The IT Nerd

As a convenient, fast and globally available solution, the Microsoft 365 suite is the basis for multiple organizations worldwide that need to enable or improve their team collaboration capabilities. Although the suite is widely accepted, organizations nowadays have concerns about SaaS data, especially when it comes to data protection and compliance weaknesses. 

Modern third-party Microsoft 365 backup solutions offer flexible pricing policies that can suit both SMBs and enterprise organizations. Additionally, Microsoft itself recommends using such solutions for reliable SaaS data protection, as the shared responsibility model officially makes Microsoft responsible only for the services’ availability, offloading the data protection tasks to clients. 

With the growth of interest among organizations, the variety of backup and recovery suites offered by the market also increases. The choice of the best data protection solution for Microsoft 365 becomes a challenge due to that. In this post, we show you the top 10 solutions for Microsoft Office 365 backup in 2023.

1. NAKIVO Backup & Replication

The first to mention and the best to use solution on the list is NAKIVO Backup & Replication with fast incremental backups using native Microsoft technolgoy and near-instant recovery. The majority of data-driven organizations can receive numerous benefits with the NAKIVO Backup & Replication integrated with Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. The opportunity to back up Microsoft Teams data with all the channels, files, posts and tabs regardless of the storage location is another advantage raising this solution to the top of the list.

With the NAKIVO solution, you can store backups of Microsoft 365 data on-premises, gaining more control over their valuable records and using the advantages of offline storage for additional security. Another benefit of this solution is the usability and intuitive UI that make installing and mastering the functionality quick and easy. You can install the solution in less than 5 minutes, and run the first backup job in your infrastructure even faster with the step-by-step wizard.

NAKIVO Backup for Microsoft 365 is affordable, as the prices start at $0.80 per user/month. The per-user subscription provides an excellent level of licensing flexibility, as you can pay for exactly the number of users you need to protect. 

Other important features to mention, which make the NAKIVO solution the best for Microsoft 365 data protection are support for all other workloads from the same web interface, security features and the BaaS and DRaaS capabilities. You can consider NAKIVO Backup & Replication when choosing tha e solution to protect your data on physical, virtual and cloud workloads. The backup immutability functionality that protects data copies from change or deletion can increase ransomware resilience of your IT infrastructures in general.  

2. Acronis Backup

The commonly known secure data access, disaster recovery and backup software provider, Acronis offers Microsoft 365 backup and recovery functionality with their Cyber Protect Cloud solution. That data protection suite is also capable of email security, data loss prevention (DLP) and email security. Cyber Protect Cloud Backup provides file backup and disaster recovery (DR) functionality, along with secure file sync and share. Acronis’ solution is in the top 2 position of the list because of the recovery speed: with the runVM technology, you can almost instantly recover the workload, increasing productivity and reliability for users. 

Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud Backup can protect your backups against ransomware with the AI-based technology that prevents files from unauthorized encryption or any other modification. The solution can check if backup copies are authentic before using them to restore data. A convenient web-based management console streamlines data protection management and increases overall operational efficiency. The solution from Acronis is also multi-platform, protecting over 20 virtual, physical, mobile and cloud platforms.  

3. CodeTwo

An organization from Poland, CodeTwo made an impact on the email signature market with the launch of CodeTwo Exchange Rules. Nowadays, with the development of that solution, new products like Backup of Office 365 are also available. 

The CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 app can run full or incremental backups of SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business sites, Microsoft 365 mailboxes and public folders. This solution also enables you to back up Microsoft Teams data. With advanced search functions and granular recovery capabilities, you can flexibly choose which objects to recover whenever necessary. Chosen data types can be restored as well as entire sites and mailboxes. Also, Exchange Online contacts and OneDrive library lists can be the objects to recover here. Finally, the CodeTwo solution’s granular recovery enables restoring single email messages and attachments. 

Also, CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 can back up Exchange and SharePoint content that is stored on-premises. Organizations with offline or hybrid environments can benefit from such capabilities. 

4. Unitrends Backup

Another enterprise-level backup solution for Microsoft 365 on the list, which is Unitrends Backup, covers OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online and Exchange Online. The solution is easily scalable due to the per-user licensing policy and unlimited storage. Such flexibility is highly beneficial for small and medium organizations and especially startups that expect fast growth but need to limit their costs. 

With Unitrends Backup, you can use the self-service UI to restore corrupted and lost data. Backup admins can recover files not only to the original account but other ones as well, gaining more efficient data management capabilities. This can be useful, for example, to transfer data of an employee that leaves an organization. 

Unitrends can cover the majority of backup functions that modern organizations require from a Microsoft 365 data protection solution but not more. Unitrends backup does not offer advanced backup and recovery automation, role-based access control (RBAC), Teams backup, among other features. Additionally, the pricing details of the solution aren’t publicly available, making the correct investment evaluation and direct solution comparison a bit challenging.   

5. Cloudally

Cloudally is a Microsoft 365 backup solution that focuses a lot on simplicity and functionality enabling automated backups for SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Exchange Online, Groups and Teams. Cloudally also includes Amazon S3 encryption, object lock, archival export and monitoring. Granular recovery with advanced search features enable convenient restoration of particular data objects when you need them. 

