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o365 retention policy

  • 21 February 2022
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Hello Everyone,

i need help to get clarification about o365 retention and where should be controlled. In Commandcenter, i have o365 Backup Plan as Server Plan Type which associated w/ storage Policy, and o365 Plan as office 365 Plan Type which also has retention option.

Ideally our required retentions as follows:

  1. Daily incremental to keep for 60 days
  2. Monthly Full w/ 12 months retention

however, it is said that o365 is forever incremental, Monthly full may not be available.

Questions:

  1. which retention should it be managed, storage policy or o365 Plan?
  2. if Monthly full is not available, how would you recommend configuring retentions as alternative?
  3. Also, does retention policies under Commcell-->Policies-->Configuration policies→ Exchange Policies applicable to o365 exchangeonline backup? or it is the same controls in o365 Plan retention settings?

thank you for your feedback.

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Best answer by Chris Hollis 23 February 2022, 00:34

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Chris Hollis
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Hi @benv 

O365 plan:  defines message level retention / settings: https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/essential/130384_create_office_365_plan_for_exchange_online.html

E.G. if you are archiving (stubbing) messages, you can define the rules for that with the o365 plan.

Server plan: defines jobs on storage retention https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/essential/86648_creating_server_plan.html

E.G. how long the jobs will be retained on your storage devices / where 


My recommendation to save on confusion is to not configure or view the policies from the JAVA GUI. Create and manage these via the Command Center Console only. 

Additionally, there are no FULL backups as you’ve noted, it’s purely an incremental forever solution so rather than think ‘i want incrementals for 60 days and monthly for 12 months’, find out what the business requirement is at a message level - how long do you want messages retained/recoverable for?

Whatever the minimum is, set as your retention.

 

Regards,

Chris

 

 

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@Chris Hollis,

thanks for the reply. just to clarify. n my case, if the messages are required to keep 365days, retention should be identical on both server plan (storage policy) and o365 plan? what is the pros/cons if retention on o365 left to Retain indefinitely?

thanks again.

Chris Hollis
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Hi @benv 

Sorry, I should have been a bit more clearer yesterday.

The mailbox agent doesn’t look at the server plan to validate message retention, it uses the O365 plan.

The Office 365 plan specifies which messages are backed up, how long they are retained, and which messages are content indexed.

You will assign the Office 365 plan to the mailboxes that you add to the Exchange Online app.

If some mailboxes have different backup requirements, you can create additional Office 365 plans for Exchange Online.


It’s a bit confusing.. however with regards to this agent, think of the server plan as purely defining the storage location for the data and nothing more. 

So referring to this: https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/essential/130384_create_office_365_plan_for_exchange_online.html

Step 5 

Under Retention settings, specify how long to retain the data:

  • To retain for an unlimited time, select Retain indefinitely.

  • To retain for a limited time, select Retain deleted items for, and then specify the amount of time.

    Retention settings is recommended if you back up the data. Retention settings applies to both Exchange Online and Exchange on-premises configurations that use Exchange Web Services

You would refer to the 2nd bullet point, configure 365 days. 

Regarding:

What is the pros/cons if retention on o365 left to Retain indefinitely?

Pros = you retain all messages for all mailboxes ever protected forever 

Cons = you require unlimited storage 

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Hi @Chris Hollis ,

am reading correctly that the retention under storage policy are being ignored and it will use the retention under o365 plan?

 

if so, does also means that the retention set at o365 plan will inherit and applied to secondary copy within the same storage policy/server plan?

could it be validated using forecasting report?

thanks again.

 

Chris Hollis
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@benv 

Q: am reading correctly that the retention under storage policy are being ignored and it will use the retention under o365 plan?

A: Yes, the ‘basic days’ & ‘basic cycles’ at the storage policy copy level do not apply to the mailbox agent, we will only look at the storage device (library) you have defined at the storage policy level (or ‘Server Plan’ if in the Command Center).

If you have multiple copies, for example, primary disk, secondary tape, the mailbox jobs will still be required to be aux copied so that in the event your disk library fails/blows up, you can retrieve from a secondary source. 
 

Q: if so, does also means that the retention set at o365 plan will inherit and applied to secondary copy within the same storage policy/server plan?

A: Yes


Q: Could it be validated using forecasting report?

A: If you run a data retention report, it will be reading the storage policy (server plan) basic days / cycles, it will not be reading the o365 retention. 

We don’t presently have a report to provide message level retention. 

Thanks,

Chris 

 

 

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thanks @Chris Hollis ,

to change the retention from indefinite to 365 days, would this reapply to existing backed up messages  or would it run new baseline?

Chris Hollis
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@benv 

It would apply to the existing archived data, it doesn’t need to re-archive the mailboxes to update. 

