The document discusses backups in Microsoft Office 365. It answers questions about how many versions of files are retained in SharePoint by default (500), how long deleted emails are retained (14 days), and how to extend deleted email recovery to 30 days for free. Third-party backups may be useful for restoring single items, holding backups outside Microsoft infrastructure, or providing long-term restoration capabilities. It's important to understand default Office 365 recovery options and when third-party options can augment them.

3. Q. Are more backups better?
A. Yes

4. Q. What is the trade off with more
backups?
A. Consume time, storage and money

5. Q. Does Microsoft backup your Office
365 data?
A. Yes
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/office-365-blog/data-protection-beyond-backup-and-recovery-with-office-365/ba-p/142871

6. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/security-privacy-compliance/top-10-security-and-privacy-features-of-office-365/m-p/7693

7. Q. What exactly do you mean by
backup?

8. Q. What exactly is the end users
concept of backup?

9. Don’t forget that restore is always
an important part of any backup

10. Let us examine emails

11. Q. How long are deleted emails
retained by default in all
mailboxes across Office 365?
A. 14 days
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/recipients-in-exchange-online/manage-user-mailboxes/change-deleted-item-retention

12. Q. What is the maximum period you
can extend deleted email
recovery to for free?
A. 30 days
Get-mailbox | set-mailbox -retaindeleteditemsfor 30

13. Q. What 2 things do you require to retain
emails beyond the free 30-day maximum
limit?
A. 1 = Buy Litigation hold
2 = Apply Litigation hold
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/create-a-litigation-hold

14. Q. How do you recover a deleted email within
30 days ?
A. Done by user from mailbox
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/recover-deleted-items-in-outlook-for-windows-49e81f3c-c8f4-4426-a0b9-
c0fd751d48ce?ui=en-US&rs=en-AU&ad=AU

15. Q. How do you recover a deleted email beyond
30 days that is under litigation hold?
A. An administrator needs to use the
eDiscovery service
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/recover-deleted-items-in-a-mailbox

16. Let us examine SharePoint

17. Q. How many versions of a file in
SharePoint are retained by
default?
A. 500
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/How-does-versioning-work-in-a-SharePoint-list-or-library-0F6CD105-974F-44A4-AADB-43AC5BDFD247

18. Q. What happens to a deleted file in
SharePoint?
A. Sent to Recycle Bin
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Restore-items-in-the-Recycle-Bin-of-a-SharePoint-site-6df466b6-55f2-4898-8d6e-c0dff851a0be

19. Q. How long are items retained in the
SharePoint Site Collection Recycle
Bin before being purged?
A. 93 days
https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Restore-items-in-the-Recycle-Bin-of-a-SharePoint-site-6df466b6-55f2-4898-8d6e-c0dff851a0be

20. Q. Can SharePoint items be retained
beyond the standard 93 days?
A. Yes, using retention policies
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/retention-policies#how

21. Restoring Data

22. Q. How does Microsoft restore data if
necessary?
A. Typically, the whole container over
the source

23. So where do third party backups make sense?
- When you want to know an exact time when a backup runs
- When you want multiple point in time backup sources
- When you want the backup to be held outside Microsoft infrastructure
- When you need to restore a single file or email message
- When you want to restore the structure items live in
- When you want the user to have long term restoration capability
- When you want to restore data to a location different than the source

24. Things to consider
• You need to carefully define what you need or mean by ‘backup’. What risks are you
trying to minimise? And for whom?
• Most third-party backups only do files and email, not services like Teams, Planner, Sway,
Yammer, etc.
• What security is provided by third party options? Is the data encrypted? Does it use
legacy authentication? Does it require standing administrator privileges?
• Is the additional amount spent on third party backups better spent on upgraded licenses
or user enablement features?
• How do you actually recover items from backup?
• Will any backup also retain things like metadata?

25. - Ensure you know what default Office 365 recovery options are
- Understand how you can extend the default options
- Define what you require any backup to provide
- Understand where third party options augment and extend what
is already provided
- Test the recovery process BEFORE you need it
Takeaways

26. Email : director@ciaops.com
Twitter : @directorcia