Service description

A Service Provider can build a Veeam-powered service to provide BaaS for Microsoft Entra ID to their customers allowing them to focus 100% on their business.

Microsoft provides powerful services within Microsoft Entra ID, however backup is not one of them. Help your customers understand that as per the Shared Responsibility Model, Microsoft’s primary responsibility is focused on their global infrastructure while it is the customer’s responsibility to implement data protection for their Microsoft Entra ID data.

Customers who don’t backup their Microsoft Entra ID data are at risk of losing access and control over their most critical processes due to:

• accidental deletion of users, groups, administrative units, roles, applications and service principals
• internal and external security threats
• audit and sign-in logs retention gap confusion

Additionally the service can include, but is not limited to:

• Store backup data on-premises at one of the customer’s locations.
• Store backup data at the service provider in a location within the same country or region as the customer to comply with local laws.
• Store backup data in (immutable) backup storage provided by the customer or service provider.
• Store backup copies of Tenant Logs in any (immutable) backup storage on-premises or off-premises to comply with 3-2-1.
• Provide a fully managed service for data protection and restores.

Build or buy

In December 2024, Veeam Data Cloud (VDC) for Microsoft 365 joined the VCSP Program. This enables service provider a very quick time-to-market as there is nothing to build. Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Entra ID provides the complete package, including compute, network, updates, and unlimited storage per user. This eliminates the need for service providers to invest in and manage separate infrastructure components. Instead service providers can focus on delivering exceptional services to their customers while reducing administrative complexities too.

Please check out the following page for more information and on how to get started with Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft Entra ID.

This best practices guide mainly focusses on the build-it-yourself scenario and thus provides guidance to service providers who want to build their own Microsoft Entra ID BaaS.

High-level diagram

Value proposition

Service Provider main benefits:

• No upfront costs. Pay only for the licenses consumed by the customer.
• Recurring revenue. The opportunity to create new recurring revenue streams.
• Expansion. Expand Backup-as-a-Service with Microsoft Entra ID data protection.
• Automation. Advanced capabilities via PowerShell and RESTful API. (E.g. Create your own web-based self-service portal or integrate the solution in your existing customer portal, and more.)

Customer main benefits:

• Business focus. Focus 100% on business needs.
• Cloud expertise. Benefit from the service provider’s expertise.
• Recover from disaster. Protect from malicious insiders, accidental deletes and restore with ease.

Veeam Solutions

The service is built with the help of the following Veeam solutions:

Veeam Backup & Replication (VBR) can be either installed at the service provider or at the customer depending on the use case.

Licensing and pricing

Veeam offers the following:

• Pay-as-you-grow pricing plans that offer consumption-based licensing.
• Licensing per 10 users.
• Automatic license update capabilities.
• Tools for license management to facilitate monthly usage reporting.

Please check our Veeam Rental Licensing and Usage Reporting Reference Guide for more details.

Service Providers can charge for the Veeam-powered service in different manners.
Options can include, but are not limited to:

• Per user protected, in- or excluding:
  • backup storage
  • management
  • support
  • monitoring
  • reporting
• Total storage consumed (e.g. per GB/TB).
• Service management fee can include, but is not limited to:
  • initial setup and onboarding
  • resources (e.g. CPU/RAM used for dedicated proxies, backup storage provisioning)
  • updates to hardware and software
  • maintenance

To assist with billing and reporting, Veeam provides several ways to retrieve this information:

• VBR
  • View License Information
  • View Log Backup Properties
  • License Usage Report via UI
  • License Usage Report via PowerShell
• VSPC
  • License Usage Report via REST API

Want to know more?

Check out the User Guide for Microsoft Entra ID to learn more about the Microsoft Entra ID data protection use case.

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