Backing up OneDrive for Business
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Our remote workers use OD4B to store their personal work documents because it seemed quicker and more reliable than using offline files and syncing to our file servers over a VPN. However, I'm concerned about backups and disaster recovery - specifically after a cryptolocker type attack.
I was under the impression that Microsoft take daily backups of all OD4B and Sharepoint Online data and that you can get them to restore all files from backup from a certain point in time. It certainly appears that Sharepoint is backed up, as documented here https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/akieft/2012/01/09/restore-options-in-sharepoint-online/ and other places. But what about OD4B? I assumed that would be the same.
However, reading this Spiceworks thread, it appears not:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/1861266-did-you-know-one-drive-for-businessI know there's a lot of love and experience for O365 on ML, and am looking for some definitive answers. Do Microsoft backup OD4B, and if not, how do you back it up? There are a number of backup products on the market, but none of them seem that mature. I've heard Veeam is releasing something this year, but based on pricing for their Exchange Online solution, it isn't going to be cheap.
As a more general point, how do you handle O365 in your disaster recovery plan? With our on-premise systems we do regular restores of our servers (Exchange, Sharepoint, File Servers etc etc) into a lab environment to test, but that's not possible with O365. Do you just trust Microsoft without really being able to test?
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They do back it up, but I don't believe that they offer a restore to you. They only restore if THEY have lost the system, not if you have lost files.
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@scottalanmiller said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
They do back it up, but I don't believe that they offer a restore to you. They only restore if THEY have lost the system, not if you have lost files.
Correct. You cannot call them up and ask for a restore if you nuke a file, and empty both recycle bins.
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@JaredBusch That's what I figured.
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So..... if Cryptolocker is capable of deleting all files along with all previous versions, as happened with the poster on Spiceworks, then you need to backup OD4B. Right?
They will still restore Sharepoint sites though, won't they?
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@Carnival-Boy said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
So..... if Cryptolocker is capable of deleting all files along with all previous versions, as happened with the poster on Spiceworks, then you need to backup OD4B. Right?
They will still restore Sharepoint sites though, won't they?
Crypto has no access to the ODFB recycle bins.
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So what happened in the Spiceworks thread?
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@Carnival-Boy said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
So what happened in the Spiceworks thread?
People on SW never give the whole story. He's trying to make it sound scarier than it is. It's scary, don't get me wrong, but it is not the gloom and doom that people like to say. He likely didn't know to check his recycle bins or had emptied them and had nothing to restore from. In a way, those things are HIS backups. MS then backs those up in case the system fails. The system did not fail, so he was supposed to use his recycle bins to restore what the malware had deleted.
The problem is, we get these stories after the fact and no one competent audits them to see if the problem is as described, if obvious avenues have been explored and so forth. It's like people saying that their "SAN has done a great job", but when asked obvious questions about how this is possible, it turns out to have done a terrible job - they were just saying that because they hoped no one would call their bluff given the general assumptions that it is socially unacceptable to assume people are lying and their believe that the obviousness of their bluff wasn't so... obvious.
Is that the case here, we don't know. But that is the assumption.
Does that mean that you should not take a backup of your OD4B? No, not saying that. There is every reason to consider a full backup of it.
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@scottalanmiller said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
@Carnival-Boy said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
So what happened in the Spiceworks thread?
People on SW never give the whole story. He's trying to make it sound scarier than it is. It's scary, don't get me wrong, but it is not the gloom and doom that people like to say. He likely didn't know to check his recycle bins or had emptied them and had nothing to restore from. In a way, those things are HIS backups. MS then backs those up in case the system fails. The system did not fail, so he was supposed to use his recycle bins to restore what the malware had deleted.
The problem is, we get these stories after the fact and no one competent audits them to see if the problem is as described, if obvious avenues have been explored and so forth. It's like people saying that their "SAN has done a great job", but when asked obvious questions about how this is possible, it turns out to have done a terrible job - they were just saying that because they hoped no one would call their bluff given the general assumptions that it is socially unacceptable to assume people are lying and their believe that the obviousness of their bluff wasn't so... obvious.
Is that the case here, we don't know. But that is the assumption.
Does that mean that you should not take a backup of your OD4B? No, not saying that. There is every reason to consider a full backup of it.
As mentioned in another (offline?) discussion... How little mission critical data is too little to back up? [or something to that effect]
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Does anyone on ML use OD4B? And if so, what do you use to back it up? Or if you don't back it up, what is your disaster recovery policy?
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No-one?
I read an article by the official O365 security team titled "How To Deal With Ransomware":
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/office365security/how-to-deal-with-ransomware/In that they say "OneDrive for Business can be used as a protection mechanism against ransomware."
Sounds perfect. Under the section "Recover your files in your OneDrive for Business" it says "If a large number of files were impacted, using the user interface in the portal will not be a viable option. In this case, create a support request for a ‘Site Collection Restore’. "
But Site Restore is Sharepoint Online. That's not the same as OneDrive is it?
I'm so confused. This is what puts me off O365 - nothing appears as simple as on-premise solutions.
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There are some third party solutions for this.
Frankly, I'm surprised there aren't more, and that MS itself doens't offer such a thing.
Some, like @scottalanmiller, will say to only use ODfB in aware applications, so then you do not have to worry about ransomware.
Everything is a tradeoff...
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Maybe the answer is to save everything to a Sharepoint Site, including personal documents, and not use OD4B at all. Create "personal" Team Sites for each user.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
Maybe the answer is to save everything to a Sharepoint Site, including personal documents, and not use OD4B at all. Create "personal" Team Sites for each user.
There's less space and will restrictions in share point as compared to one drive for business
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I was in on for Miss solution simple it all has to be backed up everything after he backed up everywhere it does not matter whether posted. One drive for business and share point or sink tools not back up tools using them as back up recovery is not how they're supposed to be used yes it can be made to work but it is not the design
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@JaredBusch said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
I was in on for Miss solution simple it all has to be backed up everything after he backed up everywhere it does not matter whether posted.
Er...say what?
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I missed this thread. There are backup options for OneDrive for Business. Unlimited data, retention forever.
£4 per user per month.
You can also have backup options for office 365 emails, separate to the MS toolbox again, unlimited data/retention.
If an end user deletes an email, then deletes it from deleted items, then deletes it from the restore from deleted items window. That email is gone forever. Microsoft will not restore it unless you have pre-setup Office 365 for retention of all emails with legal hold and other features.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
@JaredBusch said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
I was in on for Miss solution simple it all has to be backed up everything after he backed up everywhere it does not matter whether posted.
Er...say what?
You can thank Siri for that.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Backing up OneDrive for Business:
I missed this thread. There are backup options for OneDrive for Business. Unlimited data, retention forever.
£4 per user per month.
Link, please?
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https://www.skykick.com/backup/sharepoint-onedrive-backups
Sky Kick provide the tool to Microsoft partners exclusively and then the partners combine Skykick with their existing solutions. The price varies by partner by region by solution by blah.
