Teams backup with Iperius: secure, complete and without limitations

May 8, 2025

Global adoption of Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) is now a standard in companies around the world. According to the latest data, over 2 million companies globally use Microsoft 365 , of which more than 1.3 million in the United States alone . The Microsoft 365 ecosystem also has a huge user base: at the beginning of 2024, there were over 400 million paying users (places) of the Microsoft 365 suite. This growth trend has been constant over the last decade: just think that commercial users were around 100 million in 2017, 200 million in 2019 and 300 million at the end of 2021. The widespread diffusion of Microsoft 365 is also demonstrated by its geographical distribution: the United States leads the adoption, followed by countries such as the United Kingdom (over 300,000 companies) and Australia (~150,000). This global adoption confirms that Microsoft 365 is a critical platform for business productivity and makes it essential to protect its data through adequate backup systems.

Figure: Microsoft 365 global adoption – US share represents approximately 34% of total enterprise users (over 1.3 million out of more than 2 million globally)

Microsoft Teams Data Backup: Why It’s Essential

Within Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams has become a central tool for communication and collaboration. Teams contains chats, shared files, recorded meetings, and other sensitive company data. While Microsoft offers some retention features, dedicated Teams backup is essential to ensure granular and independent data recovery (for example, in the event of accidental deletion, ransomware attacks, or configuration errors). Several third-party solutions allow for Microsoft 365/Teams backup; below we analyze two popular options, Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and Iperius Backup , highlighting features, costs, and why Iperius offers significant technical and commercial advantages.

Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 – Features and Pricing

Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 (formerly Veeam Backup for Office 365) is an established solution for protecting Microsoft 365 data, including Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams. In terms of functionality , Veeam enables automatic backups of Teams data (chats, channels, linked SharePoint files, etc.) and granular restores via dedicated tools (e.g. Veeam Explorer for Exchange/SharePoint/Teams). The software uses a proprietary backup repository based on Microsoft JET/ESE databases : backup data is stored in a database .adbfor each organization, broken down by year and compressed. This approach provides efficiency and indexing, but also means that the data is primarily readable via Veeam tools (e.g. console or explorer) rather than as standard files.

From a cost and licensing perspective , Veeam uses a per-user subscription model . Each protected user account (mailbox, OneDrive, SharePoint personal site, Teams member) consumes one license. In practice, each Teams user to be protected requires one Veeam license . The indicative cost is around $20 per user per year (about $1.70 per user per month, with volume discounts), with a minimum number of licenses that can be purchased. For example, an annual package for 10 users is listed at around $270. This subscription model means that costs grow proportionally to the number of users/year to be protected, and for environments with many users (or multi-tenant) the investment can become significant over time. It should be noted that Veeam offers 24/7 support included and continuous updates within the subscription, but there is no perpetual license for this product – the right to use it is tied to periodic renewal.

Iperius Backup for Microsoft 365/Teams – Features and Benefits

Iperius Backup is a complete Italian solution for the backup of Windows and cloud environments, which includes a specific module for Microsoft 365 (Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams). Regarding the Teams backup , Iperius offers all the essential features: saving Teams chats and files (with support for connected SharePoint and OneDrive) and above all the possibility of granular restore of individual elements (such as messages, files, sites) thanks to continuous incremental backups. A distinctive technical aspect of Iperius is the data saving format : Exchange Online mailboxes, for example, are exported to standard PST/EML files , and OneDrive/SharePoint/Teams files are copied in their native format (maintaining structure and permissions). This means that the backup data is immediately accessible even without Iperius, using common tools (Outlook to open a PST, a file manager for documents, etc.). This openness guarantees greater portability and control over the data compared to solutions that use proprietary databases.

