The Microsoft 365 Backup solution will soon be able to restore individual files and folders instead of complete sites. That’s a welcome upgrade to restore capabilities to cover situations like the inadvertent deletion of a file. It’s a wonder why Microsoft didn’t make more about this capability when they celebrated SharePoint’s 25th anniversary last week when they discussed departmental billing for Microsoft 365 Backup.
Microsoft celebrated the 25th anniversary of SharePoint with a batch of announcements, including AI in SharePoint, intended to help administrators to manage all aspects of SharePoint Online through natural language. Other interesting announcements included department-level payments for Microsoft 365 Backup and the renaming of the Connections app in Teams as the SharePoint app. Well, the last wasn’t that interesting…
An interesting article by Microsoft’s Mark Kashman lists his top five SharePoint features shipped in 2024. Four of the five features involve extra cost. Is the trend of Microsoft charging extra for most new features likely to continue in 2025? The need to generate additional revenues from the Microsoft 365 installed base probably means that this is the new normal.
The Usage Reports Graph API is now generally available, which means that it’s fully supported. In other news, a Graph API is available for Microsoft 365 Backup, The news demonstrates once again how widely the Graph APIs are used with Microsoft 365 and why tenant administrators should acquire some knowledge about how the Graph works.
Microsoft has created an easy to use Microsoft 365 Backup solution. Its key feature is speed, including speed to restore data. I tested restores for Exchange Online (which worked) and SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business (which didn’t). The lack of logging and error reporting when failures happen lead to frustration. Microsoft has some work to do to bulletproof this solution.
On November 15, Microsoft announced Microsoft 365 Backup would enter a public paid preview in December 2023, Paid preview means that tenants must link a valid Azure subscription to Syntex pay-as-you-go to pay the $0.15 fee per GB per month for protected content. We’ll know more once the preview begins and we get the chance to see just how fast backup and restore is.
Microsoft has announced that they will deliver Microsoft 365 Backup for Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive in public preview in late 2023. Microsoft has several advantages when it comes to access to data and ability to update APIs, but it also has to cope with the putting all eggs in one basket syndrome. We don’t know how Microsoft will charge for Microsoft 365 backup, but it’s likely to be on a consumption basis.
Backup vendors say you should definitely use their products to protect your valuable Microsoft 365 data. Backup products can do a good job, but the nature of Microsoft 365 creates many challenges at a technical level. A lack of APIs is the most fundamental issue, but the connected nature of Microsoft 365 apps is another.