Microsoft Office 365

Safeguard your cloud data with local backups:

• Protect your Office 365 data: Zmanda Pro empowers you to create local backups of your essential Office 365 information, ensuring an extra layer of security beyond Microsoft's built-in measures.

• Supported services: Back up data from:

  • Exchange Online: Mailbox (Email), calendar, contacts

  • Sites: SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, Teams Files

• Space-efficient storage: Zmanda Pro optimizes storage with client-side encryption, compression, and deduplication, minimizing backup footprint.

NOTE: Working in harmony with Microsoft

• Shared responsibility for data protection: While Microsoft Online Services ensure the availability of Office 365 and meet their SLAs, Zmanda Pro complements their efforts by offering independent backups for enhanced protection.

• Layered protection for comprehensive safety: Consider combining Zmanda Pro's local backups with Microsoft's first-party features like Retention Policies and Litigation Hold for even more robust data safeguarding.

• Benefits of a multi-layered approach: These features provide:

  • Data redundancy and resilience against loss or tampering

  • Compliance with legal and regulatory requirements

  • Streamlined reporting across backup sources

  • Simplified restoration of individual items

Overview - Office 365 Services​

When opting for mailbox selection during backup, you have the flexibility to choose from options like ALL users, Individual users, or specific Azure AD groups.

Services	Backup	Restore to Local	Restore to Cloud	Supported	Not Supported
Exchange Online
Mailbox (Email)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Active users, shared mailboxes	Guest users, Deleted users, Discovery mailbox, Archive mailbox, Journal mailbox, Outlook group mailboxes
Calendar	Yes	Yes	Yes	Restore to local:JSON format
Contacts	Yes	Yes	Yes	Restore to local:JSON format
Tasks	No	No	No
SharePoint Online
Sites	Yes	Yes	No	Restore lists, documents and pages individually
Lists	Yes	Yes	Yes
Pages	Yes	Yes	No
OneDrive for Business
Document Library (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Displayed under "Documents" in associated SharePoint site
Teams
Files	Yes	Yes	Yes	Displayed under "Documents" in associated SharePoint site
Chat	No	No	No
Calendar	No	No	No
Meetings	No	No	No
Call	No	No	No

Authentication

Authorization for backups

• Zmanda Pro requires authorization to access your Office 365 data for backup.

• This authorization is granted through an "Application" in Azure AD.

• Exercise caution with credentials due to extensive access to your Office 365 organization.

Creating the application

Choose one of two methods:

1. Automatic application registration

• Click the Azure Active Directory button within Zmanda Pro.

• Follow the wizard-guided process.

• Requires top-level administrator access on Azure.

​2. Manual application registration

• Register the application in Azure AD

Visit Microsoft Entra admin center . ​

Proceed to the Azure Active Directory and access the App registrations section. Create a new registration by entering a distinct name, such as "My Branded Office 365 Backup Product."

Click Register.

Copy Application (client) ID and Directory (tenant) ID into Zmanda Pro's corresponding fields.

• Register an authentication secret

In Azure AD, go to Certificates & secrets > Client secrets > New client secret.

Create a new secret with a name and expiry.

Copy the Value into Zmanda Pro's Application Secret field.

• Grant permissions

In Azure AD, go to API permissions > Add a permission.

Add the following permissions:

• full_access_as_app (Office 365 Exchange Online)

• Application.Read.All, Calendars.ReadWrite, Contacts.ReadWrite, Directory.Read.All, Files.ReadWrite.All, GroupMember.Read.All, Mail.ReadWrite, Notes.Read.All, Sites.FullControl.All, TeamMember.ReadWrite.All, User.Read.All (Microsoft Graph)

• Grant admin consent.

Configuring Selections ​

• Zmanda Pro allows you to customize which Office 365 mailboxes and sites to back up.

• Use the pencil button in the desktop app to select items.

• Choose mailboxes and sites independently using the dropdown arrow next to the + button.

