Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and/or Veeam Data Cloud

[hrai]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been using Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 (self-managed) for a little over 3 years, and my annual renewal is coming up in ~2 weeks. In parallel, we’ve also been backing up our Microsoft 365 data using Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 for the past 10 months. Today I noticed something odd: when I search Google for “Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365” I’m not seeing the usual product pages and when I try to find pricing I’m redirected to Veeam Data Cloud pricing instead. That makes me wonder whether Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 is being treated as a legacy (“grandfathered”) product (available only to existing customers), while Veeam Data Cloud is the primary offering for new customers.

So I’m trying to decide what to do with our renewal:

Should I renew our Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 licenses (and continue self-managed)?
or
Should I stop renewing VB365 and just keep using Veeam Data Cloud?

From a cost standpoint, Veeam Data Cloud per user/year is ~3x the cost of VB365 for us. If I add in our cloud storage costs for VB365, then Data Cloud comes out closer to ~2x.

Questions for the community:

1) Has anyone heard anything official/credible about VB365 becoming “legacy” or being limited to existing customers?
2) If I move to Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 (SaaS) do I lose any functionality "only" VB365 (self-managed) offers?

Thanks in advance for any insights!

[Polina]

Hi hrai,

VDC M365 is being actively promoted which explains the redirects that you see. VB365 still remains available if self-managed is your preference and you're fully satisfied with its existing funcitonality.
Compared to VB365, VDC M365 gets faster and more updates, including the new and improved functionality.
The feature set in those two solutions is a bit different indeed, but whether you're going to lose something when switching to VDC M365 depends on what you're currently using. For instance, currently, backup copy functionality is not available in VDC, as well as the ability to use object storage of your choice. Is that critical for you?

[hrai]

Hi Polina,

Thanks, that helps.

On your question (“backup copy not available in VDC” and “can’t use object storage of your choice”): for our environment those are the main functional differences we’re aware of so far.

What we use today with VB365 (self-managed). Bring-your-own object storage: We back up to two Wasabi buckets:

-Bucket A = primary repository
-Bucket B= backup copy repository with immutability enabled

This design gives us provider/region choice, plus a clear 2nd copy for DR and an immutable layer we control.

What I know is different with VDC for M365:

Storage is Veeam-managed (instead of BYO object storage), but I am not 100% sure how VDC handles:

-Whether VDC maintains a second copy / DR copy behind the scenes
-Immutability/WORM behavior and whether it is configurable / independently verifiable
-Data residency/region selection and any options for geo-redundancy
-Whether there’s any equivalent of “backup copy” (even if automated/managed) and what the RPO/RTO expectations are

Another practical difference I’ve observed

Restore performance: In my experience, restores from SharePoint/OneDrive/Exchange are typically ~2x to 3x faster on VB365 than on VDC for M365.

-Is that expected due to architecture (multi-tenant SaaS, throttling, etc.)?
-Are there settings/best practices (or roadmap items) to improve restore performance in VDC?

Beyond storage + performance: do we lose any functionality by going VDC-only?

Other than the two areas above, I am trying to understand if moving to VDC-only means giving up anything else we rely on in VB365 self-managed.

Lastly, on a personal note: I genuinely prefer the VDC UI over the VB365 “thick client” experience. We’re also planning to migrate our VBR 12 deployment to the VBR 13 software appliance, and I like that the UI direction is consistent.

Thanks again!