Started this question a while back on Yammer. What tools do you use to back-up mail and files stored in Office 365? The fact that your files are back-upped inside and outside the datacenters of Microsoft only protects you against hardware and software failures on Microsofts side. It will not protect you against accidentally deleted files and mails, which is discovered after 30+ days or after the site trashbins have been emptied. At least that's what I think. Anyone has an answer? My customers are typically small companies, under 10 users. Sometimes even just 1 to 3. I use de SkyKick Back-up tools in my own O365 tenant. Which was an offer in the Microsoft Partner Mail recently.

There is not a good story around this at present. Most tools are extensions from the on-prem counterpart. So you can find good SharePoint backups, but mail is usually non-existent, or not that flexible, and vice versa. Further with the integration, you have complications of some data, in regards to how to restore it (o365 Groups, Planner, etc). Beyond SharePoint and Exchange, you have stuff like data in Azure AD, Yammer, O365 Video, and PowerBI which as far as I know are not addressed by any product at present. Most if not all of them fall short in terms of eDiscovery as well. You also have to consider how the backup products keep up with changes to the service as Microsoft updates API's or adds services that complicate the backup and restore processes. Based on the size of your customers, I find it hard that you are able to sell an additional service at all. The value prop is almost non-existant. The native tools you have can protect against accidental deletion in most cases. If they are having issues with people manually cleaning up recoverable items folders, or SharePoint recycle bins, there is a larger issue at play as that is willfully circumventing the tools meant to protect from these scenarios. You can leverage the legal hold features if their tenant supports them to provide an additional layer or protection as well. I would not do this on every SharePoint site, but with high value content, you could do that and documents are copied into a hidden library. You are not without "Backups" entirely when relying on Microsoft. SharePoint is backed up every 12 hours and data kept for 14 days. You don't get item level restores, but you can request a site collection be restored. For Exchange, it can be scary to think Microsoft does not use backups, but they do keep lagged copies, so that in the event of an issue, they can swap your databases to a time previous when an issue was detected. You can't request this change directly, but it's there. The real benefit of a 3rd party, is in the peace of mind it gives some people. But in almost all cases just a little education up front can avoid most of this complication. Let's face it whether it's Microsoft, Google, Amazon or any other cloud service, you have to trust them with your data and that their processes and systems will protect you from data loss. I find Microsoft services to be very reliable, and I generally feel more confident about the data there than I do in a lot of customers local SharePoint deployments.

Don't bother, unless you want a solution that is able to recover individual files. Most if not all of the current backup solutions don't deal well with Office 365 applications. https://www.itunity.com/article/no-good-answers-office-365-backups-3513

Well, thank you for your marketing text on behalf of Veeam... Seriously, posting stuff like this in a technical community is pretty worthless. If you have real-life experience of running this technology in a production environment, then it would be good to hear of those experiences... but to go through a bland recital of Veeam PR (including references to "on-premise") doesn't create a convincing case.

By the way, the advent of Microsoft Teams has increased the complexity of the challenge of backup for Office 365. The items created in teams now have to be backed up and then reassembled if required. Teams joins Groups, Planner, Office 365 Video, et al. as examples of applications that exist inside Office 365 that don't on-premises, meaning that on-premises backup tools that attempt to expand into the cloud struggle to cope with the full breadth of Office 365. The net is that current backup products are capable of copying basic data (Exchange, SharePoint) but struggle with the newer parts of Office 365. This might be sufficient for your needs, but I suspect that things will become more complex over time as Microsoft develops more applications to leverage the unique capabilities of Office 365. Backup vendors - if you have a product that can truly backup the entire data for an enterprise tenant from Exchange to SharePoint to Yammer and the applications cited above to Sway - and is capable of restoring all the data in such a way that the applications work (or at least, sense can be made of the restored data), then I am happy to learn and write about the product. I have been looking for years... and although I see offerings, I don't see point solutions rather an a service-wide answer. Maybe I have been looking in the wrong place?

Right, anyone can make a recommendation - but when you work for a vendor and you make an explicit recommendation that someone should purchase your product, it is good manners to advertise that fact. If you don't, then the recommendation is automatically suspect because you're simply hyping software in the hope of a sale.

Back-up tools for Office 365 | Microsoft Community Hub

RDeMeno
Copper Contributor
Jan 11, 2019
Commvault supports backing up /managing O365 and enabling O365 content to be searched for E-Discovery along with other Azure, cloud and on-premise data enabling O365 content to be part of a heterogeneous, enterprise-wide, storage-agnostic E-Discovery/Search solution.

