises means the organization continues to invest or reinvest in on-premises backup infrastructure. On-premises backup may sidetrack organizations looking to move more of their infrastructure to the cloud.
Leveraging an alternate provider, like KeepItSafe, enables the organization to continue its march to the cloud. In particular, KeepItSafe provides value added services like cloud recovery, long term vaulting, and regulatory compliance.
Using a cloud provider like KeepItSafe makes sense for long-term storage of backup data. Azure, charges a premium for its storage, whereas KeepItSafe focuses on data protection and data management, while offering more aggressive pricing.
Veeam Backup for Office 365 works with KeepItSafe to provide flexible, direct from cloud recoveries. Providers like KeepItSafe also use PowerShell and the RESTful API to add more functionality, and provide self-service backup and restore capabilities.
Savvy IT professionals are taught to backup Office 365 in case a recovery or disaster recovery situation arises. A key capability is Veeam’s ability to recover data at very granular levels. It can recover SharePoint slide libraries, documents, libraries and lists.
The Veeam Backup for Office 365 provides complete recovery for Office 365 email too. It supports direct restoration of mailbox items to an on-premises Exchange mailbox. The restoration process can also store mailbox items to a file or export them to a PST file.
It can also provide granular recovery of OneDrive for Business, something at which Microsoft is particularly weak. Veeam for Office 365 can also recover accounts, files and folders. The built-in Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive for business provides a simple interface for backup administrators, who can perform all these recoveries with a few clicks.
The demand for organizations to meet compliance and data privacy laws continues to increase. Backup copies of data are particularly challenging. Veeam Backup for Office 365 uses the familiar advanced search, recovery and export option to perform eDiscovery on Office 365 archives.
KeepItSafe is an ideal destination for Office 365 backups. It not only reduces the organization’s need to reinvest in on-premises infrastructure, it can deliver full disaster recovery of the Office 365 environment. An organization using Office 365 for a few years may no longer have on-premises Exchange, SharePoint or even file servers. In the case of a disaster or an organization exiting the Office 365 cloud, KeepItSafe can instantiate the servers required to host those applications until it can create an on-premises set of systems.
Most organizations currently live in a hybrid cloud adoption model. Office 365 represents a popular first move to the cloud for many organizations but of course, much of their applications remain on-premises. Hybrid cloud adoption creates challenges for data protection, most noticeably how and where to store all the protected data.
A cloud provider like KeepItSafe enables organizations to store both on-premises and cloud-based data in a centralized location. It also provides a central location from which to execute recovery from both data center and cloud application disasters.
Conclusion
Microsoft makes is clear that protecting Office 365 data is the responsibility of its users. Office 365 is not a matter of IF but HOW best to protect that data. There are several key requirements IT needs to look for; real backups, eliminating backup silos, multiple backup storage locations, easy recovery and full support of OneDrive. Veeam and KeepItSafe as a team meet and exceed all of those requirements and deliver complete data protection for the hybrid data center.
Sponsored by KeepItSafe
George Crump is the Chief Marketing Officer at VergeIO, the leader in Ultraconverged Infrastructure. Prior to VergeIO he was Chief Product Strategist at StorONE. Before assuming roles with innovative technology vendors, George spent almost 14 years as the founder and lead analyst at Storage Switzerland. In his spare time, he continues to write blogs on Storage Switzerland to educate IT professionals on all aspects of data center storage. He is the primary contributor to Storage Switzerland and is a heavily sought-after public speaker. With over 30 years of experience designing storage solutions for data centers across the US, he has seen the birth of such technologies as RAID, NAS, SAN, Virtualization, Cloud, and Enterprise Flash. Before founding Storage Switzerland, he was CTO at one of the nation's largest storage integrators, where he was in charge of technology testing, integration, and product selection.
StorageSwiss.com - The Home of Storage Switzerland 