Q: (from Paul)

I’m looking for a document that goes into more detail than the Enterprise Service Description that talks about backup and/or disaster recovery for Office 365.

A:

I used Bing to search for the phrase “Office 365 Backup” and found the following Technet resource:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc742657.aspx

Then one of the Office 365 technology support professionals (Todd Sweetser) provided additional information:

From the “Security and Service Continuity for Enterprises Service Description” doc:

• Data backup: Data protection services help prevent the loss of SharePoint Online data. Backups are performed every 12 hours and retained for 14 days.

From the “Service Continuity Management” sections of the individual service descriptions:

Exchange Online:

• Mailbox Backup
  Exchange Online mailboxes are replicated to multiple database copies, in geographically dispersed Microsoft data centers, to provide data restoration capability in the event of a messaging infrastructure failure. For large-scale failures, service continuity management is initiated.

Also note: Exchange Online has set an RPO and RTO for client messaging services in the event of a disaster:

• Nearly instantaneous RPO: Microsoft protects your Exchange Online data and makes a nearly instantaneous copy of your data.
• 1 hour RTO: Organizations will be able to resume service within 60 minutes after service disruption if a disaster incapacitates a hosting data center.

SharePoint Online:

• Data Backup
  Data protection services are provided to prevent the loss of SharePoint Online data. Backups are performed every 12 hours and retained for 14 days. Note that this describes the data backup services as offered when SharePoint Online is generally available.  (Note same info from above)

Also note: SharePoint Online has set an RPO and RTO in the event of a disaster:

• 1 hour RPO: Microsoft protects your SharePoint Online data and has a copy of that data that is equal to or less than 1 hour old.
• 6 hour RTO: Organizations will be able to resume service within 6 hours after service disruption if a disaster incapacitates a hosting data center.

Great information! Thanks Todd!

  Steve Deming