Veeam Is #1 For Microsoft 365 Backup In Sirius Study

Edward Watson

Background on the study

Sirius is well known for testing solutions as part of their Data Protection Heatmap study, and they recently focused on reviewing Microsoft 365 backup solutions. Concluding this recent review, it was determined that Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 outperformed all other solutions in all the key areas. I had the opportunity to interview Michael Stempf, who is the Data Protection & Information Management Practice Owner at Sirius, so we could learn more about the study and understand why our Veeam solution ranked the highest.

Other than ransomware, one of the most popular reasons Sirius is being consulted is around protecting Microsoft 365, Michael stated. Everyone is transitioning to Microsoft 365 and Microsoft states in their service contracts that they are in charge of the infrastructure and you’re in charge of the data — they also state a third-party backup product is recommended.

The approach

Similar to a multi-point inspection done on a car, the Sirius Data Protection Heatmap study puts data protection solutions through an array of tests to see the quality of what is under the hood. The scoring system consists of 50 different scenarios for both backup and recovery of enterprise grade solutions as well as newer solutions in the market. The ultimate goal is to differentiate, and compare and contrast the solutions so that their customers can use this information to make purchasing decisions.

Within the ranking system, there is a numeric grade for each item as well as color coding. The numeric grade (0 to 5) tells Sirius from a technical feature functionality perspective whether the solution can’t do something (a 0), or if they do something extremely well (a 5). And on the color side they gauge whether something was difficult to use (red), somewhat easy (orange), or extremely easy (green). Once the testing has concluded, Sirius generates points earned for each of the color and numeric values and that provides a total amount of points which ranks each vendor appropriately.

Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 results

The Veeam solution was by far the fastest and easiest product we conducted testing on, Michael claimed. Not only that, but it was extremely easy to use, even when compared against the second best solution. Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 has a streamlined effect with its processes which makes it seem like it was written by Microsoft 365 users.

In addition to ease of use, Michael explained the importance of workload support in the study.

Veeam was able to protect the majority of our workloads. We had over 50 different use case workloads for both backup and restore, and many products couldn’t support them, but Veeam could support all the key applications at a granular level, without any issues. Teams has been a challenge for many vendors to protect natively, some use the Microsoft APIs and some don’t. Veeam’s native capabilities were unmatched in that we were able to efficiently protect individual documents in Teams.

Ironically, true to its brand, Veeam showed mostly green on the color score chart, and more green than any of the products. Another element Sirius found unique to Veeam were the restore options.

There were a lot more ways to get the data back with Veeam, there were a variety of recovery options. Many vendors lacked restoring individual tasks and contacts, however, Veeam could restore anything we wanted to, no matter how granular. Auditing is also very important to organizations, and with Veeam, there were no visibility gaps. We were able to track literally everything we did logged in the system, unlike many other vendors.

Although Sirius was not testing speed specifically, they also noticed great backup speed compared to other solutions and it seemed to scale efficiently. In the past, Sirius ran other tests with Veeam and they noted how the NAS backup overperformed in their testing compared to other vendors.

It’s clear from the study that Veeam has many advantages over vendors, from the simplicity to the app granularity in backups and multitude of recovery options. It’s always great to be recognized for the high-performing Microsoft 365 backup product we have.

The biggest takeaway is that if you’re utilizing Veeam to protect other workloads in your environment, there is no reason to look elsewhere to protect Microsoft 365, Michael said. And it’s the perfect solution to start as you evaluate Microsoft 365 backup solutions. You won’t be disappointed.
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