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stvajnkf
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PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by stvajnkf » 7 people like this post

Forgive me, Veeam, for posting this message on your behalf. I love these strangers and want them to know that their data is NOT being backed up if they use the Retention feature. I know you want the same thing, but your documentation is so lacking, that many people are unknowingly at risk of major data loss even though their backup job has a pretty green checkmark next to it.

Users of Veeam Backup for Office 365, if you select ANY number of years for the "Retention policy" on your Backup Repository, then some of your data is NOT being backed up!

For example, if you select "1 year", then any email older than 1 year in your users' mailboxes is NOT BACKED UP! Instead, Veeam will ONLY back up data that was created or modified within the past 12 months. Also, once an email, safely stored in your backup repository, becomes more than 12 months old, that email will be purged from your backups automatically, even though your user has not deleted the email from their mailbox and still needs to recover it in the event of a data loss scenario.

The only way to do a full backup of your user's mailboxes is to select "Keep forever" on the "Retention policy" of your Backup Repository. That means that every email in your users' mailboxes will be backed up, even if they are 15 years old. If users delete some emails, those emails will remain recoverable from your backup repository forever as well. With Veeam Backup for O365, there is no way to purge deleted items from your backup repository while still keeping the non-deleted items. You have to choose to keep everything forever, or lose everything, deleted or not, after a certain amount of time.

The only companies who should use the retention feature would be companies that intentionally want to lose access to all emails (and the ability to recover them) older than a certain date (for liability reasons). In that case, selecting a value like "3 years" means that there will be no backups of emails that are older than 3 years. In that case, the title of this thread still applies because some of their data is not backed up, but at least in that situation, it is intentional.

If this has helped you, please press the LIKE button on the right, or post a comment below, so Veeam can see how many customers have been affected by this misunderstanding.

xoxo
Polina
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by Polina » 3 people like this post

Hi stvajnkf,

It's very kind of you to make everyone on forums clearly aware of what our documentation states (not everyone reads manuals and we all know it) :)

"The backup job, in turn, does not archive items, the modification time of which exceeds the specified retention period." - this is what we have in the VBO user guide.


P.S. Please feel free to press the Like button )
stvajnkf
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by stvajnkf »

I actually don't care about the Like points myself, but I thought it would help Veeam recognize how important this info is if it gets lots of Likes. This isn't even my account. I found the username and password for it online somewhere.

I read that documentation and it was pretty bad IMO. I still had no idea how it works after reading that page, and I'm a super-experienced IT guy. I only realized that data was missing from my backups when I saw that the folder where the repo is stored only had subfolders going back 3 years when I knew we had emails going back many more years than that.

I think that page should be completely re-written, the text inside the program should be clarified, and maybe even an email should go out to all customers to ensure that nobody else is wrongly trusting that their data is backed up when it actually isn't. Veeam probably has smart lawyers and a good EULA to protect them from lawsuits, but I wonder if even a strong EULA is enough for this situation. I wish you luck! The world needs a good affordable O365 backup program.
dnewcomb
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by dnewcomb » 2 people like this post

Yes, I was caught out originally when I was setting up a repository. Didn't really notice the retention at the time, I assumed it was retention of the repository I was creating, not anything relating to O365. Seems a bit odd to have that setting within the repository rather than the backup job itself.
Polina
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by Polina » 2 people like this post

@stvajnkf, Dion,

Your feedback is much appreciated. Understanding VBO retention mechanism might be not that easy, and some questions on it keep coming here on the forums. We have revised the corresponding documentation a couple of times already, and apparently, some more efforts are still needed here.

We're also working on some enhancements to the retention options in VBO, which will address your needs and extend the available options for keeping the data.

Thanks!
stvajnkf
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by stvajnkf » 1 person likes this post

dnewcomb wrote: Nov 13, 2018 10:59 pm Seems a bit odd to have that setting within the repository rather than the backup job itself.
I agree about that too; the retention settings feel more logical in the Backup Job settings since that setting determines which files get backed up. The repository settings should have stuff specifically about the repository, like how often the data gets scanned for corruption, expired data gets purged, compression settings, encryption, etc.
habibalby
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by habibalby »

Polina
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by Polina » 3 people like this post

The internal discussion on introducing alternative retention options has already been initiated. Cannot make any promises yet, but we take it seriously and the team is working hard on enhancements.

Thanks!
n2v

Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by n2v »

Has anyone managed to implement a good backup procedure and care to share an example of their setup please?

Thanks



habibalby wrote: Dec 19, 2018 7:49 am Same dilemma here too;

veeam-backup-for-microsoft-office-365-f ... 55929.html
Mike Resseler
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by Mike Resseler »

Andrew,

Did you check the new retention method?
n2v

Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by n2v »

Good Morning / Evening Michael,

I have not installed VBO Version 3.0 yet. I was wanting to know in my initial post with you if my Evaluation License key from Version 2.0 would work with VBO version 3.0 please?

Thank you
Andrew
n2v

Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by n2v »

It would still be handy to have examples of possible solutions to give people ideas on what this new type of retention does. I, myself is not at an adavnced level on backups so some of this information is new to me. Thank you for your time and patience. In the end I might even go look and do a Veeam course lol
Mike Resseler
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by Mike Resseler »

Hey Andrew,

Niels explained the two different retention types here: https://www.veeam.com/blog/new-features ... up-v3.html
Could you review this first and let me know if you have additional questions? I will assist as good as I can
AlexB82
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by AlexB82 »

n2v wrote: Apr 09, 2019 8:08 am Has anyone managed to implement a good backup procedure and care to share an example of their setup please?

Thanks
We just set our retention to "forever" as we didn't want to risk losing any data (there's a few examples on the forum already of people who weren't aware of items not getting backed up until they needed a restore)....

Looks like v3 goes some way to resolving that issue (at least with the snapshot-based backups).
Polina
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Re: PSA to all users: Using the Retention feature means your data is NOT fully backed up

Post by Polina »

Alex,

If you're running the latest v3, whatever retention period you set with the snapshot-based retention, you'll get all items backed up on a first job run (i.e. a 'snapshot' of a mailbox/OneDrive/site state as it looks at that point in time) - regardless of their modification date.
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