Backup options:

• Back up all: Includes all mailboxes/sites.

• Back up only selected: Includes only specifically chosen mailboxes/sites.

• Back up all excluding selected: Includes all mailboxes/sites except those you've excluded.

Selecting users and sites:

1. Click the pencil button.

2. Click the + button to open a dialog box for selection.

3. Search for specific users or sites.

4. Choose individual users, sites, or Azure AD groups of user accounts.

Zmanda Pro currently does not support Outlook groups.

Supported mailbox types:

• Active Users' mailboxes (as displayed in the Office 365 Admin Center)

• Shared Mailboxes generated through an Exchange E5 license plan or a higher tier. Shared mailboxes are counted as distinct mailboxes for billing purposes.

Remote configuration:

• Access Protected Item configuration remotely through the Zmanda Pro console when the device is online and connected to the server.

Performance Considerations

Data transfer and storage:

• Backup jobs use Microsoft Office 365 APIs to read data from the cloud and store it in the Storage Vault.

• Local devices download a significant amount of data.

Incremental backups:

• Zmanda Pro leverages server-side delta change APIs for efficient incremental backups of:

  • Mailbox (Email)

  • Calendars

  • Contacts

  • OneDrive files

  • Teams files

• Deleting files from a backup job snapshot can impact subsequent incremental backup times.

• SharePoint lists are currently excluded from server-side delta change APIs, potentially slowing down their backup.

Rate limiting:

• The Office 365 API imposes rate limits, potentially affecting overall backup job performance.

• Rate limits are applied per mailbox account.

• Zmanda Pro backs up multiple mailboxes in parallel to balance performance.

• In environments with mailboxes of varying sizes, the largest mailbox can impact overall performance.

Latency and performance:

• Hosting the Zmanda Pro device within Microsoft Azure can significantly reduce latency to Office 365 servers, improving performance.

Recommendations:

• Monitor backup job performance and adjust schedules or selections as needed.

• Consider network optimization strategies for large-scale Office 365 environments.

Restore

• Preview emails before restoring to view content and attachments.

• Restore to either local PC or back to the cloud.

• Different file formats and processing for different items:

  • Emails: MIME format (*.eml)

  • Calendar appointments: vCalendar format (*.vcf)

  • Contacts and calendars: JSON format (requires conversion to *.vcf)

  • SharePoint file attachments, OneDrive items, Teams files: Found within associated SharePoint site

Restoring Office 365 items to the local PC​

• Emails:

  • Open with Microsoft Outlook or other email programs.

  • Import bulk *.eml files by dragging and dropping into Outlook.

• Calendar appointments:

  • Rename *.eml attachments to *.vcf and open in Outlook.

• Contacts and calendars:

  • Convert JSON files to standard *.vcf format before opening in Outlook.

• SharePoint file attachments, OneDrive items, Teams files:

  • Recover as standard files and folders from the associated SharePoint site's Documents subdirectory.

Restoring Office 365 items back to the cloud​

• Choose original or custom cloud location.

• Items restored with default retention policy.

• Existing emails not overwritten, restored as duplicates

Microsoft Office 365 Cloud to Cloud​

Here's a breakdown of how to set up a cloud-to-cloud backup service for Office 365 using Zmanda Pro.

Setup steps:

1. Install or set up Zmanda Pro server.

2. Create a single user account for managing the service.

3. Register an Azure VM and install Zmanda Pro on it.

4. Create Protected Items:

   • Each represents a customer's Office 365 tenant to be backed up.

   • No need to create individual user accounts.

Management and monitoring:

• Centralized management: Manage worker VM schedules and settings from a single console.

• Resource monitoring: Track CPU and memory usage, adjust resources as needed, or split into multiple VMs.

• Job report emails: Send to different recipients for each Protected Item.

Custom signup and API:

• Custom signup: Use Zmanda Pro API to build a customer signup form that creates Protected Items.

• Full API access: Automate tasks, including browsing Office 365 resources and registering application credentials.