CodeTwo Backup for Office 365

CodeTwo Backup for Office 365

 

CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 is a desktop application that lets you perform full or incremental backups of selected Microsoft 365 (Office 365) mailboxes and public folders, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites, as well as Microsoft Teams data. Thanks to the granular recovery feature and advanced search options available for backup storages, you can then choose to restore either entire mailboxes and site collections or only selected types of data – from email folders, calendars and contacts in Exchange Online or lists and libraries in SharePoint and OneDrive, to individual items like single messages or attachments. 

 

CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 allows you to back up on-premises Exchange and SharePoint contents as well.

 

Key features

 

 

Back up Microsoft 365 mailboxes

Create offline backup copies of your Microsoft 365 mailboxes and save them to local storages in your company. Run automatic incremental backups to keep users’ mailbox copies up to date. Store them for as long as you need and restore them easily whenever you need. 

 

 

Back up Microsoft 365 public folders

Easily back up the content of public folders in your Microsoft 365 environment to stay assured that no important data is lost permanently.

 

 

Back up SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business

Automatically create backup copies of SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business data and easily restore them when necessary. Add an additional layer of protection by securing entire SharePoint site collections, team sites, and personal files stored on individual OneDrive sites of Microsoft 365 users. 

 

 

Back up Microsoft Teams data

Keep your Microsoft Teams data safe by backing up documents stored in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business sites. If necessary, move the Microsoft Teams data between teams or build new teams from scratch on another Microsoft 365 tenant by using backed-up Exchange and SharePoint data. 

 

 

Support for online and on-premises Exchange and SharePoint

Protect data within your on-premises infrastructure as well. The program can back up both Microsoft 365 and the on-premises server products – Microsoft Exchange Server and SharePoint Server – which makes it a complete cross-premises data backup and restore solution.

 

 

Migrate SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business data

Use CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 to migrate the content from one SharePoint Online instance and OneDrive for Business account to another. The program will let you easily download data from the source SharePoint environment and then restore it to a different SharePoint site, library, or folder, on the same or another environment.

 

 

Continuous incremental backup

Perform continuous incremental backups to maximize backup speed and save storage space or create full backup copies of selected Microsoft 365 data whenever needed. All backup jobs work in the background and are managed via an intuitive and easy-to-use interface.

 

 

Secure local backup of Microsoft 365 data

Don't keep all eggs in one basket. CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 lets you create backup copies of data stored in cloud services like Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, or OneDrive for Business and save them securely on your local machine. The program itself draws heavily from CodeTwo’s Information Security Management System, certified against ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27018, to provide maximum protection of your data in the cloud and on-premises. 

 

 

Backup and storage on cloud-hosted virtual machines

Perform a cloud backup of your Microsoft 365 data by installing the program on a virtual machine hosted in the cloud (for example Microsoft Azure). Manage your backup tasks and access all backup copies from any PC with access to the Internet. 

 

 

Easy deployment from Azure Marketplace

Get CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 from Microsoft Azure Marketplace and deploy the program on a dedicated Azure virtual machine in just a few clicks. 

 

 

Backup on demand or schedule automatic backups

Launch one-time backup jobs whenever you need or set up the program to run automatic backups. Set activity periods using the built-in scheduler. 

 

 

Central management

Manage backup and restore tasks for all users' mailboxes, public folders, or SharePoint sites from one place. Create backup jobs for the entire Microsoft 365 tenant or selected Exchange or SharePoint Online data only. Browse and restore all offline backup copies without logging in to other user accounts or manually running any PowerShell commands. 

 

 

Unlimited data retention and full control

Store your backup data for as long as you need – since CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 saves backup copies to your local storages, you don’t have to worry about the retention policy anymore. 

 

 

Automatic archiving of old and inactive data

Secure your backups by creating jobs that repeatedly archive Exchange and SharePoint Online data from your storages or export Microsoft 365 mailboxes and public folders to PST files. Combine the archiving feature with a smart storage retention policy to control the disk space consumed by your backups.

 

 

Granular backup and recovery

Perform single or multi-tenant backups of the entire Exchange Online and SharePoint Online data or only specific mailboxes, public folders, or site collections. Take advantage of the granular point in time restoration functionality to recover selected mailbox folders, SharePoint lists and libraries, or even particular emails or documents (including OneNote notebooks). 

 

 

Browse versions & search for items

Easily browse through backup copies in search of particular folders or items. Locate data using search filter criteria such as keywords, time frames, sender’s properties, etc. 

 

 

Restore data to the same or different Microsoft 365 tenants

The backed-up data doesn’t have to be restored to its original location. CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 lets you recover items to mailboxes or SharePoint sites located in different Microsoft 365 as well as Exchange organizations. 

 

 

Support for all Outlook item types

Back up and restore all mailbox item types available in Outlook, such as emails, calendars, tasks or journals. You can also exclude selected folder types from being backed up, e.g. Deleted Items or Junk E-mail. 