Often times we will also leverage our Azure integration as a storage depot and compute engine as part of the solution. Happy to discuss more.

https://www.commvault.com/partners/microsoft/office-365-backup
Nicole McGlenn
Copper Contributor
Oct 20, 2018
Backup Office 365 email to PST with AES 256-bit encryption using EdbMails Office 365 Backup Software (third party link removed by moderator)

try this above tool. It is user-friendly tool with good GUI and It has lot of features. you can also try to migrate your files to Office 365 and Live Exchange Server without any interruption.
- TonyRedmond
  MVP
  Oct 20, 2018
  Anyone who backs up Office 365 email to PSTs without some good reason (like the need to provide copies of messages for legal discovery) needs to have their head examined. If you insist on backing up Exchange Online, use a cloud service - don't put your backups into one of the most fragile and easily cracked file formats on the planet. Learn from companies like Sony, who suffered huge reputational loss when hackers penetrated their systems and recovered tons of sensitive email from PSTs...
Pankaj Dohre
Copper Contributor
Sep 25, 2018
There are many tools available to Export Office 365 Mailbox data into PST format. So here I am suggesting you the MailsDaddy Office 365 Backup Tool for creating the backup of Office 365 Exchange Online Mailbox data like emails, contacts, calendars, appointments, and attachments etc. into PST or other required formats like MBOX, MSG, and EML etc. With this application, you can easily Export multiple O365 Mailboxes into PST or other required formats.

Thanks
- TonyRedmond
  MVP
  Sep 25, 2018
  Backing up to PST files is not a backup solution for Office 365. Anyone who thinks this way needs to reconsider the meaning of backup. Transferring data from a secure, online, protected environment that's designed to encourage compliance and offer super uptime to an insecure, unprotected, and fallible file on someone's personal workstation is an act of utter folly.
  - Rylan King
    Copper Contributor
    Sep 26, 2018
    Thanks, for explaining taking backup in PST file format is a bad idea. What if we backup Office 365 emails in EML file format i.e. a single email message extension??
Christine Payton
Copper Contributor
Jul 18, 2018
Since this conversation appears to still be ongoing, it's worth noting that AvePoint has a new product (I think called Cloud Backup? something like that) that does backup of Groups, mail, SharePoint, and OneDrive. Almost no assembly required, priced per GB storage. It ended up being cheaper for us than their previous tool when we went with one-year retention (they have an unlimited retention option, but it is really pricey).
Morgan Hurkett
Copper Contributor
Apr 10, 2018
We have been using Barracuda Essentials for a while since it also office Email Archive and a range of email scanning options.
That being said, we keep getting told by them that there is a delay in backups of new SPO Team Sites that have the Group#0 template due to Microsoft API not being updated yet. Has anyone else been experiencing this issues with new SPO team sites?
- TonyRedmond
  MVP
  Apr 10, 2018
  The Group#0 template has been around since November 2014. Sounds like Barracuda isn't doing such a great job at keeping up with Office 365. But how would a template affect their ability to backup documents from a site?
  - Morgan Hurkett
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 12, 2018
    From what their dev team have told me, it is due to the new Team setup with an O365 Group and the template in use. my exact response was the same as you, I don't see why the web template is effecting the backup capabilities but that was the reason I was given.
    
    From your experience, is there any application out there that would offer an all in one backup solution to include OD4B, SPO and Exchange online?
Frank Daske
Iron Contributor
Apr 09, 2018
Our customers are using the Layer2 Cloud Connector to backup their SharePoint libraries to a local NAS file share or to their own Azure cloud. While it is originally thought for two-way synchronization of pre-selected structured data and files / documents from 100+ IT systems with Office 365, it could also be used for backup (as a one-way sync) driven by flexible PowerShell scripting.
- TonyRedmond
  MVP
  Apr 09, 2018
  And that's just wonderful to be able to backup SharePoint libraries... But... given that the recent explosion of SharePoint usage within Office 365 is driven by Teams and Office 365 Groups, isn't backing up just one type of data from these unified repositories an imperfect solution?
  
  The point I am making is that solutions like this are based on old-style on-premises thinking and utterly fail to take account of the new world that exists within Office 365. It's great to back up one piece of data, until a problem happens and you discover that all the surrounding context is unavailable because that was not copied along with the backed up data.
  - Frank Daske
    Iron Contributor
    Apr 09, 2018
    Tony,
    
    I totally agree regarding the missing context. Tools, such as the Layer2 Cloud Connector or others, will not provide the perfect recovery for a collaboration environment after some disaster. But it could help to meet some (yes, old-fashioned) compliance rules by allowing to physically own the documents as required in some cases. Document synchronization could also help to manage a transition period, where traditional file shares cannot be removed for any reason.
James Knox
Copper Contributor
Apr 08, 2018
Office 365 looks like a a very helpful tool for the home user as well as business use. My usage has been and will continue to be personal use. I look forward to trying and working with office 365.
Bella Simpson
Copper Contributor
Mar 28, 2018
using e-Discovery PST Export Tool, you will be able to save backup of your Office 365 mailbox in PST format only. And due to the complexities involved with this method, it cannot be considered feasible for all. You must give a try to Office 365 Backup Tool that not only save Office 365 backup in PST format but into PDF, EML, EMLX, MBOX and MSG. I downloaded the software from Microsoft's official website: https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/Office-365-Backup-Tool-24174dee
- TonyRedmond
  MVP
  Mar 28, 2018
  You guys are very persistent at trying to sell people a product that is not fit for purpose.
  
