CodeTwo Backup for Office 365

Microsoft 365 backup and disaster recovery are what CodeTwo Backup was primarily designed for. The program can be configured to automatically perform backup cycles that work in the background without interfering with users’ access to their Microsoft 365 data.

The administrator configures backup jobs using available criteria and decides what should be backed up, when and where. Once the backup is set, it can run continuously in the background or within time frames configured in the built-in scheduler.

After launching the backup job, the first backup copy of selected Microsoft 365 mailboxes, public folders or SharePoint/OneDrive for Business data is created. The program creates a full backup first. Once the first full backup copy is created, the program launches the next backup cycle and starts scanning Microsoft 365 data in search for new items or changes. Whenever a new or modified item is found, a new backup version of the given item is saved to the storage. This is how continuous incremental backup works.

One of the most important features of CodeTwo Backup is that the administrator can define storage for each backup job and decides where the backed-up Microsoft 365 data is supposed to be located. 

The Microsoft 365 items are saved in versions. Owing to this, the administrator can browse consecutive versions and restore any of them to the original or alternative location. The granular recovery model enables the recovery of entire mailboxes, SharePoint sites, libraries, selected folders, or even individual items.

More about the backup model in CodeTwo Backup for Office 365

CodeTwo Backup can also help you meet legal requirements of eDiscovery and similar legal acts. Local legal regulations in many countries require companies to locally store electronic information that may be relevant for future investigation or evidence purposes. Microsoft 365 user data is no exception here.

Luckily, CodeTwo Backup lets you store the entirety of your Microsoft 365 mailbox and public folders data on your hard drives as long as you need. Apart from fulfilling legal requirements, this model gives you the guarantee that relevant data won’t be deleted, unless you decide to do so. By means of CodeTwo Backup, Microsoft 365 backup copies can be easily put on legal hold and browsed or restored for investigation purposes whenever it’s required.

Unless you use one of the Microsoft 365 Enterprise plans, archiving data from inactive Microsoft 365 users’ mailboxes can be troublesome. Microsoft 365 Business plans simply have no such option available.

With CodeTwo Backup you can easily save all data from inactive users' mailboxes, and store it in your local storage as long as you need. This operation will let you release a license on your Microsoft 365 subscription, and assign it to another person. Once the mailbox data is backed up, it can be easily browsed using the CodeTwo Backup console. It can be also restored to another user’s mailbox with just a few clicks.

Exchange Online comes with built-in storage limits and quotas. It is likely that some of your users' accounts reach the allowed volume of data. Without CodeTwo Backup onboard, the only solution to such a problem would be to delete some items from their mailboxes. However, this approach could mean losing some important information that otherwise may be useful in the future, e.g. for legal reasons.

Luckily, CodeTwo Backup allows you to back up user mailbox items based on their age (e.g. older than 365 days). Once you have the backup, you can delete the data without actually losing it. Since the backup copy is archived in your private storage, it can be accessed and restored to Microsoft 365 whenever a need occurs.

One of the most important decisions that you need to make when planning your Microsoft 365 backup strategy is where to store your backed-up data. There are some major prerequisites a storage device should meet. For example, it should operate 24/7, provide immediate access, and ensure appropriate storage space. It also needs to be protected from a power failure or meet certain security standards. But what can you do, if you don’t have a dedicated machine that offers it all?

Since CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 can be successfully installed on physical as well as virtual machines, instead of keeping your backed-up data on on-premises machines only, you can also take advantage of services offered by cloud computing platforms, such as Microsoft Azure. You can, for example, deploy CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 on an Azure virtual machine and create data storage on a dedicated Azure Managed Disk. By implementing this solution, you can manage your backup process and access your data from virtually any place and at any time. The access to the managed disk can be governed using role-based access control. The disk itself can be detached from the virtual machine if not used or reattached to another resource group, if necessary. Additionally, such virtual machines come with built-in security features as well as 24-hour monitoring and maintenance services.

Microsoft Teams data is spread across different Microsoft 365 services. For example, shared documents and files are located in SharePoint team sites or OneDrive sites but Microsoft Teams users themselves constitute a part of Exchange Online. So, if you’re using Microsoft Teams in your Microsoft 365 organization as a collaboration tool for your employees, some of its crucial data can be also backed up with CodeTwo Backup for Office 365. In addition, in case files shared via Microsoft Teams channels are accidentally deleted or get corrupted, the program can significantly speed up their recovery.

To make sure CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 creates backup copies of the data that is also used in your Microsoft Teams workspace, you need to create both SharePoint and Exchange backup jobs and select appropriate data to back up. For example, to be able to restore an entire team, backup up a SharePoint team site to which that team is connected. To back up documents shared via Microsoft Teams, check on which SharePoint team sites or personal OneDrive for Business sites these documents are stored and then add these sites to your backup job. Additionally, by backing up Microsoft 365 users’ mailboxes, you can create offline copies of Calendar items (such as scheduled team meetings) as well as voicemail messages (from Teams calls).

Upon restore, because of the architecture of Microsoft Teams and the location of its data, it might be necessary to manually add the restored data back to your teams’ channels or tabs.