 

 

Deploy on a physical or virtual machine

Install CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 on either a physical or virtual Windows-based machine. Decide for yourself where you want to run the program and keep your backed-up data. 

 

 

Reduce backup and disaster recovery costs

With its multi-tenancy and multi-storage support, you can back up different Microsoft 365 tenants and use as many backup repositories as necessary with just a single instance of the program, saving both time and money.

 

 

No impact on users

The backup process is invisible to users and has absolutely no impact on their Microsoft 365 service availability, mailbox performance or access to SharePoint Online sites.

 

 

Compliance with legal requirements

Some directives impose the duty on organizations to maintain electronic data for a certain period of time and to be able to submit that data at any time for litigation or inspection purposes, if requested. CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 can help you comply with such obligations. 

 

Why CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 is secure?

 

CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 is a solid and reliable solution that allows you to securely backup Office 365 (Microsoft 365) users' mailboxes and public folders data, as well as SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business data. We know how important business data is, so we have developed this program to help companies comply with their high security standards. Find out how CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 protects your company data and ensures its availability when needed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ISO/IEC 27001 & 27018

CodeTwo’s Information Security Management System (ISMS), implemented, maintained and certified to ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27018, consists of policies, procedures and controls that govern data security practices within our company. The ISMS has also a significant influence on the development process of CodeTwo Backup for Office 365. All security measures are implemented during the early stages of the program’s development cycle (privacy by design) and made available to users out of the box (privacy by default). That way you can be sure your data is always in good hands when using our software. Furthermore, our ISMS undergoes regular audits and is continuously improved.

 

Data encryption

To ensure that no unauthorized person has access to the backed-up contents, CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 not only encrypts Office 365 and SharePoint Online data during the backup process but also provides additional protection to its storages and archives. Data encryption also helps to comply with security requirements set in your organization or imposed by law regulations.

 

Support for Modern Authentication

CodeTwo’s Office 365 backup solution uses the secure OAuth 2.0 authorization flow to gain access to your Exchange Online mailboxes and perform data backup and recovery tasks. OAuth 2.0 access tokens are also used as an additional layer of protection when establishing a connection to SharePoint Online.

 

Recovery Key for unpredictable scenarios

The program has been equipped with an extra protection mechanism which generates a unique Recovery Key. This key guarantees that in situations when you forget the password to a password-protected storage, you will be able to restore the data it contains by using that key.

 

Password-protected storages

CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 allows you to restrict access to a storage by setting up a password. This way only authorized staff will be able to access, edit or restore items kept in the company’s repositories.

 

Monitoring and diagnostic mechanism

At any stage of the backup process, the program monitors its progress and automatically generates performance reports that are instantly visible in the program’s Administration Panel. To be sure that no event escapes your attention, the program also provides a mechanism which can automatically send notifications to your email address if a specified event happens.

 

Support for Office 365 MFA

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is one of the most important Office 365 security mechanisms, preventing unauthorized access to organizations. CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 supports Office 365 MFA, which means that using our software does not compromise your tenant’s safety. When configuring a connection to SharePoint Online, make sure to use app passwords instead of regular passwords if MFA is enabled in Office 365. 

 

Office 365 data backups not stored by a third party

For security reasons, Office 365 data backed up by the program is stored exclusively on your company local storages. This eliminates the risk of keeping critical corporate data on third party servers. What’s more, it ensures offline access to the contents of Office 365 mailboxes and public folders, as well as to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business data at any time.

 

No impact on end users

CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 is totally safe for source contents and its operation is completely invisible to end users. All the backup jobs are performed in the background and have no impact on users’ work – no data is blocked during the backup process.

 

Solid and secure backups

CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 creates solid and secure backup copies of emails, contacts, calendars and other mailbox data. The same applies to SharePoint data (site collections, team sites, lists, libraries, and folders) as well as OneDrive sites. The backed-up data is resistant to corruption and highly reliable. Additionally, to avoid human error or malpractice, backups can be fully automated by running continuous backup jobs or by scheduling their activity time ranges.

 

Secure and reliable data restoration

The main reason for creating backups is the possibility of restoring the required data easily and immediately when necessary. CodeTwo Office 365 Backup ensures stability and reliability of the backup copies to guarantee data availability whenever it is needed for either internal or legal purposes.

 

Support for Office 365 Message Encryption

The Office 365 Message Encryption (OME) feature allows sending encrypted emails in Office 365 and ensures that only authorized users can read them. CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 lets you create backup copies of such emails without stripping them of their encryption properties. In addition, OME-encrypted emails remain as such even when restored by the program to any Office 365 tenant.

