What Good Microsoft 365 Backup Actually Needs to Do

Most organisations using Microsoft 365 know backup is important. What’s less clear is what “good” backup actually looks like in practice.

Many solutions promise protection, but during a real incident, a security breach, accidental deletion, or system error, only a few things truly matter. Backup isn’t about ticking a box. It’s about whether the business can recover quickly, cleanly, and with confidence.

So what should a good Microsoft 365 backup actually do? 

Microsoft 365 isn’t one system. It’s a collection of services that are deeply connected and constantly changing.

At a minimum, backup needs to cover:

• Exchange Online (email and calendars)
• OneDrive for Business
• SharePoint Online
• Microsoft Teams (including files, conversations, and associated data)

Partial coverage creates risk. For example, backing up SharePoint but not Teams leaves gaps, because Teams stores much of its data in SharePoint and OneDrive. If only some workloads are protected, recovery becomes fragmented and incomplete.

Good backup understands Microsoft 365 as a single ecosystem, not a set of isolated tools.

In real incidents, organisations rarely need to restore everything.

More often, they need to recover:

• A single email or folder
• One user’s mailbox
• A specific file or version
• A Teams channel or SharePoint library

If recovery only works at a broad level, it becomes disruptive. Restoring large volumes of data can overwrite newer content or interrupt active users.

Good backup allows fine-grained recovery, so teams can restore exactly what’s needed, without collateral damage. Granularity reduces risk, speeds up response, and avoids turning a small issue into a larger one.

Backup that takes days to restore isn’t fit for modern business.

When email or files are unavailable, work stops. Customers wait. Deadlines are missed. The technical capability to recover data is meaningless if the process is slow.

That’s why restore speed is critical:

• How quickly can data be found?
• How fast can it be restored?
• Can recovery happen without taking systems offline?

From a business perspective, this is about downtime and impact, not technical elegance. Good backup is designed for fast recovery under pressure, not just long-term storage.

This point is often overlooked.

Microsoft operates the platform, but the shared responsibility model means customers are responsible for their own data protection and recovery. If backup lives entirely within the same environment as production data, it may be affected by the same incident.

UK guidance, including from bodies such as the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the North East Regional Cybercrime Unit (NECRC), consistently stresses the importance of resilience and separation. Backup should be isolated enough to remain available even if accounts are compromised or systems are misconfigured.

Independence means:

• Backup data isn’t altered by attackers with Microsoft 365 access
• Recovery isn’t reliant on the same permissions or tools that failed
• Restores can happen even during security incidents

In short, backup should be a safety net, not another dependency. 

During an incident, complexity is the enemy.

If recovery requires:

• Multiple consoles
• Specialist scripts
• Deep platform knowledge
• Manual, item-by-item processes

…then recovery will be slow and error-prone, especially outside office hours.

Good Microsoft 365 backup is operationally simple. It allows IT teams to:

• See what’s protected at a glance
• Search and restore quickly
• Delegate recovery tasks safely
• Test restores without disruption

Simplicity doesn’t mean lack of capability. It means the right capabilities are easy to use when they matter most.

Retention policies help meet compliance requirements. Security tools help reduce risk. Backup exists for one clear reason: to make recovery predictable.

When something goes wrong, teams shouldn’t be guessing:

• Whether data still exists
• Where it’s stored
• How long recovery will take
• What impact it will have on users

Good backup replaces uncertainty with confidence.