Once you’ve made the retention policy change / applied a new o365 policy to the desired mailbox, a retention operation is triggered by a background process that by default, runs every 24 hours.

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@Chris Hollis , i only have one o365 plan, im assuming that i can change the retention from the o365 plan and dont need to re-apply on individual mailboxes already, correct? should all mailboxes get the new retention when retention operation runs?

Chris Hollis
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@benv 

Correct, you can modify the current policy and it will apply to all users who have it associated to them.

Please confirm with the business before making any retention changes as once its changed and the process runs, you’ll lose the ability to browse/restore data that has met retention.

If specific individuals require a different retention, create a new o365 policy and assign it to them or leave the existing ‘indefinite’ for them.

Thanks, 
Chris

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@Chris Hollis if i have different Mailboxes retention requirements but for one time backup only, i would create new o365 plan w/ new retention.

i think creating new exchangeonline app then assign the new o365 Plan way to rather than combining it with existing exo app.

can multiple exo app be associated with same server plan used by existing exo app for storage destination? 

thanks

Chris Hollis
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@benv 

Yes, same server plan can be used (that is using the same exchange agent). 

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got it! thank you.

Chris Hollis
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No worries @benv 

Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. 

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@Chris Hollis just follow up question. when retention on o365 Plan change let say, 365 days, will it be able to do a full mailbox recovery within the retention set correct? or it just on message level?

thanks again.

Chris Hollis
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@benv

I’m not 100% sure I understand the question. You can restore everything that is within retention and retention is based on either message received or message deletion time (these settings change depending on if you are using the exchange archiver agent or the exchange online agent).

Everything ultimately depends on how you have the plan configured.


For example, for exchange archiver agent, If you have ‘retain mesages based on received time for’ and you’ve defined 365 days, you are telling the software that you do not want to be able to restore any messages over 365 days old.

If you have ‘retain messages based on deletion time for’, this means you want to be able to restore messages for a maximum 365 after they’ve been deleted from the mailbox. 

So if for example you had infinite originally set, we archived all messages in your mailbox, you then changed to 365 based on receive time, messages that are 365 days+ will be gone.

Hopefully that makes sense.

 

Chris

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@Chris Hollis , sorry if i wasnt clear on my question. i guess im get confuse on mailbox recovery vs message recovery on exchangeonline on this case. should it be look at at message level than mailbox recovery then?

 

also, is o365 plan retention applies to sharepoint online and onedrive Deleted items as well?

 

thanks again.

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Hi, @Chris Hollis@benv I am not sure if it's allowed to comment on a question that's solved, but I give it a try. It seems to me that O365 data that is not deleted is always retained indefinitely, and that Retention can be set for data that is deleted. Is my assumption correct? Thank you.

Chris Hollis
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@benv


Can you define for me your understanding of mailbox recovery vs message recovery? 

Regarding “also, is o365 plan retention applies to sharepoint online and onedrive Deleted items as well?” - yes, you can either create specific o365 plans for those agents or you can use the same one. 

@iConsultant

It depends on the O365 plan settings. 
https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/essential/130384_create_office_365_plan_for_exchange_online.html

  1. Under Retention settings, specify how long to retain the data:

    • To retain for an unlimited time, select Retain indefinitely.

    • To retain for a limited time, select Retain deleted items for, and then specify the amount of time.

      Retention settings is recommended if you back up the data. Retention settings applies to both Exchange Online and Exchange on-premises configurations that use Exchange Web Services.

 

Chris Hollis
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@benv @iConsultant 

Just to be clear here, we have two sets of configuration options depending on the type of environment you’ve configured.

If you have the exchange archiver agent setup (on-prem/hybrid/o365 via on-prem ad setup) then this plan applies: https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/essential/93593_creating_exchange_archiving_plan.html


If you have a stritcly ‘exchange online’ agent setup, then this plan applies: https://documentation.commvault.com/11.24/essential/130384_create_office_365_plan_for_exchange_online.html

 

Nikos.Kyrm
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Hello!

Please a clarification!

In o365 retention, if I set the “Retain deleted items” for 1 month, that means that only the deleted items will be retained after 1 month or all the items from the specific mailboxes ?

Thank you in advance.
Nikos

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@Nikos.Kyrm  Correct it would just be the deleted items. So it would be 1 month from when the message is deleted from the mailbox.

Nikos.Kyrm
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@Nikos.Kyrm  Correct it would just be the deleted items. So it would be 1 month from when the message is deleted from the mailbox.

Dear @Scott Reynolds , thanks for your quick reply! 

So, if it's like that, I understand that for o365 you can only have infinity retention. I cannot understand the point to have custom retention only for the deleted items!

Best regards,

Nikos

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