 

Archiving

Once Office 365 data has been backed up, it can be easily archived and moved to the company’s external storage to maintain an additional layer of protection. The archive files are 1:1 copies of storages, so they include all the versions of backed-up Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business items as well as the folder structure exactly as it is presented on the source server. Archived data can be safely kept for as long as your company needs - ready to be restored even years after it was deleted from its original location.

 

24h Technical support

The program comes with technical support, which is included in the subscription price. If you have any questions about the program or need any assistance, our Customer Service team is available 24 hours a day, from Monday to Friday, to assist you.

 

Trial version

To take the program for a test drive, you can download and run a trial version of CodeTwo Backup for Office 365. While testing the software, you get access to fully functional backup jobs that you can test for 30 days. When testing the restore functionality, you will be able to recover up to 5 items per folder.

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

 

How does CodeTwo Backup work?

The program is a desktop application that connects with your Office 365 (Microsoft 365) tenant via Exchange Web Services (EWS) and Microsoft Graph, and with SharePoint Online via SharePoint API. CodeTwo Backup reads the contents of users' mailboxes, public folders, as well as SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites and creates their copy that you can keep on local drives or in the cloud storage (if the program is installed on a cloud-hosted virtual machine). In order to connect to your server, certain requirements need to be fulfilled. When establishing a connection to SharePoint Online, if you are providing credentials of an admin account that has multi-factor authentication enabled, you need to use an app password instead of the regular Office 365 password.

 

The administrator sets up backup jobs by configuring criteria in the program. There is an option to specify what data should be backed up once the backup job is launched, and where the backup copies of mailboxes should be stored. 

 

The program can perform a one-time backup job or backup data in cycles. During the first cycle, a complete backup copy is created. It means that all items meeting the criteria defined in the job configuration are saved to the specified storage. During subsequent backup cycles, incremental backup copies are created. During the incremental backups, the program scans mailboxes in search of changes in items or newly arrived items and backs them up upon detection. 

 

The administrator can choose to restore entire mailboxes, selected folders or single items. When restoring SharePoint data, the administrator has options to select entire site collections and team sites or individual sites, libraries, folders and items. The program also allows restoring Office 365 users’ personal sites in OneDrive for Business service and individual documents. Data can be restored to the original location, or a different folder/mailbox/site or even another Office 365 tenant.

 

Can I in any way integrate CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 with Microsoft Azure cloud services?

Yes, you can. CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 is available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace, from where it can be easily deployed on a dedicated Azure VM. This will allow you to keep your backed-up data in the cloud or to run backup jobs remotely. Additionally, you can use Azure Managed Disk as a storage space for your data backups. Such managed disks can be detached, if not used, or moved across other virtual machines in your resource group. Integrating CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 with Azure provides you with even more storage and security options for your backed-up data.

 

What are the storage size requirements?

The storage size requirements are determined by the amount of data that you need to backup. The program itself doesn’t impose any storage size limits. Used and free space can be easily verified at any time in the CodeTwo Backup user’s interface. 

 

What is backed up by the program?

CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 backs up Exchange Online user mailboxes, Office 365 (Microsoft 365) group mailboxes, archive (in-place archive) mailboxes, shared mailboxes, resource (room and equipment) mailboxes, public folders, as well as SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites. All typical Exchange Online mailbox folder types and item types are supported. The program also can be used to create copies of Teams data that resides within SharePoint team sites and OneDrive for Business.

You can use CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 to back up data from on-premises Exchange and SharePoint servers as well. 

 

Are there any item size or speed limits imposed by the program?

No. The program uses EWS to connect to the source Office 365 (Microsoft 365) tenant and to copy the mailbox contents. It also uses SharePoint API to connect to SharePoint Online. The speed of data transfer can be determined by many factors, independent from the application itself, e.g. network bandwidth, EWS performance.

What is more, the program doesn’t put any limits on the size of backed up items.

 

Can users work with their mailboxes during the backup process?

Yes. The backup process is totally invisible to users. The program doesn’t interfere with users' capability to access their mailboxes while they are being backed up.

 

Why do I need CodeTwo Backup for Office 365?

The program will help you create backup copies of an important mailbox and public folders data as well as SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites. Additionally, the fact that backup copies can be stored locally allows for unlimited offline access to data stored in those copies.

All backups are managed centrally, which means that you can create and manage backup and restore jobs from one workstation.

 

CodeTwo Backup for Office 365 is also helpful when you need to comply with the law and keep the mailbox data to make it available for legal actions. When it is necessary, you can search for certain items and, if they were deleted, recover them.

 

Thanks to that, you will also be ensured that no important emails or other types of data are damaged or lost forever – no matter whether it was deleted by accident or it was caused by malicious behavior, you will be able to retrieve every single item.

 

Does the program support MFA?

Yes, when configuring a connection to your Office 365 (Microsoft 365) tenant you can use credentials of admin accounts with multi-factor authentication enabled. However, when connecting to SharePoint Online, simply use the app password instead of your regular Office 365 credentials.