Supported platforms and requirements

• CodeTwo Backup Service - responsible for the back-end management of jobs and other associated processes
• CodeTwo Backup Administration Panel - allows the user to configure the Backup Service by creating jobs (backup, restore, archive) and server connections 

Connection to Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online)

To back up the Exchange Online mailboxes and public folders data from your Microsoft 365 (Office 365) tenant, you need to register CodeTwo Backup in that tenant's Microsoft Entra ID (Azure Active Directory). The program needs to be assigned application permissions listed below:

Exchange:

• full_access_as_app

Microsoft Graph:

• Directory.Read.All
• Group.Read.All
• MailboxSettings.ReadWrite
• User.Read.All

CodeTwo Backup can be registered:

• automatically, when configuring a connection to Microsoft 365 in the program (an account with the Global Administrator or Privileged Role Administrator role is required when signing in to Microsoft 365);
• manually in Entra ID (Azure AD), as described in this article. You will be asked to provide the registration details and an email address of any user from your Microsoft 365 tenant in the program to establish a connection with Exchange Online.

No matter which registration method you use, the account that is used to sign in to Microsoft 365 or whose email address is provided in the program needs to be assigned a Microsoft 365 license that includes the Exchange Online plan.

Connection to on-premises Exchange Server

The administrator account used for establishing a new connection to on-premises Exchange server needs to be mailbox-enabled and have impersonation rights granted to users' mailboxes (CodeTwo Backup assigns the necessary rights automatically, if they are missing). By default, such rights are granted to users assigned the Organization Management group.

Learn how to create such an account following the Role-Based Access Control approach

Connection to SharePoint Online

To back up the SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business data from your Microsoft 365 tenant, you need to register CodeTwo Backup in that tenant's Microsoft Entra ID. The program needs to be assigned application permissions listed below:

Microsoft Graph:

• Directory.Read.All
• Group.Read.All
• User.Read.All

Office 365 SharePoint Online:

• User.Read.All
• Sites.FullControl.All

CodeTwo Backup can be registered:

• automatically, when configuring a connection to SharePoint Online in the program (an account with the Global Administrator or Privileged Role Administrator role is required when signing in to Microsoft 365);
• manually in Entra ID, as described in this article. You will be asked to provide the registration details and an email address of any user from your Microsoft 365 tenant in the program to establish a connection with SharePoint Online.

Optionally, if you wish to perform actions supported by the legacy authentication protocol only, you need to provide Global Administrator or SharePoint Administrator credentials in the Legacy authentication step of the connection wizard. Learn more

Connection to on-premises SharePoint Server

The administrator account used to configure a new connection to on-premises SharePoint server needs to be: 

• added to the Domain Users group
• added to the Administrators group of the server on which your SharePoint Server is installed
• added to the SharePoint Farm Administrators group
• granted Full Control permissions to the SharePoint site at the Web Application Policy level
• added to the Remote Management Users group
• added to the SharePoint_Shell_Access role
• set as the site collection administrator for each site collection you want to back up or to which you want to restore the backed-up data. 

The admin account used to deploy SharePoint will have all the necessary rights.

Learn how to create a new admin account that can be used to backup or restore on-premises SharePoint data

• Windows 11 / 10 or Windows Server 2019 / 2016⁽*⁾. Only the 64-bit versions are supported. 
• .NET 4.6 Framework or higher.
• Windows PowerShell 3.0 or higher.

Supported platforms

• In the case of Exchange Online:
  • Microsoft 365 (Office 365) plans with Exchange Online (including F1 and Kiosk plans)
  • Exchange Online standalone plans
• In the case of on-premises Exchange Server:
  • Exchange Server 2019
  • Exchange Server 2016
• In the case of SharePoint Online:
  • Office 365 plans with SharePoint Online
• In the case of SharePoint on-premises:
  • SharePoint Server 2019
  • SharePoint Server 2016

The program can be installed on a physical or virtual machine.

To ensure optimum performance, it is strongly recommended to back up your data on SSDs (solid-state drives) and only use HDDs (hard-disk drives) for data archiving. While a standard HDD can be used as your backup storage, it should be avoided.

Note that using network drives (including iSCSI, NAS) or removable storage solutions (including USB-C disks) is possible only in the case of archive jobs (such devices cannot be used as primary storage).

• all types of mailbox items, such as emails, contacts, calendars, tasks, etc. (except for hidden system folders), residing within user, Microsoft 365 group, shared, SharePoint site and resource mailboxes; user's archive mailboxes (In-Place Archives) are also supported,
• Exchange public folders data,
• SharePoint data residing in site collections, team sites, lists, libraries, etc., 
• OneDrive for Business sites,
• Microsoft Teams data residing within Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business (channel and private files, calendar items, OneDrive Notebooks, voicemail messages, attachments sent in chat messages and Wiki pages; chats/conversations and other types of data not listed above are not supported).