Forum Discussion

MVP

Jul 26, 2016

Do backups for Office 365 make sense?

Vendors of backup software often focus on the data belonging to a single application. That’s OK in the world of on-premises software, but it’s an approach that does not work for Office 365 where new ...

office 365

Joe Stocker

Bronze Contributor

Jul 07, 2017

Hi Tony,

If a preservation policy is placed on O365 data (ex: SharePoint, Groups, Email, OneDrive, etc) then under what scenarios would you need to restore data? Is it only for a doomsday scenario when MSFT goes dark or how does legal hold (preservation policies) not provide a complete solution? I'm asking for a friend ;)

-Joe

TonyRedmond
MVP
Jul 07, 2017
Your friend aks good questions.

Assigning a retention policy to all supported locations is certainly a viable option to prevent removal of information from Office 365. Such a policy will cover Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, Office 365 Groups (Outlook variety), and Skype IM conversations. It will protect part of Teams (chat records). However, it will not cover the other locations.

So yes, if the locations covered by retention policies (the new type as in https://www.petri.com/office-365-data-governance) are what you need to protect, your friend should be happy and never have to consider backups.

TR