Data Center

Review: Veeam Backup Protects Critical Office 365 Data

Most businesses store much of their vital data in Office 365 documents, but few have secure and reliable backups.

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John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer and public speaker with 20 years of experience covering technology.

These days, many businesses are using Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint and OneDrive to enable employees to access company information, collaborate and work from anywhere. Most employees need not head into an office anymore because all of the tools and technology they require is available to them in the cloud.

Because of the convenience and resilience of the cloud, many administrators assume that the data they store there is protected. But that is not necessarily true. In the case of Office 365, Microsoft provides replication of data, so when someone at one location makes changes to a file, everyone else can see those changes.

However, there is no actual native backup of the data. If someone deletes a file, accidentally or on purpose, it’s gone.

True backup requires total replication of all data, with the backup ideally stored in a different location or on a different platform. That is exactly what Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 does. Veeam can safely backup all of an organization’s Office 365 documents as well as data from Microsoft Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Microsoft Teams. It works with on-premises, cloud and hybrid deployments.

DISCOVER: Explore ways to backup your organization.

Set Up Is Simple with Veeam Backup

Setup of the Veeam software, which is served through the cloud, is surprisingly easy using a series of drop-down menus. You simply have to define the type of Office 365 deployment you are using, as well as the other supported program data you want to protect. You can have Veeam back up everything, or select specific programs, users and sites that need data backup.

For my testing, I separately configured the backup for documents, libraries and lists, as well as for Office 365 email items and SharePoint sites. I also configured separate rules for OneDrive with Business accounts, files and folders.

Veeam gives administrators a lot of choice regarding how often backups occur. You can trigger backups every week, every day, or even every five minutes. That data can then automatically be stored almost anywhere, including in an Amazon Web Services S3 cloud, with Azure Blob or in an IBM Cloud. You can even send your backup data to an on-premises storage server.

Creating complex and secure backups across an entire business enterprise is not a simple task, but Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 makes it seem that way. It’s as easy a way as I have found to securely protect your organization’s most critical data, regardless of how it’s deployed.

Trust But Verify Data Backups

Setting up Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 was a very easy process. Once that was complete, I let the program gather data from Office 365, SharePoint and OneDrive. I had Veeam automatically move everything to an on-premises server, though I could have also used almost any cloud provider to store the backup data.

But while having data safely backed up and stored is a good thing, many businesses, especially those in heavily regulated environments, also need to prove that their backups are operating correctly, and that protected data has been successfully replicated. Veeam makes that relatively painless using its auditing tools.

The main program used to verify backups within the platform is called Veeam Explorer. Using it is as simple as operating a web browser. It can show everything that the backup software is doing, and everything that has been backed up and protected.

Veeam Explorer makes backup data fully searchable, from a high level all the way down to individual accounts. If you need to prove that a specific email has been retained to comply with regulations, it can be done using the search tools.

Auditors or company officials can also use the tools to confirm that their long-term retention policies are working and in compliance with all regulatory requirements. You can get as granular with the inspection as needed or use the eDiscovery tools to make sure that there are no holes in your backup strategy.

Veeam Makes Data Restoration a Snap

Restoring data using the Veeam platform is almost as easy as setting it up. To test this, I wiped out an entire user email account and then had Veeam restore everything that was there previously. It was able to do that in less than a minute.

I also tested restoring individual files and folders and overwriting existing files with their backups. It was all seamless using the Veeam tools.

Creating backups, especially those that comply with stringent government regulations, is not always an easy task. Veeam not only does that, but makes it simple to verify the contents of backups and restore anything that is lost, corrupted or deleted.

No business that uses Office 365 should be without an advanced backup software tool like Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365.

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