Disaster Recovery Scenarios in Microsoft 365: What IT Leaders Need to Know

Business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR) in Microsoft 365 can take many forms. Organizations face risks that range from accidental file deletions to large-scale ransomware attacks, and each scenario requires a different approach to recovery. The challenge is finding solutions that deliver on real-world recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO) — not just marketing promises.  

Too often, vendors advertise capabilities that don’t align with actual performance, leaving gaps when it matters most. To build true resilience, IT leaders must prepare for multiple recovery scenarios. Let’s explore the most common ones and the technologies that make them possible. 

Backup Protection for your M365 Tenant 

Think of this as the peace of mind insurance policy that your company would need. Perfect for day-to-day needs, such as detecting a site that has been corrupted by ransomware and restoring it, with granular capabilities and fantastic fidelity, as well as meeting long-term retention needs.

What it is: Rich, workload-aware backups taken through Microsoft’s supported APIs, designed for precision restores (down to items, permissions, and configuration nuances) and broad workload coverage across M365.

Why it matters: Most day-to-day recovery requests are small, such as a folder, a channel, a Planner plan, a mailbox subfolder, or a specific document with the correct permissions. Granularity and fidelity prevail over sheer speed here — plus you get long-term retention and storage options for compliance and air-gapping. Self-service restore capabilities can significantly reduce the administrative burden on IT teams. AvePoint Cloud Backup includes these features, empowering end users to restore their own files while maintaining compliance and control.  

Coverage: Beyond the “big three” (SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange), we also protect Teams, Teams Chats, Groups, Planner, Viva Engage, Public Folders, Project Online, Power Platform, and more. AvePoint Cloud Backup covers these additional workloads, with item-level recovery options designed for daily operations. 

How Data is Retrieved and Restored

For mailboxes, you have the Exchange Web Services (EWS). These are highly mature APIs that offer exceptional fidelity. However, the downside is that they're not built for speed, but they do allow for mass concurrency, which can help compensate for some of those speed limitations. In the future, Microsoft Graph will replace EWS.

For content, we find that the majority of data resides within SharePoint Online, which encompasses various services, including OneDrive, Teams, Groups, and standalone SharePoint sites. There are added complexities for things like Microsoft Teams and M365 groups, which will also contain mailboxes, as well as other data that can reside outside of SharePoint. In this area, third-party vendors rely on the Microsoft Graph API and the SharePoint Online high-speed APIs (restore scenarios). The Microsoft Graph APIs provide fantastic fidelity and granularity. And when you need to perform restores, the Microsoft SharePoint Online high-speed APIs provide very good speeds for the vast majority of restore scenarios.

Let's be careful here. Very good speeds are great for when you need to restore a handful of sites or teams. This does not mean it is intended for a full restore or mass recovery of an entire M365 tenant. I know what you're thinking: "Is there something that can handle a mass restore scenario?" The answer is yes. Let's talk about our second scenario. 

Large-Scale Disaster Recovery with Mass Restores 

Due to the limitations of the API mentioned above, the capability to perform a full-scale mass restore scenario in hours or days did not exist. Other vendors have made claims that they can do this, but what you'll notice is that they will not publicly market it, nor will they be able to perform a demo to show how it works.  

A Real Solution for the Problem

To address this challenge, Microsoft introduced Backup Express in August 2024, specifically designed for large-scale disaster recovery scenarios. For those of you Top Gun enthusiasts out there, these are the APIs that were built with the need for speed. Backup Express supports Exchange Online, OneDrive, and SharePoint Online for both group-connected and non-group-connected sites. Each of the three services can restore up to 1,000 average-sized sites/OneDrive/mailboxes, at a rate of up to 1-3 TB per hour. Let's say your tenant had roughly 100 terabytes in it. All of that data can be restored in a matter of hours, not days. 

What it is: A Microsoft service that creates backups inside Microsoft’s data boundary for extremely fast restores of large scopes — think entire OneDrives, site collections, or mailboxes — using express restore points. AvePoint Cloud Backup Express integrates this speed into our platform, allowing you to perform massive rollbacks through the same AvePoint experience.  

Why it matters: In a disaster (large-scale ransomware blast radius, widespread corruption, mass deletions), you need to recover a lot of data very quickly. Express restores are optimized for speed and scale within Microsoft 365, minimizing RTO when time is of the essence.

Coverage: Exchange Online mailboxes, OneDrive, and SharePoint Online

Granular Recovery vs. Large-Scale Restore 

AvePoint Cloud Backup for M365 = a surgeon’s toolkit. You can put the exact item (with the correct item and permissions) back in the exact place (or out of place). It’s ideal for everyday accidents, audits, and compliance. Need to restore an entire site or Team, or perhaps just a single file? Granular Recovery and best-in-class fidelity mean a range of options and levels tailored to different recovery needs. Couple all of that with our long-term retention capabilities.

Backup Express = a trauma team. You can quickly restore a whole tenant’s most critical services to a known-good state after a significant incident — utilizing vast recovery points with 1-year retention. I like to picture a bunch of Olympic athletes dressed up in surgeons' uniforms. 

A Perfect Match

This is not a discussion about AvePoint Cloud backup for M365 versus Backup Express. They serve very different purposes and scenarios, and together they complement each other. AvePoint works closely with Microsoft to seamlessly integrate Backup Express capabilities into AvePoint Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365, delivering a comprehensive, full-fidelity BCDR solution. As always, organizations benefit from AvePoint’s 24/7 support to ensure readiness when disaster strikes.

Learn how AvePoint Cloud Backup and Backup Express can strengthen your Microsoft 365 disaster recovery plan — schedule a demo today.