Item-level or snapshot retention

[nico.losschaert]

Hi

As you all know, you have to make a choice between item-level retention and snapshot-based retention when creating the backup repositories for VBO365.
You can't change them afterwards, so this desicion is important when configuring them for the first time for a tenant.

I understand the difference between both, no problem.
Both have their 'advantages and disadvantages'.

The most ideally sitution would be that the customer understands both solutions and just choose between them.
As a consultant our customers rely mostly on what we decide as a best practice.
So we have to have a best-practice, a standard, a default setup.
This is also the best approach to support in my opinion.

What should I choose as the default retention : item-level or snapshot-based retention?
Should I make a difference between the different services?
ex : snapshot-based retention on sharepoint repository and item-level retention on Exchange repository?
Just let the customer decide in the retention : 1 year, 2 years, ...?

Is there a difference geographically?
The most of our customers are already using VEEAM Backup & Replication, so they understand mostly the snapshot-level setup backup.
As default in VBO365 item-level is being used and that's not always clear for the customer.

What is VEEAM using as a best-practice?
What are other consultants choosing?

What are the pro's and cons?

Thx for any feedback!

Many regards
Nico

[Mike Resseler]

Nico,

To me it depends on 1 specific question:

What is your SLA?

There are companies that need to retain a mail-item for (let's say) 7 years. In that case, it is better to go to item-level protection, as it makes sense. When an item is not created/ modified for over 7 years, it can be (legally) removed from the backup.

However, many other companies state that they need protection of the mailbox-as-is for (example again) 90 days. In that case snapshot makes sense because there might be items in the mailbox that are older but still visible for the customer.

Makes sense?

[nico.losschaert]

Thx Mike for your answer, yes it makes sense!

regards
Nico

[HangTen]

I am curious about storage differences? Does snapshot retention use more storage?

[Mike Resseler]

There will be indeed a difference, but it really depends on the situation. I have seen it go both ways. It depends on your retention. Mostly I see a very long retention for item-level (for legal reasons, for example 7 years) and snapshot sometimes is only 30 days or so...

[HangTen]

Thanks, Mike! But on an equal length retention, I would guess item-level would use much less storage.

[Mike Resseler]

Hin,

Yes, normally it should as there would be less data protected.