As we can not access sharepoint online databases, how we can backup current/future sites collections

Steel Contributor

When we first move from sharepoint on-premises to sharepoint online, i thought that we no more need to worry about backup-ing site collections and managed services (managed metadata, search, etc.). but as i am reading through some articles in this forum and other official docs, i realized that we should not rely on Microsoft backups, as they do backup twice a day (which is fine), but they only preserve the backup for the last 14 days. so if we realize that certain data or a site have been deleted from recycle bins one month ago, then our data might not be recovered. so before i start our search for a third party backup tool, i have the following questions, which can allow me to understand how sharepoint online backups work compared to on-premises:-

 

1. in the on-premises farms, we use to get the priority for backuping our sql server databases. where all the new site collections will be automatically backup-ed as part of the SP content_database backup. and if we need to restore certain site or even certain file, we can restore the content database on our staging or test farm and then restore the required data, manually or using migration tools. but in sharepoint online we do not have the option to backup online databases,, so should we based our backup on the site collections? if this is the case, then do the third party tools cover any new site collection automatically? for example if an end user create a modern communication site , does the third part tools covers newly added site collections? or we need to manually modify the backup tool to cover newly added site collections?

 

2. also what about the managed services backups mainly the Managed Metadata which contain our custom term groups, term sets and terms + the Search Service which contain custom managed properties and managed crawl properties?

 

3. if we are relying on micrsoft backup, and we realized that a file have been deleted last week, and it was deleted from the first and second recycle bin, so can we ask MS to restore the site collection on new url? so the current site will not get affected, and then we can migrate the file from the restored site collection to the current site collection? or MS would only support restoring to the same url so in this case we will loose all the modification done since last week (since we deleted the file by mistake)?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

Regards

 

2 Replies

You raise a valid concern about relying solely on Microsoft's backups for SharePoint Online. It is important to have a comprehensive backup strategy in place to minimize the risk of data loss. Your questions about how SharePoint Online backups work to recover deleted files Windows 10 compared to on-premises backups are important to consider. Understanding how backup tools work and how they can be configured to cover newly added site collections is crucial. Additionally, you bring up a valid point about the need to back up custom term groups, term sets, managed properties, and crawl properties. Overall, it is important to carefully evaluate backup options and assess the potential consequences of data loss.