usage of Graph Data Connect ?

[DaStivi]

While researching Microsoft Graph API throttling limits, I came across the following Microsoft documentation:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/throttling

It contains the following statement:

Solutions that need to extract a large volume of data from Microsoft Graph should use Microsoft Graph Data Connect instead of the Microsoft Graph REST APIs. Microsoft Graph Data Connect allows organizations to extract Microsoft 365 data in bulk without being subject to throttling limits.

Ignoring the associated costs (https://azure.microsoft.com/de-de/prici ... -connect/ – currently $0.75 per 1,000 objects processed), I was wondering whether Graph Data Connect could theoretically be used as a data source for VB365 backups.
From what I understand, Graph Data Connect is designed for large-scale data extraction scenarios and is not subject to the same throttling constraints as the standard Microsoft Graph REST APIs.
Has Veeam evaluated this approach, or are there technical, architectural, or compliance-related limitations that would prevent Graph Data Connect from being used for backup purposes?

I'm interested to hear whether this has been discussed before and if there are any official considerations regarding its applicability to VB365.

for reference:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph ... t-overview

[Polina]

Hi Stephan,

AFAIK, Graph Data Connect isn't a viable solution for backup:
- GDC requires the destination Azure resources to live in the same Microsoft 365 tenant as the source data. Cross-tenant access isn't supported, which eliminates all the BaaS scenarions and the whole concept of backup and 3-2-1 rule.
- The dataset catalog is built for analytics scenarios, not guaranteed full-fidelity, restorable objects with all metadata and versions intact.
- It's billed per object ($0.75/1,000, more for some datasets), which doesn't scale well against daily incremental backups.

On top of that, there's no write-back/restore capability. Restores would still have to go through Graph/CSOM regardless, so it doesn't actually remove the throttling-sensitive path — it only adds a second pipe for the read side.

[DaStivi]

Alright, I already suspected this would be the outcome. We're seeing an increasing number of customers facing Microsoft Graph API throttling issues—not just with Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365, but also with various third-party applications that access Microsoft 365 tenants and Entra ID, for example IAM/IDM platforms. Unfortunately, this appears to be a growing trend.