The main disadvantage of Cloudally compared to the solutions above in this top 10 list is that the solution is all about SaaS backup. Unlike other more versatile offerings, Cloudally suits a limited number of platforms and can’t be used if your infrastructure is hybrid with the use of physical or virtualized workloads. 

Cloudally isn’t the most affordable solution on the list either The $3 per user/month price level is doubtfully suitable for SMBs, mainly building their IT infrastructures with SaaS workloads to save funds on hardware and licenses. Still, the reliability and simplicity of this solution may be an advantage for organizations that have some more freedom in budget planning.  

6. Iperius Backup

Iperius Backup, a lightweight data backup solution, enables you to protect and recover data in Exchange Online mail accounts and Exchange servers, along with OneDrive and Office 365 data. The Iperius package includes Iperius Remote, Iperius Console and Iperius Storage that enable Outlook-compatible incremental data backup creation. Using Iperius, you can send backups to FTP, Amazon S3, NAS and cloud storage. Iperius Backup also enables granular recovery of individual mailboxes.

A niche-oriented design of Iperius Backup results in minimal resource consumption that allows backup workflows to run without interruptions. Additionally, the perpetual license for Iperius Backup with Microsoft 365 backup included is affordable (the price is around $200). Thus, smaller organizations can benefit from integrating Iperius Backup, but the limited set of functions may be the reason for larger companies to search for a different market offering. 

7. Cohesity

As a modern backup solution, Cohesity helps you overcome the limitations of native Exchange Online, OneDrive, Teams and SharePoint recovery capabilities. The auto-discovery feature enables the detection and backup of mailboxes, groups, files, and folders, which you can then store in Microsoft Azure or on-premises for more control.

Whenever you need to recover data, use the global search to find the required files in your backup storage. Cohesity also enables you to streamline administration and optimize resource use with backup and recovery automation that can free users from many routine responsibilities. The opportunity to create customized retention policies helps you delete data on time, thus optimizing storage space consumption and avoiding compliance issues. 

Cohesity has a set of functions to provide a high level of protection for Microsoft Office 365 app data. Still, the lack of advanced features and data protection flexibility may be the reason for particular users to consider other backup solution vendors. 

8. Barracuda Backup Solutions

Barracuda Backup is a known and strong player in the backup solution market. When speaking of Microsoft 365, their solution enables providing data protection for Exchange Online, OneDrive and SharePoint Online with cloud-to-cloud backup.

With Barracuda, you can back up data on schedule and on demand. Granular recovery along with features such as custom retention policies, backup management and network traffic control make this solution a solid choice. 

Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup offers complete, granular protection of your data with point-in-time retrieval, and both scheduled and on-demand backup. In addition, their service allows you to set your own retention policies, manage all backed-up servers, network traffic, and more. You can also use AES data encryption for critical data and back up data once in 15 minutes for additional security. 

Despite all the benefits, Barracuda has a significant disadvantage that can break the deal for many organizations: for Microsoft 365 data protection, the solution is limited to cloud-to-cloud backup. This excludes storage flexibility, limits data control and also may significantly reduce backup and recovery workflow speeds. 

9. Commvault

Commvault’s Metallic DMaaS is the data management suite from one of the data protection market leaders. The solution provides enterprise-grade data protection, including the Metallic Backup for Microsoft 365 (namely for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Microsoft Project and Teams). 

With Metallic Backup for Microsoft 365, you can automate the creation of Microsoft 365 data backups. Those backups are then sent to an air-gapped storage for additional security. Commvault provides both on-premise and cloud storage options located worldwide to provide data redundancy and ensure regulatory compliance. Data protection administrators can either run one of the available retention plans or create custom retention policies. The granular recovery functionality enables administrators to find and recover objects to the original or different destination. 

Flexibility and security are also pros for Commvault users. The solution offers zero-trust access and other security features for both external and internal threat protection. In terms of pricing, Commvault offers the Standard and Enterprise plans for Microsoft 365 data protection. Though, the pricing details aren’t public for Commvault, which can be a downside for some potential users.

10. Rubrik

A vendor with a wide range of solutions, Rubrik provides monitoring, threat protection and data resilience for Microsoft 365. Rubrik Microsoft 365 Protection enables backup and recovery automation for Microsoft 365 apps, including OneDrive, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Teams. Like other modern solutions, Rubrik has the advanced search and granular recovery capabilities that you can use for faster recovery and compliance. 

The advantage of Rubrik Microsoft 365 Protection is the ability to discover new teams, sites and users automatically along with creating new backups of that data. Administrators can create retention policies for data backups, locate and recover specific records to their original or different destination via API calls. API integrations are what enables in-depth customization of the Rubrik solution, as well as quick troubleshooting when issues arise. 

However, there are reasons for Rubrik Microsoft 365 to not be on top of the list. The main point is that Rubrik does not provide on-premise backup storage. Thus, you have limited control over your data and need to depend on internet connection for recovery. Speaking of prices, Rubrik wants you to contact sales to get a quote, which may be undesirable for some potential clients.  

 

This entry was posted on October 25, 2023 at 12:32 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.