Microsoft 365 backup

Microsoft runs the service. The content is the customer's responsibility. A deleted email, an overwritten SharePoint folder or a closed user account is the customer's problem to restore — not Microsoft's.

Three products in our range cover Microsoft 365, and they do so to different depths. Two things decide the choice: which workloads the customer needs to protect — Teams and Entra ID are only in one of them — and how the licence is counted, per Microsoft licence in the tenant or per protected user.

ARJ Distribution sells only through resellers and MSPs in the Nordics — Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Iceland — never direct to the end customer. Support in English and Swedish.

Microsoft will not step in and restore a deleted folder for the customer. It is a shared responsibility model, and the larger share of the responsibility sits with the customer.

Why Microsoft 365 needs backup

Microsoft does its part: the service is up after outages, the infrastructure is redundant, and the whole platform is replicated internally. That is their job, and they do it well.

What Microsoft does not do — and tells you they do not do — is protect the customer from themselves. The recycle bin empties after 30–93 days depending on the workload. A user who deleted their inbox a year ago cannot get it back. A SharePoint folder that is overwritten can be restored for a while, but not forever. A closed user account is eventually removed, with all content inside it.

That is where the backup product comes in. It takes a copy outside the tenant, with its own retention, its own access control and its own restore path. A customer who wants to be able to go back to a specific day six months ago — regardless of what happened in between — needs a backup product. Microsoft's own replication does not answer that question, whatever the licence.

The scenarios that tend to drive the deal:

• Accidental deletion. A human mistake — deleted a folder, emptied the wrong recycle bin, ran a script with the wrong parameters. Far more common than ransomware, and the most common reason a backup actually gets used.
• Ransomware and compromised accounts. Microsoft 365 is a target like everything else, and an attack usually gets in through a compromised user account. Once the attacker is in, content disappears the same way it would from a contaminated file server.
• Leavers and licence offboarding. Mail, OneDrive and Teams chats need to be kept after the licence is removed — for practical reasons and for compliance.
• Reporting and audits. SOC 2, ISO 27001, NIS2 and DORA all ask where the customer's data sits and how it can be restored. A copy outside Microsoft's control is a concrete answer.

Three products cover different depths

All three have the same core function: a copy of the M365 content held outside Microsoft's tenant, with its own retention and access control. But they differ in several important ways — which workloads are covered, where the storage sits, and which larger console they belong to.

Teams and Entra ID are only in Hornetsecurity. Neither Xopero ONE nor GitProtect covers them, and there is no promised release date for Teams in either product. If the customer needs Teams or Entra ID backup, the choice is made.

Hornetsecurity 365 Total Backup

The broadest coverage of the three. Seven workloads: mailboxes, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Planner, OneNote and Entra ID. Backup runs automatically several times a day without the customer scheduling it. Unlimited storage and retention, individual AES-256 key per backup, immutable copies.

Storage sits in Hornetsecurity's data centre — the region is chosen at setup. The customer does not provide their own storage location; they get a finished service with storage included.

Does not cover: Public Folders, Site Assets Libraries, Wiki Sites, Microsoft Purview, Yammer, SharePoint Custom Lists, recycle bins or files with Sensitivity Labels.

Belongs in the Hornetsecurity Control Panel — the same MSP portal where VM Backup, Email Security and other Hornetsecurity services are managed. A partner who already has the customer's VM protection or email security in Control Panel sees 365 Total Backup alongside them, with the same customer list.

Xopero ONE

Covers Exchange Online, OneDrive and SharePoint. SharePoint requires the Microsoft 365 PRO licence level. Teams and Entra ID are not covered.

Storage is the customer's choice — local directory, SMB, NFS, AWS S3, Wasabi, Backblaze B2, Azure Blob or Xopero Cloud Storage. Storage is purchased separately, which gives the customer control over where the data sits and what it costs.

Belongs in the Xopero ONE console — the same product that protects endpoints, servers, virtual machines, databases and NAS. A customer who already has the rest of their infrastructure in Xopero ONE gets M365 in the same console.

GitProtect

Same M365 coverage as Xopero ONE: Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint. Teams and Entra ID are not covered. Unlimited storage is included — a real difference against Xopero ONE.

Storage is the customer's choice, in the same way as Xopero ONE — cloud or local, with free storage included for the M365 part.

Belongs in the GitProtect console — the same product that protects Git repositories, Jira and Confluence. A customer who already has their DevOps stack in GitProtect gets M365 in the same console.

How the licence is counted

The licence models differ between Hornetsecurity and the two Xopero products. Which one fits depends on the customer's environment and what else is being protected — not on which model is “better” in itself.

Hornetsecurity 365 Total Backup — per Microsoft licence in the tenant

Counted per Microsoft licence that has SharePoint, OneDrive or Teams. The partner licences every such user in the tenant — not just the ones who actually need backup. It is full-tenant licensing.

When it fits: when most of the staff work actively in Microsoft 365 and their content is worth protecting. An office, a consultancy, an organisation where email and SharePoint files are the work.

And where the customer also uses Hornetsecurity's email protection — Spam/Malware Protection, ATP or 365 Total Protection — full-tenant is a direct advantage. The whole tenant is covered both in the email protection and in the backup; no account falls outside. Leaving a subset unprotected in that case would mean a hole in the overall defence against ransomware.

Xopero ONE and GitProtect — per protected user

Counted per user actually protected. The partner and the customer decide together — all users can be licensed, or only those where the M365 content is really worth protecting.

