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I’ve been looking forward very much to this release and now it’s here ! Veeam Backup for Office 365 v4 is available since November 26, 2019 ! While playing around with the public beta of Veeam Backup for Office 365 v4, I was very pleased with the new upcoming capabilities.
There are some major new features and functionalities in this new release, which I want to share with you !
Object storage support
This is probably the most gamechanging feature to me ! It allows me to install Veeam Backup for Office 365 V4 to any conceivable infrastructure. Whether I want to use Amazon S3, Azure Blob, IBM Cloud Object Storage or a S3 compatible storage, they are all supported and choosable. The most important fact is, that you are able to directly offload the backups to the object storage provider. When using object storage backup repositories, there is no data stored on the VBO server (except some metadata aka cache).
Here you can see an overview of the supported deployment types:
Furthermore, you are even able to use at-rest encyption to protect the data being offloaded to your object storage repository. Here is an example of a repository whereby I’m using a NetApp Storage GRID. You can see my enabled encryption here for the data being uploaded to the object storage repository.
Faster SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business backups
Since throttling as always a topic, Veeam introduces the Backup Accounts Manager, to backup SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business much faster. The throttling of SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business takes place at the “user level”. By using a non-mail enabled security group which contains an amount of backup service accounts, you are going to overcome the throttling which results in faster backups.
For doing so, simply right-click your added organization and select “Manage backup accounts”.
When you right-clicked the “Manage backup accounts” tab, you are able to select your non-mail enabled security group which contains your backup service accounts.
Exclude Exchange calendars and contacts from the retention policy
This is an interesting feature, as it allows me to exclude contacts and calendars from the applied retention policy. The use case here is, that you will always back up calendars and contacts no matter what the retention policy is set to. Let’s imagine you are using the item-level retention policy type and keep your data for 1 year. If you would have created contacts 5 years ago, they wouldn’t be processed within the backup job. The reason for that is, that the retention policy is set to 1 year and the contacts have been created / modified 5 years ago. So by excluding calendar and contacts, they will be backed up forever as long as the mailbox is in a backup job and is being protected !
New Cloud Credential Manager
With the new version 4 of VBO there is a new Cloud Credential Manager. You are able to manage all your attached object storage accounts out of this Cloud Credential Manager.
Simply open up the “Manage cloud credentials” tab through the main menu of your VBO installation.
When opened up the Cloud Credential Manager, you are able to edit, add, remove and maintain your cloud object storage credentials.
New Password Manager
In additon to the Cloud Credential Manager, there is also a new password manager. With the new password manager, you are able to managed passwords which are being used for data encryption.
The passwords added to the password manager are used to protect the actual encryption key. To encrypt backup data, Veeam uses the AES-256 specification. WARNING: Do not lose your passwords. The Veeam support cannot recover lost passwords or retrieve data from encrypted backup files.
Other new features and enhancements in Veeam Backup for Office 365 V4
The next 3 sections describe some other new features and enhancements, which are also worth of a mentioning !
Updated mailbox protection report in Veeam Backup for Office 365 V4
The mailbox protection report, which is a built-in feature of Veeam Backup for Office 365 was updated and does provide some more information now. For example it includes Office 365 Group, Public, Shared and Resource mailboxes in the mailbox protection report.
Inactivity Pop-up in VBO
As a result of inactivity, Veeam Backup for Office 365 will automatically disconnect your session from the VBO server. This happens after 30 minutes of “no activity” and is intended to reduce the load on the VBO server.
Non-mail enabled Office365 security groups support
Azure Active Directory security groups populated to Office 365 can now be used as a source for backup jobs. Consequently, I think this is a “hidden gem” in the new release of Veeam Backup for Office 365.
Hello,
Thanks for providing the V4 updates and features.
I have once small query on Veeam O365 Backup, I have configured My O356 Mail Boxes and Groups etc in veeam O365 successfully and backups are running fine.
But I can see the User’s Email boxes and contents in restore option Or in Backup items.
Is there any option to Hide Or any other ways to secure them to not visible the Mails and it contents.
Kindly review my query and help with a solution in steps.
Thanking you!
Regards,
Yuvakumar
from Bangalore, India.
Hello Yuvakumar,
at the moment there is no option to hide or secure those items. I guess Veeam is already aware of it. Just make sure, that only privileged administrators can access the backup infrastructure and items. Nevertheless, you can always post a feature request at the forums of Veeam. https://forums.veeam.com/veeam-backup-for-microsoft-office-365-f47/
Best Regards !
Falko