Protect Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365

To protect the VB365 configuration and be able to restore quickly in case of machine failures it is recommended to backup at least the VB365 controller with an image based backup. Image backups of the machines building the VB365 infrastructure enable quick restores from numerous disasters.

An image backup of proxies can also protect local repositories to comply with the 3-2-1 rule.

Protecting with Veeam Backup and Replication

Veeam Backup and Replication has integrated support for Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365. Thanks to this integration you can easily backup the Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 incuding the local repository in a consistent way.

A Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 deployment can be either on a physical or virtual environment. As with both virtual or physical server installations, Veeam Backup & Replication offers all the tools for application and crash consistent backups of VB365 deployments. Be aware that due to the nature of Veeam Backup and Replication’s image backups no backup of object storage repository content can be done.

Each VB365 Server and Proxy installation includes a specific Veeam VSS writer. You can identify it by running vssadmin list writers on the commandline:

This VSS writer ensures application consistent backups of the VB365 infrastructure components. Even while the VB365 Server and Proxies are running backup and restore jobs of Microsoft 365 data. Protecting a VB365 deployment with Veeam Backup & Replication (VBR) offers the following advantages:

• Ensures swift VB365 components restores (ConfigDB, ProxyDB and associated files)
• Performs granular item restores from local repositories in the backup using Veeam Explorers available on the VBR Server
• Offload the backup data from local repositories to an alternative location like Tape.

The protection planning must also include the additional VB365 Proxy Servers and Repositories. Should the VB365 Backup Repository use SMB shares, such shares need to be backed up separately. The configuration (ConfigDB) and Proxy (ProxyDb) folder on the VB365 Server and VB365 Proxy installations are very important. They include all the information and details for the VB365 infrastructure configuration. Restoring these components from a backup is the quickest way to maintain the existing (running) configuration without affecting the rest of the VB365 deployment and its jobs. Protecting a VB365 Server and its infrastructure is critical with advanced deployments. Having a protection plan which covers all components allows for agile recoveries of all Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 major components: VB365 Server, Proxies and Backup data in the local repositories.

Protecting the VB365 deployments using the Veeam Backup and Replication solution (VBR) allows to send and manage independent copies to separate storage tiers for longer retention. Using VBR this can be a Scale-Out-Backup-Repository, Tape or a Cloud-Connect Provider. VBR is using the VSS integration of VB365 for application consistent backups of the VB365 data. Additionally VBR recognizes the dataset and allows you to directly restore single-items out of the image-based backups using the regular explorers within VBR.

---