Transcript
Welcome to our video on Microsoft 365 Premium Backup Storage solution. Today, we will cover the core components of the feature as well as a demo where we will showcase the configuration. In the demo, we will also go over a restore scenario after an environment has been wiped out by malware. The M365 Premium Backup Storage is a standalone feature that works independently from the M365 Backup application. It offers high-speed snapshots or recovery points that are stored directly within the platform. While it shares a focus on protecting Microsoft 365 data, M365 Premium Backup Storage comes with its own distinct features, which we will explore in this session. M365 Backup Storage supports critical workloads, including Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive, ensuring comprehensive protection for your data. The design of M365 Premium Backup Storage prioritizes extremely fast backup and restore speeds but comes with its own limitations. All data is backed up as snapshots stored within Microsoft's M365 platform. These snapshots have a fixed retention of one year, which cannot be modified. Because snapshots are stored within Microsoft, there is no data movement outside of Azure, enabling extremely fast performance. Microsoft's numbers that they showcase are 1 to 3 terabytes per hour recovery speeds. To showcase this speed even further in the demo, we will do a live backup and restore of over a terabyte of data in a little over 30 minutes. This approach is particularly effective for use cases such as ransomware recovery and tenant-wide disaster recovery. There are three primary configurations that we commonly see customers deploying for their M365 compliance and backup needs. The first configuration involves using M365 Premium Backup Storage as a standalone solution to meet business continuity and recovery cyber resilience requirements. While this option is straightforward, it does have constraints. For example, fixed retention of one year does not support granular recovery, nor does it allow the creation of multiple copies of the data. However, if you do not require granular restore capabilities and one-year retention is acceptable, this approach can be an efficient solution. For organizations that need granular restore functionality, a hybrid approach is often implemented. This setup combines M365 Premium Backup Storage with a Commvault Cloud M365 Backup application. By leveraging both solutions, customers can benefit from the extremely fast restores provided by M365 Premium Backup Storage while also taking advantage of Commvault's capabilities. These include creating multiple copies, maintaining longer retention periods, performing granular restores, and an air-gapped copy residing out of source platform. The third configuration is a variation of the hybrid approach, but with a more targeted focus. When setting up M365 Premium Backup Storage, you can select specific users to protect. Many customers choose to prioritize VIPs or other critical users who require immediate accessibility to their data in the event of an outage. This ensures key stakeholders have rapid data recovery without compromising overall efficiency. Now that we know how the M365 Premium Storage solution works, let's walk through a demo. We will set up a new configuration and then restore it after a malware event that resulted in the environment being completely wiped out. To begin the configuration, navigate to the service catalog and locate the M365 Backup application. In this demo, we'll be protecting Exchange Online, so that is what we will select. During the setup is where you choose either the storage level protection or the application level. This demo is showcasing the storage level features, so let's push on. The configuration process is straightforward. Assign a name and sign in with a Microsoft account that has global administrator credentials. This account's level of access is a requirement as it is required to create a backup controller in the Microsoft environment. We use this controller to start backup, restore, and discovery operations. With that, Exchange M365 Backup storage is configured. Next, we move on to discovering users and setting up backups. You can add a single mailbox, all mailboxes, or an active directory group. For this demo, we'll select an AD group with 51 users designated for testing. Then, we assign a protection plan, which primarily dictates the backup schedule, and the setup is complete. Now, let's explore a restore scenario after a malware attack. In this event, we have been hit by a malware attack that resulted in all of our mail data being wiped out. As you can see, this user's mailbox size is zero. In the command center, we select all users for a mailbox level restore. We'll perform an in-place restore using the latest backup. The review section confirms all 51 users are included. At the end of the restore job, we see all users were successfully restored in just 34 minutes. Checking the Exchange Admin Center, the user's mailbox now shows 17.12 GB and emails are present. In this demo, we were only restoring from the latest backup due to all the data being deleted. But in the case of encryption like ransomware, you can select any date that a backup job ran in the past year and restore it just as quick. This feature is fast, reliable, and great at what it does. I hope this demo and explanation of the M365 Premium Backup Storage feature has been useful. Have a great rest of your day.
