Recently Veeam announced version 2.0 of their Backup for Office 365 product this extended the functionality of its predecessor with much needed support for SharePoint and OneDrive for business. While looking into the release and what’s new it prompted me to revisit the topic of protecting Office 365 data, especially the approach of building your own solution to do so.

Back in April I wrote a post for Gestalt IT (“How to protect Office 365 data”), the basics of which considered the broadly held misconception that Microsoft are taking care of your data on their SaaS platform. While Microsoft provide some protection via retention and compliance rules and a 30-day rolling backup of OneDrive, this is not a replacement for a robust enterprise level data protection solution.

The article examined this issue and compared two approaches for dealing with the challenge, either via SaaS (NetApp’s SaaS backup platform was used as an example) or doing it yourself with Veeam. The article wasn’t intended to cover either approach in detail but to discuss the premise of Office 365 data protection.

This Veeam release though seemed like a good opportunity to look in more detail into the DIY approach to protecting our Office 365 data.

Why flexibility is worth the work

One of the drivers for many in the shift to 365 is simplification, removing the complexity that can come with SharePoint and Exchange deployments. It then surely follows that if I wanted simplicity, I’d want the same with my data protection platform. Why would I want to worry about backup repositories, proxy and backup servers or any other element of infrastructure?

The reality however, is when it comes to data protection, simplification and limiting complexity may not be the answer. Simplicity of SaaS can come at a price of reducing our ability to be flexible enough to meet our requirements, for example limiting our options to;

Have data backed up where we want it.

Deal with hybrid infrastructure and protect on-prem services.

Have full flexibility with restore options.

These limitations can be a problem for some organisations and when we consider mitigation against provider “lock-in” and the pressures of more stringent compliance, then you can see how for some, flexibility quickly overrides the desire for simplicity.

It is this desire for flexibility that makes building your own platform an attractive proposition. We can see with Veeam’s model the broad flexibility this approach can provide;

Backup Repository



Data location is possibly the key deciding factor when deciding to build your own platform, Veeam provide the flexibility to store our data in our own datacentre, a co-lo facility, or even a public cloud repository. Giving the flexibility to meet the most stringent data protection needs.

Hybrid Support

The next most important driver for choosing to build your own solution, is protecting hybrid workloads. While many have embraced Office365 in its entirety, there are still organisations who, for numerous reasons, have maintained an on-premises element to their infrastructure. This hybrid deployment can be a stumbling block for SaaS providers, with an Office 365 focus only.

Veeam Backup for Office365 fully supports the protection of data both on-prem and in the cloud, all through one console and one infrastructure, under a single licence. This capability is hugely valuable, simplifying the data protection process for hybrid environments and removing any need to have multiple tools protecting the separate elements.

Recovery



It’s not just backup flexibility when building your own platform that has value, it is also the range of options this can bring to recovery. This flexibility to take data backed up in any location and restore it to multiple different locations is highly valuable and sometimes an absolute necessity for anything from practicality to regulatory reasons.

What’s the flexibility cost?

Installation



Does this extra flexibility come with a heavy price of complexity and cost? In Veeam’s case no, they are renowned for simplicity of deployment and Backup for Office 365 is no different. It requires just the usual components of backup server, proxy, backup repository and product explorers with the size of the protected infrastructure dictating the scale of the protection platform.

There are of course limitations (Backup for Office 365 System Requirements) one major consideration is bandwidth, it’s important to consider how much data you’ll be bringing into your backup repository both initially and for subsequent incremental updates. While most SaaS providers will have substantial connectivity into Microsoft’s platform for these operations, you may not.

Licencing



A major benefit of software as a service is the commercial model, paying by subscription can be very attractive and can be lost when deploying our own solution. This is not the case with Backup for Office 365 which is licenced on a subscription basis.

Do it Yourself V as a Service

The Gestalt IT article ended with a comparison of the “pro’s and Cons” of the two approaches.

Do It Yourself As A Service Pro’s Cons Pro’s Cons Flexibility Planning Simplicity Lack of control Control Management Overhead Lower Management Overhead Inability to customise Customisation Responsibility Ease of Deployment Cloud only workloads Protect Hybrid Deployments Data Sovereignty

I think these points remain equally relevant and when deciding what approach is right for you, regardless of what we’ve discussed here with Veeam’s offering. If SaaS is the right approach, it remains so, but If you do take the DIY approach, then I hope this post gives you an indication of the flexibility and customisation that is possible and why this can be crucial as part of your data protection strategy.

If building your own platform is your chosen route then Veeam Backup for Office365 V2 is certainly worthy of your consideration, But regardless of approach remember the data sat in Office365 is your responsibility, make sure its protected.

If you want to know more, you can contact me on twitter @techstringy or check out Veeam’s website.