  Once more with feeling: Do not back up Office 365 data to anything other than a secure environment that guarantees the ability to restore. Do not listen to anyone who says that you can backup Office 365 data to PSTs or any other local file type. All you do is to extract valuable data from a secure repository and move copies of that data into insecure and potentially problematic places. Don't let users use these tools either because it gives them a way to move data outside the control of the company, and you might end up in the situation of the Sony Corp. hack when attackers were able to copy PSTs from user PCs and share their content with the world. Let's eradicate PSTs instead of encouraging their use.
- Thomas Heinz
  Brass Contributor
  Mar 28, 2018
  Hey Bella,
  
  I don't think that the Technet Gallery is a good place to provide a Demo Edition of a Software.
  
  Not sure if this is even allowed. I raised a ticket.
  
  The *.exe is not event trusted / signed.
  - TonyRedmond
    MVP
    Mar 28, 2018
    What's happening is that we have a group of people coming into this forum and trying to sell bad software to people who are looking for a solution and are unsure of what they should buy. Thanks for raising a ticket. I hope that these folk are banned from this community...
Lasse Thomsen
Copper Contributor
Mar 14, 2018
We use Keepit, selected it as will backup everything on office 365, emails. SharePoint, teams etc.

Not had much need for restore, but when needed it works well.
- TonyRedmond
  MVP
  Nov 01, 2018
  Taking another run at this topic...
  
  Do you need to backup Office 365 data? The question isn't simple because technology changes all the time and it's hard to backup some applications like Teams and Planner because APIs don't exist. The important thing is for companies to review what data they use, the features available to them, and then figure out if any gaps exist.
  
  https://www.petri.com/determining-need-office-365-backups
  - Cole Johnson
    Copper Contributor
    Feb 14, 2019
    TonyRedmond Appreciate all your advice thus far. I'm still in the search for an O365 backup partner that provides point-in-time restore and a good partner portal - monthly billing would be a plus. A scenario that has happened a couple times with our clients (we use SkyKick) is that their files are corrupted (an extension was added) to all files and a backup of the corrupted file was taken. Are there any useful backup solutions that address this that you've found? I'm currently evaluating spanning but they don't have the partner tools quite ready that I'm looking for.
- TonyRedmond
  MVP
  Mar 14, 2018
  I had a look at the Keepit site and don't see any claim that they can backup Teams content. Like everyone else, they do SharePoint (OneDrive) and Exchange.
  
  We cover all of your user generated Office 365 data within:
  
  Exchange Online (mails, calendar, In-Place Archive, etc.)
  
  Sites (SharePoint)
  
  OneDrive
  
  There's no mention of Planner, Staffhub, Yammer, Sway, etc. either...
  
  I'm not blaming Keepit or any other backup vendor for the gaps they have in coverage because Microsoft has to deliver suitable APIs to allow access to the data in the various services used by Teams, Groups, etc. But you should be aware that not all your data is covered by current solutions.
  - shiv gupta
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 17, 2018
    I would like to recommend Kernel Office 365 Backup & Restore software to backup Office 365 data and save them in PST formats.
Sergey Golman
Copper Contributor
Dec 22, 2017
I would recommend UpSafe Office 365 Cloud Backup

It's one of the best backup solution for Office 365 backup, and certainly the most COST-EFFECTIVE one.

It can backup and re-store emails, contacts, calendar, OneDrive and Sharepoint. Encryption, GDPR-compliance, granular or full recovery are all included.
- TonyRedmond
  MVP
  Dec 22, 2017
  I have never heard of Upsafe and know of no customer who uses this technology to backup Office 365 data.
  
  Saying something is GDPR-compliance is misleading. Backups don't make anything GDPR compliant.
  
  Reading the documentation makes me think that Upsafe does Exchange and SharePoint, but it can't handle other Office 365 applications like Teams, Planner, and Yammer (add Stream, etc. as you want). So it's yet another in the long list of backup applications that take the same old on-premises attitude to backup and try to apply it to cloud data. In this case, it looks like Upsafe uses Amazon Web Services to store the backup data on S3, which is fine as long as it meets your data sovereignty needs. However, it's impossible to say as the FAQ or other information on the web site doesn't have enough technical depth to know how the product works.
  
  I see that jcgonzalezmartin is cited on the web site in a 2015 endorsement, so I'd be interested in hearing from him as to whether this application is worthwhile. However, I also think that a 2015 comment is absolutely worthless today given the amount of change that has happened inside Office 365 in that time.
  
  Also, I have a natural caution about any company whose web site is cluttered with language errors. As in "We are a bunch of nerds from all over the word who gathered around this project."
  
  I'm happy to be proven wrong... maybe Upsafe is capable of dealing with the full gambit of Office 365 data.
  
  TR
  - jcgonzalezmartin
    MVP
    Dec 22, 2017
    Ey Tony,
    Sincerely, I had totally forgotten I had written a review for this product and I don't even remember the original reason why I wrote...if you go to my post (I know it's in Spanish) I simply evaluate the product from the point of view of the use the tool makes of Office 365 APIs...at this time the product was in Beta and I didn't mention any recommendation to use it...in general I have followed your comments about Office 365 backup topic and I totally agree with them....when a customer asks me about Office 365 backup I have to tell them the true reality about what Office 365 backup means and also de implicit limitations any called Office 365 backup tool has

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