On the cost and licensing side , Iperius adopts a very convenient approach: a perpetual license is offered at a fixed cost, with no limits on the number of users or Microsoft 365 organizations to protect . In other words, a single Iperius license allows you to perform unlimited backups of email boxes, OneDrive accounts and even multiple Microsoft 365 tenants/organizations . This is a huge advantage for MSPs or business groups with multiple tenants, because it does not require the purchase of separate licenses for each. Iperius does not impose costs per single user: the price is unique and definitive ( lifetime license with updates included for the versions purchased). Furthermore, the price of this perpetual license is typically much lower than the equivalent cost of annual subscriptions of competing solutions. For example, for the same expense of a few hundred euros (indicative figure for the Iperius license), Veeam would only cover a dozen users for a single year, while Iperius covers infinite users forever . In addition to being cost-effective, this simplifies management: there are no annual renewals or user counts – once purchased, Iperius can be used without restrictions on the amount of data, users or companies to be protected.

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Technical and commercial comparison: why Iperius is more convenient and effective

Below we summarize the main points of comparison between Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and Iperius Backup, highlighting the advantages of Iperius for Teams backup:

Backup and restore granularity : Both solutions offer incremental backups and granular restores. However, Iperius allows continuous backups (incremental/differential) to multiple destinations (including external ones) at no additional cost. The recovery of individual Teams messages or SharePoint files is supported in both, but with Iperius the data is immediately available in standard formats, facilitating recoveries even without proprietary software. This means greater flexibility in disaster recovery scenarios: for example, being able to directly extract a PST file or a document from an Iperius backup, versus the need to launch the Veeam Explorer interface to extract the same item from a Veeam repository.
File format and data accessibility : Veeam stores backups in a proprietary compressed database (JET) ; access to individual elements requires the use of Veeam tools (or manual extraction/export from the console). Iperius instead saves emails and chats in PST/EML formats and documents in their original format. This guarantees direct access and immediate readability of the backup data. For example, a Teams/Exchange PST archive saved by Iperius can be opened directly in Outlook to search for and recover emails or messages. This transparency of the format also offers an additional level of security : the backup data is not “locked” inside a proprietary container, but remains usable even without the software that created it. In practical terms, the company maintains total control over its data .
Licensing and costs : Here the advantage of Iperius is clear. Veeam requires a recurring subscription and scales linearly with the number of users/year (for example tens of euros per user per year ), which can be expensive for medium-large companies or MSPs with many customers. Iperius instead offers a single perpetual license : by investing just once, you get unlimited coverage for users, groups and organizations. This model is more convenient in the short term (just compare the cost of 1–2 years of Veeam for a few dozen users with the one-off cost of Iperius). In the long term, the difference in TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) becomes even more marked in favor of Iperius. Furthermore, the ability to protect unlimited organizations with a single license makes Iperius extremely interesting for managed service providers: an MSP can purchase a license and use it to backup all the Microsoft 365 customers it manages, while with Veeam it would have to join specific programs for service providers or purchase separate licenses for each tenant.
Limitations and scalability : Veeam is a robust and scalable product for enterprise environments, but it imposes some complexities – for example, repository management (possible maintenance issues for the JET database with a lot of data) and the need to carefully count the consumed licenses (each protected user is counted, including Teams service users). Iperius, thanks to its simplicity of licensing and writing on standard file systems, is lighter to manage . There are no internal limits on the number of users or data size: scalability mainly depends on the storage space available for backup files. In practice, Iperius allows you to grow the backup infrastructure (adding space on NAS, cloud, etc.) without extra costs or administrative complexity.

In conclusion, Iperius Backup proves to be more convenient and effective than Veeam for backing up Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 in many scenarios, especially for companies looking for a cost-effective solution, without user constraints and with maximum accessibility of the saved data . From a technical point of view , Iperius provides all the main protection tools (granular backup, multi-destination, flexible recovery) while keeping the data in an open format. From a commercial point of view , the unlimited perpetual license of Iperius offers an unbeatable cost-benefit ratio compared to the Veeam subscription model. Thanks to these advantages, Iperius represents an ideal solution for securing Teams and Microsoft 365 data, ensuring operational continuity and complete control over company information.