SharePoint Site not showing Backed Up Contents

[habibalby]

Hi All,

I came across very strange issue where when I configure a Backup Job to backup SharePoint site, I have noticed whenever the job starts, no contents can be found/restored/backed up. I logged a case with Veeam@Support [03330797] and I'm surprise to hear that, the SharePoint backup works in conduction with the Retention Period sets on Veeam O365 Repository...!!!

That’s strange for such a backup process. Now the retention period should be applied on the backed up data files and not on the actual files which needs to be backed up... If we have a SharePoint site with lots of data and no updates / amendments nor new files added to it since last 60 days... Does that means if the retention period is set for 30 "Default" no data will be backed up from the SharePoint..?

Within Veeam O365 Repository Configuration its clearly specified "Retention Policy For Backed up Data".. and not for a data that needs to be backed up. Nor its ideal to set the retention period ForEever just because Sharepoint cannot be back up the entire contents…

Hey @Veeam, am I understanding correctly or something wrong..?

Regards,

[habibalby]

That's true, the moment I changed the retention period on one of our Repositories and re-run SharePoint backup job, I can see some data is being transferred..

Hey @Veeam, is the solution to have one Repository with a Retention set ForEver. And another Repository configured with default retention..?

Is this concept applies to both SharePoint, OneDrive and Mailbox as well..?

Regards,

[habibalby]

The first line in this article https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/vbo36 ... tml?ver=20 states that;
A retention policy defines how long your data should be kept in a backup repository.

And not (Data will be backed up as per the retention configured on the Repository) For Instance, if your retention period is 30 days, items will be backed up only if they are less than the configured retention period.

Regards,

[nielsengelen]

Hussain,

A retention policy works based on the repository setting. If you set it to 3 years we will keep the data between now and 3 years ago.

This means an e-mail (or Onedrive item, sharepoint item) which has changed in 3 years will be backed up however an item which would be from December 18th 2015 won't be backed up. The solution to this is increase the duration (or set it to forever).

We are however looking at changing or adding other options to the repository to reflect the scenario we have within Veeam Backup & Replication as many of our customers are familiar with and have requested.

[habibalby]

Hi Niels,
Thank you very much for your reply, I'm looking forward to hear from Veeam soon on this.. As its not practical at all to link On-Premise Data Retention (Repository) configuration/Settings with Remote destination such as Microsoft Office365.

Regards,

[Polina]

Hi Hussain,

Niels is correct, we're currently working on something to address your needs, so please stay tuned on this.
The only thing I'd like to add is that the current retention mechanism is actually explained in the VBO documentation: "The backup job, in turn, does not archive items, the modification time of which exceeds the specified retention period" (but we probably need to highlight this line).

Thanks!

[habibalby]

Hi Polina,
That's true.. The line you specified is not clear until we so the job behaviors..

Regards,

[Polina]

Thanks for the feedback, Hussain.
I'll make sure the documentation is updated accordingly to avoid any further confusion and inconvenience.