When it fits: when the customer has a lot of staff who have an M365 licence for email but do their actual work in other systems outside M365 — an ERP, a manufacturing system, a clinical records system, a point-of-sale. When the email is low value and the content that will need restoring in reality sits somewhere else, it is not always justified to pay for backup of the whole tenant.

There, Xopero ONE or GitProtect can be set to protect only key people — management, finance, sales, HR, project managers — and leave the rest out.

And all users can be licensed if the customer prefers — the product does not lock anything to a subset. The flexibility is a choice, not a limit.

What counts as a “protected resource” in Xopero ONE is not yet published by the vendor. We are working with them on a confirmed definition per workload, with worked examples. Ask us before you quote a specific tenant — we work the numbers out with you.

How to choose in practice

Three questions decide, and they come in order. Never skip the question about Teams and Entra ID — the answer there can override everything else.

1. Does the customer need Teams, Planner, OneNote or Entra ID?

Yes → Hornetsecurity 365 Total Backup. The other two do not have these workloads, and there is no promised release date. The rest of the questions are then academic.

No → go to question 2.

2. How much of the tenant actually needs backup?

All or almost all → full-tenant works in any of the three. Hornetsecurity counts the whole tenant automatically; Xopero ONE and GitProtect can also licence the whole tenant if the customer prefers. Which product is cheapest in absolute terms depends on the licence level and the count; ask us.

Only a subset — key people, administrators, sales, finance — while the rest of the users just have email and work in other systems → Xopero ONE or GitProtect, because they can licence per protected user. Go to question 3 to choose between them.

3. What else do you protect for the customer?

• Physical servers, virtual machines, endpoints, databases or NAS → Xopero ONE. One console for the customer's whole infrastructure, with M365 alongside the rest.
• Hornetsecurity VM Backup, Email Security or other Hornetsecurity services → Hornetsecurity 365 Total Backup. It all sits in the same Control Panel.
• Git repositories, Jira or Confluence → GitProtect. One console for the whole DevOps stack, with M365 alongside the rest.
• None of the above — Microsoft 365 only → Hornetsecurity for the broadest coverage, or Xopero/GitProtect if the per-protected-user flexibility fits the price picture better.

Pitfalls to be aware of

Backup history does not move between products

If the customer ends up on the wrong product, no other product can inherit the copies. The history starts over. The choice has to be right from the start — it belongs in the partner's quote, not as a discovery two years later.

No double licensing between Xopero ONE and GitProtect

If the customer ends up with both Xopero ONE and GitProtect — which can happen when a customer protects both infrastructure and the DevOps stack — the M365 licences can be activated in either account. The same user is never licensed twice.

Entra ID backup requires Entra ID P1

Applies to Hornetsecurity 365 Total Backup. If the customer is on Entra ID Free, Entra ID is not covered by the backup, whatever 365 licence they hold.

Endpoint backup is not Microsoft 365 backup

Hornetsecurity's Endpoint Backup is being retired on 1 March 2027 — it is a separate endpoint backup product for Windows and macOS, not part of 365 Total Backup. The Microsoft 365 backup is not affected by the retirement. If the customer needs endpoint backup, that is a separate question that Xopero ONE answers.

No date for Teams in Xopero or GitProtect

A changelog at Xopero previously implied that Teams would arrive. That is out of date. Xopero's official statement in October 2026: Teams is not covered, in either Xopero ONE or GitProtect, and there is no promised date. Never sell on a future Teams support in these products.

Five questions to ask the customer

These five decide which product and which level fit, and we need the answers to work the numbers out on a deal:

1. Which Microsoft 365 licence does the customer have, and how many users? The count drives both price and licence model — full tenant or selective — and the licence level decides which workloads exist.
2. How many of the tenant's users actually do their work in Microsoft 365? All, most, or only a subset? The answer steers directly towards Hornetsecurity (full tenant) or Xopero/GitProtect (per protected user).
3. Does the customer need Teams chats and channels in the backup? Entra ID or Planner too? Yes to any of them → Hornetsecurity.
4. What else do you protect for the customer? VM Backup → Hornetsecurity sits closest. Infrastructure → Xopero ONE. Git stack → GitProtect. None of the above with you → the choice is driven by questions 2 and 3.
5. Is there an M365 backup already in place with the customer? If it is with another vendor, the backup history cannot come along. Switching means starting over, and the retention has to be planned for that.

Once these five answers are on the table, the rest of the quote comes together quickly. Call us before you send — we check the count, the licence level and the storage need, and give you the current price list.

Why through a distributor

We do not sell to the end customer. It is not a courtesy, it is the business model: everything goes through you, and we never compete with you at the customer.

What you get beyond the licences: pre-sales technical help, support in proof of concept, support in English and Swedish, and a named contact who knows your business rather than a ticket number. The licence models differ across the three products — tell us what the customer's environment looks like, and we work the numbers out with you.

Getting started

Tell us which Microsoft 365 licence the customer has, how many users, and whether Teams or Entra ID need to be covered. We tell you which of the products fits and what it costs.

Further reading

• Hornetsecurity 365 Total Backup — product page
• GitProtect — DevOps backup and Microsoft 365
• Backup — overview of all workloads

or book a short technical call

About the content on this page. This is a sales-oriented overview, not full product documentation. The details were checked against the vendors' own documentation in October 2026 and we review them regularly, but features, system requirements and version support change — and a change can pass us by. Always check against the vendor's current documentation before promising anything to a customer: Hornetsecurity's knowledge base and Xopero's help centre for Xopero ONE. If you are unsure it is quicker to ask us — we take the question to the vendor and come back with an answer you can rely on in a quote. And if something does not work as described — here or in the vendor's documentation — tell us. We report it to the vendor and correct the page.