Data missing in O365 backup - Solution is in-place but not documented and communicated

  • 4 January 2021
  • 5 replies
  • 340 views

Userlevel 1
Badge +2
  • Commvault Certified Expert
  • 4 replies

When a Teams chat is started it automatically creates a Exchange group mailbox, an OneDrive account for that same group mailbox and a SharePoint site for that Teams chat. All conversations are put in the Exchange group mailbox and up until October 2020 they could be found under the folder Conversation History\Team Chat. Now here comes the fun part, starting October Microsoft changed something in how they save the chats and they moved the chats to a new folder named ~TeamsMessagesData.

During the roll-out of a M365 customer we encountered that the teams chats were not being backupped past September 2020 and as I could not find any issue with the back-up nor any configuration issues we opened a case with Commvault to research the issue. Big was our surprise as in the first reaction from the Commvault engineer I received the answer to my question, namely a hidden additional setting which would enabled the back-up of the new Teams chat folder, being:

IncludeTeamsMessagesData
Location =  HKLM\SOFTWARE\Commvault Systems\Galaxy\Instance001\MSExchangeMBAgent
DWORD
Value = 1

The additional setting should be set on all mailbox proxies/access nodes and will add the new folder named ~TeamsMessagesData to the back-up, which in our case it also did.

Upon further questioning the Commvault engineer why this was not shared in BOL we got the answer that as it was only occurring since October 2020 and it has been fixed in FR22 they were not going to publish this on BOL and would only share this on a case by case base.

Now for all of you out there, If you have any customers running M365 backups and which are not planning to update to FR22 in the foreseeable future please be aware of this setting and maybe proactively share/apply this setting as to prevent any dataloss for Teams chats.

And to Commvault, please be open about this and communicate to partners at least!

Martijn
 


5 replies

Userlevel 7
Badge +23

Thanks, @MMoret for the share!  I’ll look into this setting and see why we can’t get it added to BOL anyway, especially for customers who cannot or will not go to FR22 any time soon.

Userlevel 1
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Hi @Mike Struening @MMoret As you mentioned the location changed in October 2020 and the key was introduced to accommodate that change temporarily.  Since then we have made an official update for FR11.20 to handle the location change going forward.  The corrective update was generated last week and it is due to be in FR11.20.33 (not released yet) and should not require the key.

Not sure why the thought was it wasn’t going to be addressed until FR11.22 unless there was some confusion around us having a specific O365 app for teams.

Please let me know if need further information on it.

-Peter

 

 

 

 

Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Hi @Peter_C ,

Thanks! Will there also be a 11.21 update?

And the point I trying to make is that all data is back-upped, the dashboard is green and stays green, but not all data is secured. Commvault knows this, but not partners and customers.

Customers trust us, we have 10+ masters and over 15 years experience, we need to know this as a partner!

regards, Martijn

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@MMoret Yes, 11.21 and 11.22 updates. 

  • 11.21 update will be in 11.21.21 once its released.  
  • 11.22 update will be in 11.22.3 once its released.

Understand your point.  I will try to find out why we required a setting that needed to be specifically requested when user may not even know something is changed.

-Peter

Userlevel 4
Badge +7

many thanks for this helpfull information !

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