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ESG TECHNICAL VALIDATION
Delivering Quick Backup and Restores of Microsoft 365
Wasabi Technologies and Veeam—Better Together
By Craig Ledo, IT Validation Analyst
MAY 2022
Introduction
This ESG Technical Validation documents the detailed evaluation of Wasabi with Veeam. We evaluated how the Wasabi secure cloud storage solution with the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 protects Microsoft 365 data from accidental deletion, security threats, and retention policy gaps; quickly restores individual Microsoft 365 items and files from the cloud; and meets legal and compliance requirements.
Background
Cloud data protection is the new norm, and IT still leads the charge for cloud services. However, with SaaS, data protection is a shared responsibility. SaaS vendors may provide uptime for the application and supporting infrastructure, but granular backup and restore of data stored in the applications is still the customer’s responsibility. ESG research shows that application-specific protection and recovery is top of mind when it comes to SaaS data protection. In addition, the majority of respondents to an ESG research survey (74%) stated that their organizations don’t use third-party tools to recover data, but instead rely on Microsoft 365 server/service recovery functionality to recover their data (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. Majority of Microsoft 365 Users Don’t Use Third-party Tools
How does your organization recover Microsoft 365 data? (Percent of respondents, N=170)
Source: ESG, a division of TechTarget, Inc.
Organizations need to understand the responsibilities of Microsoft and Microsoft 365 user organizations. Microsoft’s basic responsibility is limited to infrastructure levels (infrastructure availability, security, and access controls) while all information and data are the responsibility of the user organization to ensure data security, privacy, and retention. Given Microsoft's responsibility and supporting technology is limited to infrastructure levels, organizations are exposing themselves to risks such as data loss and security breaches, retention and regulatory compliance exposures, and lack of data control in hybrid deployments if they are without third-party backup plans. In addition, many customers have their data stored in a combination of on-premises and cloud environments, while others have different teams on different versions of Microsoft 365 suites, which can make data protection more challenging in hybrid deployments without a unified backup solution.
Wasabi Technologies Secure Cloud Storage and Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 Overview
Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 allows for backup and recovery of Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive for business data. Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 supports cost-effective, cloud object storage and is validated for interoperability with Wasabi hot cloud storage. Wasabi provides the benefits of cloud object storage, offering backups unlimited storage capacity as well as simple predictable pricing with no fees for egress or API requests. Wasabi provides an affordable, high-performance, object storage service for increased data protection at a substantially lower cost than other vendors. By using Wasabi hot cloud storage for Microsoft 365 backup, customers can leverage the unlimited capacity of the cloud. Wasabi offers a bottomless repository for backups in a simple, predictable pricing model (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Wasabi Technologies with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 Overview
Source: ESG, a division of TechTarget, Inc.
Key capabilities and features of Wasabi Technologies with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 include:
• Protecting Microsoft 365 data: Protects data from accidental deletion, security threats, and retention policy gaps.
• Restoring individual Microsoft 365 items: Provides recovery flexibility with no egress charges or API request fees.
• Meeting legal and compliance requirements: Provides eDiscovery of data archives protected by enterprise-class security.
• Maintaining business continuity: Provides data center redundancy and 11 nines data availability.
• Ensuring data availability and protection: Provides unlimited backup to cloud object storage.
• Enhancing security: Provides at-rest encryption for Microsoft 365 data in object storage.
• Reducing risk: Eliminates the risk of losing access to Microsoft 365 data, including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business.
ESG Technical Validation
ESG performed a technical validation of the Wasabi hot cloud storage solution and its interoperability with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 software, with a focus on protecting Microsoft 365 data, restoring individual Microsoft 365 items and files, and meeting legal and compliance requirements.
Protecting Microsoft 365 Data
Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 supports a variety of on-premises and cloud object storage options. Wasabi is an affordable, predictable, and fast cloud storage option for Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365. Wasabi hot cloud storage is easy to understand and cost effective to scale with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365. With Wasabi, there are no confusing storage tiers to decipher and no complicated fee structures to decode. Wasabi supports a wide range of use cases, including data protection. Wasabi provides straightforward pricing to help simplify planning and budgeting by eliminating unpredictable data egress, data retrieval, and API access fees. With Wasabi Reserved Capacity Storage, customers can purchase cloud storage in 1-, 3-, or 5-year increments to simplify billing, save money, and synchronize with Microsoft 365 Veeam and Wasabi subscriptions. Wasabi is designed with a parallelized system architecture and patented file system that delivers fast read/write performance and fast time-to-first byte speeds. ESG validated the steps to protect Microsoft 365 data, which include setting up a repository, connecting to the local backup repository (including configuring the retention policies), and then creating a backup job (including selecting the scheduling options) (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Protecting Microsoft 365 Data
Source: ESG, a division of TechTarget, Inc.
