Overnight at Microsoft Ignite, we announced availability of the Public Beta for the next version of Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365. This is again a much awaited update for VBO with a ton of enhancements and the introduction of Object Storage Support for Backup Repositories. The product has done extremely well and is one of our fastest growing in the Veeam Availability Platform. The reason for this is due to Organizations now understanding the requirements around the backing up of Office 365 data.

Backup for Office 365 3.0 Yes! You Still Need to Backup your SaaS

While we have enhanced a number of features and added some more reporting and user account management options, the biggest addition is the ability to leverage Object Storage to store longer term backup data. This has been a huge request since around version 1.5 of VBO, mainly due to the amount of data that is required to backup Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive Organizations.

Similar to Cloud Tier in Backup & Replication 9.5 Update 4, the premise of the feature is to release pressure (be it cost, management and maintenance) on local Backup Repositories and offload the bulk of the data to cheaper Object Storage.

There is support in the beta for:

Though similar in name to Cloud Tier in Backup & Replication, the way in which the data is offloaded, stored and referenced in the VBO implementation is vasty different to that of Cloud Tier. As we get to GA for the v4 release there will be more information forthcoming about the underlying mechanics of that.

The Beta is available now and can be installed on a seperate server for side by side testing against Office 365 Organizations. For those looking to test the new functionality before the offical GA later in the year head to the Beta Download page and try it out!