Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 1.5 is the latest version of the backup solution by Veeam to protect Office 365 mailboxes to ensure service availability to the users.
In a normal situation, retrieving lost emails requires a ticket submission to Microsoft support, not an ideal solution because the process can be time-consuming causing disruption to normal business operations.
With Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 you can protect hybrid-cloud email deployments as well as migrate mailbox data between Office 365 and on-premises Exchange.
Compared to previous version 1.0, the new version 1.5 has some new main features:
- Distributed, scalable architecture.
- Backup Proxies support to take the workload off the management server.
- Support for multiple repositories streamlines data backup and restore processes.
- Support for backup and restore of on-premises and hybrid Exchange organizations.
- Restore of multiple datastore mailboxes using Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange.
- RESTful API and PowerShell cmdlets support.
- Support for backup and restore in Microsoft Azure Germany and China regions.
Deployment
Veeam Backup for Office 365 1.5 can be deployed on physical or virtual Windows machines and supports only 64-bit OSs. The product requires at least Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or Microsoft Windows 7 SP1. Mail backup is supported for Microsoft Exchange 2016 or 2013.
The software is composed by two applications:
- Veeam Backup Server - used to backup organization's mailboxes
- Veeam Explorer for Exchange - used to restore items from backups
To install the product, download from Veeam's website the software in .ZIP format, extract the two files and run the installer. When the installation wizard opens, click Next to proceed with installation.
Accept the EULA and click Next.
Leave default destination folder and click Next.
Click Install to begins the installation.
The product is being installed in the system.
When the installation has completed, click Finish to exit the wizard.
The Veeam Backup for Office 365 1.5 Dashboard.
Licensing
The product is licensed per user and it means that Veeam can backup Microsoft Office 365 Personal mailbox or an Online Archive mailbox associated to the user. Shared or resource mailboxes do not need to be licensed. If you do not archive a mailbox for 31 days, its license will be revoked and can be applied to another mailbox.
First thing to do before configuring the system is to to apply the license to enable the product. From Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365 select main menu > License option.
Click Install to select the new license file.
Select the license file received from Veeam and click Open.
Once the license has been activated, click Close.
Configuration
The configuration of the application is composed by three main steps:
- Add Repository and Proxy
- Add Organization to protect
- Backup job creation
Add Repository and Proxy
Data transfer from Exchange mailboxes to the backup repository is handled by the Backup Proxy installed by default on the local host. To offload the Veeam Backup for Office 365 Server, you can add a new Backup Proxy to improve performance.
From the Backup Infrastructure tab select Backup Proxies and click on Add Proxy button.
Specify the DNS name or IP address of the Host and click Next.
Specify the credentials to access the specified server then click Next.
The proxy is installed on the specified system.
When the procedure has completed click Finish and proceed with repository creation to be associated with this new proxy.
Add a Repository
To store backups of your mailboxes, Veeam Backup for Office 365 supports the following repository types:
- Local storage of the backup server.
- Direct Attached Storage (DAS) connected to the backup server (external USB/eSATA drives and RDM volumes).
- Storage Area Network (SAN).
- SMB 3.0 share (experimental support). Server’s computer account must have write permissions on the network share.
You can add more than one repository and it is recommended to plan for a dedicated storage of your mailbox data archived by Veeam Backup for Office 365.
To add a new repository, from the Backup Infrastructure tab select Backup Repositories and click on Add Repository button.
Enter a name to identify the new repository and click Next.
Specify the Backup proxy to use and the Path of the new repository.
Specify the retention policy and click Finish to complete the Backup Repository creation.
Adding a new Organization
To backup your organization's mailboxes, you have to specify the Organization to protect. Select Organizations tab and click Add Org button.
Specify Microsoft Office 365 as deployment type and click Next.
Specify the required parameters and click Next.
- Region – select Microsoft Azure region the organization belongs to (Default). You can select Germany or China if your Office 365 belongs to the corresponding Microsoft Azure region.
- Username and Password – enter credentials for connection to the organization in the user@domain.onmicrosoft.com format.
- Grant impersonation to this user - enable this option to archive mail also from other users’ mailboxes.
The system connects to the specified Office 365 organization.
When the process has completed successfully, click Finish.
The configured Organization is now displayed in the list.
Backup configuration
To configure a new backup job, click Backup button.
Specify a job Name and click Next.
If you need to backup specific mailboxes only, select Backup the following mailboxes option then click Add.
Select mailboxes to backup and click OK.
The selected mailboxes are displayed in the backup list. Click Next to continue.
Specify Backup proxy and Backup repository to use then click Next.
Specify the scheduling options then click Create to create the new backup job.
Right click the created backup and select Start to run the job immediately.
The backup job is executed.
Depending on the size of your mailboxes to backup, after a while the backup process completes providing some details.
Restoring Exchange items
To browse backed up mailboxes and restore Office 365 items, you need to install and open the Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange (the installation of the tool requires only few clicks). First time you open Veeam Explorer, you need to specify the Veeam Backup for Office 365 server in order to access the stores with protected mailboxes.
From Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange, click Add Store and select Veeam Backup for Offie 365 server option.
If the Veeam Backup is installed on the same server as Veeam Explorer, you just need to click Connect in the Veeam Backup login window. Type the IP address and credentials if Veeam Backup is installed on a different server instead.
When the Veeam Backup has been connected successfully, the backed up mailboxes of the protected organization are displyed in the Mailbox Stores area.
To restore one or more emails or an entire mailbox, select the Office 365 item to restore and select the Restore to <mailbox_name> option to recover the emails directly in the mailbox. Additional options are available to recover the email in a different mailbox or as .PST file.
PowerShell and RESTful API support
Version 1.5 introduces the support for PowerShell and RESTful API allowing to automate tasks such as backup, tenant creation and deployment of segregated repositories. REST API feature is enabled in main menu > Options > REST API.
Although version 1.5 was released only few weeks ago, version 2.0 has been already announced during VeeamOn 2017 and will support SharePoint and OneDrive for Business.
