Two Categories of Office 365 Backup Software

This article was written by Jerome M. Wendt, president and founder of DCIG, LLC on November 12, 2020.

Organizations looking to protect data stored in Microsoft Office 365 should follow new rules to select the best solution.

In so doing, they should also recognize 2 broad categories of Office 365 backup software exist from which to choose. One category consists of subscription, cloud-based SaaS offerings. The other category encompasses enterprise backup software solutions that offer Office 365 backup as an add-on option.

Office 365 Data Your Responsibility
During 2020 the number of organizations adopting Office 365 grew substantially. Microsoft’s 1Q21 earnings call held in late October revealed that Office 365 commercial revenue grew by about 20%. Not surprisingly, Office 365 subscriptions were up 27% Y/Y.

Yet as organizations adopt Office 365, they should remember it remains their responsibility to protect data they store there. Microsoft certainly provides some mechanisms to protect data stored in Office 365. These include archiving functions, highly available, secure data centers, and recovery of data less than 30 days old. However, should data be permanently deleted or encrypted by something like ransomware, it falls on organizations to recover it.

To do so, they need software that backups and recovers this data. The new set of rules that organizations should follow to select this software I covered in a separate blog entry.

As they apply these rules, they should also determine which category of Office 365 backup software they want:
1/ Subscription, cloud-based SaaS backup software
2/ Enterprise backup software which offers Office 365 as an add-on

Category #1: Subscription, Cloud-based SaaS Backup Software
Organizations obtain this category of backup software by simply subscribing to it. Approximately 20 backup solutions exist that offer subscription, cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) backup software for Microsoft Office 365.

Subscribing to one of them may require as little as:
1/ Creating a user account with the backup software provider
2/ A credit card
3/ An existing corporate Office 365 account
4/ Administrative access to the corporate Office 365 account

Once you provide this and perhaps other base line information, one may start backing up Office 365. These solutions provide the core features that organizations need to backup data in one or more Office 365 components. Most offerings minimally backup Exchange and SharePoint Online. They may also backup OneDrive, Teams, and other Office 365 features though breadth of support varies by backup solution.

These solutions also often include unlimited or nearly unlimited cloud storage as part of the cost of the software subscription. They may store data in a cloud hosted by the backup provider. More likely, they store it in a public cloud, such as the AWS or Microsoft Azure cloud.

These solutions also differ in terms of the other features they offer. These options include anti-ransomware capabilities, backup frequency, data loss prevention, and choice of storage cloud provider, among others.

Category #2: Enterprise Backup Software
Organizations that already own enterprise backup may discover it offers an add-on option to backup Office 365. DCIG has identified about 10 enterprise backup software solutions that already backup Office 365. Further, a few other providers have shared with DCIG they plan to backup Office 365 very shortly.
While multiple differences exist between these 2 categories of software, the biggest one may be how each one gets deployed. Almost all current providers of enterprise backup software that protect Office 365 require organizations to first deploy and host their software. They may choose to host this software on-premises, in the cloud, or take a hybrid approach.

In other words, there is no quick and easy setup process such as subscription, cloud-based SaaS software offers. Conversely, organizations that use enterprise backup software with Office 365 backup capabilities centralize their management of Office 365 backups.

Organizations will likely have a preferred method to deploy Office 365 backup software and then choose a solution based upon that preference.