Veeam allows you to backup an entire organization or select specific objects in an organization. In this example, we backed up the entire organization; however, users may want to only backup certain groups. This is handy in specific use cases, where different groups may have different retention periods. Users can also create multiple jobs, each backing up specific groups, and apply different retention policies to each of them.
Why This Matters
As mentioned earlier, Microsoft 365 employs a “shared responsibility model,” which dictates that Microsoft is responsible for its own global infrastructure and ensuring that Microsoft 365 applications remain up and running. Customers are responsible for the access and control of their data that resides within the Microsoft 365 infrastructure. Wasabi with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 provides the data protection required in this shared-responsibility model.
Restoring Individual Microsoft 365 Items and Files
Wasabi with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 provides quick search and granular recovery of individual objects residing in a protected copy of a Microsoft 365 backup. Users can restore Microsoft 365 items with a broad set of recovery options, helping meet specific recovery needs with no egress fees.
Wasabi eDiscovery for Microsoft 365 leverages powerful search and flexible recovery and export options to perform eDiscovery across an entire Microsoft 365 environment. ESG validated the steps to recover Microsoft 365 data, which include using Veeam Explorer for Exchange, SharePoint, or Teams to restore an entire organization, an individual user or users, email messages, files, etc. The key benefit with Wasabi, versus other vendors, is that when items are requested or read from the object storage repository, no additional expenses will be incurred. Figure 4 shows Veeam Explorer for Microsoft Exchange and how easy it is to restore an entire mailbox.
Figure 4. Restoring Microsoft 365 Data
Source: ESG, a division of TechTarget, Inc.
Another useful capability includes migrating Microsoft Exchange data from one location to another location. This capability can be useful when two companies have merged, and they need to consolidate their Microsoft Exchange systems.
Why This Matters
As stated in a recent ESG Brief, as IT continues to streamline operations through hyperconvergence and transition to cost-saving cloud-like infrastructures and services, investments that support data protection technologies and initiatives will help propel a significant portion of IT spending through 2022 and beyond. In addition, restoring Microsoft 365 data in inevitable, and with Wasabi hot cloud storage, there are no fees for egress or API requests. There is only one line item on an organization’s monthly bill for storage used. The money an organization saves can, in turn, be moved to their IT spending budget for further data protection technologies.
Meeting Legal and Compliance Requirements
Microsoft offers a 90-day retention policy that does not meet the more stringent data retention regulations for certain industries such as financial services, healthcare, retail, and government. Having a third-party backup solution can help organizations set their own retention policies according to their business needs and remain compliant with data regulations. Wasabi hot cloud storage is instantly accessible to support ad hoc forensics, compliance audits, or legal discoveries. ESG validated that, with electronic discovery of Microsoft 365 backup archives with Veeam Explorer for Exchange, SharePoint, and Teams, users can restore or export data from backup or replica files. This enables organizations to easily retrieve Microsoft 365 documents to meet regulatory or legal requests in a timely, cost‑effective manner. Figure 5 shows Veeam Explorer for Exchange, SharePoint, and Teams.
Figure 5. Meeting Legal and Compliance Requirements With Veeam Explorer
Source: ESG, a division of TechTarget, Inc.
Why This Matters
Protecting and managing company data is crucial for meeting data security regulations. Data is a company’s most valuable asset, so it’s best to protect it with a secure backup solution. Wasabi with Veeam allows organizations to implement transparent, actionable, and dependable strategies to protect data from unwanted tampering and deletion with secure and verifiable options.
The Bigger Truth
ESG’s analysis of Wasabi hot cloud storage, combined with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, demonstrated the solution’s capabilities to protect data from accidental deletion, security threats, and retention policy gaps; quickly restore individual Microsoft 365 items and files; and meet legal and compliance requirements.
The combination of Wasabi with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 helps make it easier to manage and operationally support data backup and recovery. This combination also helps optimize the cost of storage according to an organization’s budgetary and availability needs through improved data deduplication and compression, as well as raw performance, and low, predictable costs of hot cloud storage, including no fees for egress or API requests.
All of these benefits free up significant time, staff, and budgets that can then be put to use on future-focused data protection and digital transformation efforts. The combination of Wasabi hot cloud storage and Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 is a true integrated partnership designed to deliver measurable results.
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The goal of ESG Validation reports is to educate IT professionals about information technology solutions for companies of all types and sizes. ESG Validation reports are not meant to replace the evaluation process that should be conducted before making purchasing decisions, but rather to provide insight into these emerging technologies. Our objectives are to explore some of the more valuable features and functions of IT solutions, show how they can be used to solve real customer problems, and identify any areas needing improvement. The ESG Validation Team’s expert third-party perspective is based on our own hands-on testing as well as on interviews with customers who use these products in production environments.
Enterprise Strategy Group | Getting to the Bigger Truth™
Enterprise Strategy Group is an IT analyst, research, validation, and strategy firm that provides market intelligence and actionable insight to the global IT community.