Menu
Cart

Synology Backups

Secure your data with Synology Backups. Effortlessly protect and restore your files, documents, and more. Trust in reliable, easy-to-use backup solutions.

Self-Service Recovery for Schools Using Microsoft 365

Empowering Students and Staff with Self-Service Recovery for Microsoft 365

Educational institutions manage thousands of user accounts across Microsoft 365 environments. Students accidentally delete assignments, faculty members overwrite important files, and staff occasionally remove emails or folders they later need to recover. While these incidents are usually minor, they generate a surprising number of IT support requests.

For many K-12 schools, colleges, and universities, help desk teams spend a significant portion of their time handling routine recovery requests. As student populations grow and cloud collaboration becomes more widespread, these requests can quickly overwhelm limited IT resources.

Forward-thinking educational institutions are addressing this challenge through self-service recovery tools that allow users to restore their own data without opening support tickets. Schools using Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 have discovered that empowering end users not only reduces administrative workload but also improves productivity across the organization.

The Growing Recovery Challenge in Education

Microsoft 365 has become the foundation for communication and collaboration in many schools.

Daily activities often involve:

  • Exchange Online email

  • OneDrive file storage

  • Microsoft Teams collaboration

  • Shared documents

  • Classroom resources

  • Administrative records

With thousands of users interacting with data every day, accidental deletions are inevitable.

Common requests include:

  • Recovering deleted emails

  • Restoring assignment files

  • Retrieving older document versions

  • Recovering Teams content

  • Restoring folders removed by mistake

When every recovery requires IT involvement, support queues can grow quickly.

Why Traditional Recovery Processes Create Bottlenecks

In many institutions, recovery requests follow a familiar process.

A user:

  1. Contacts the help desk.

  2. Waits for ticket assignment.

  3. Provides recovery details.

  4. Waits for IT to perform restoration.

  5. Receives confirmation.

While the process works, it consumes valuable IT resources.

For schools with hundreds or thousands of users, routine recovery requests can distract administrators from higher-priority initiatives such as cybersecurity, infrastructure modernization, and classroom technology support.

The Shift Toward Self-Service Recovery

Modern backup platforms increasingly support self-service recovery capabilities.

Instead of relying entirely on administrators, users can recover approved content themselves through secure portals.

Benefits include:

  • Faster recovery times

  • Reduced support tickets

  • Improved user satisfaction

  • Lower administrative workload

  • Increased operational efficiency

For educational institutions operating with lean IT teams, these benefits can be significant.

How Active Backup for Microsoft 365 Supports Self-Service Recovery

Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 includes a self-service recovery portal that allows authorized users to browse and restore their own protected data.

Users can recover:

  • Exchange Online emails

  • OneDrive files

  • SharePoint content

  • Microsoft Teams data

The portal provides a familiar interface that simplifies the recovery process while maintaining appropriate administrative controls.

Instead of opening a ticket for every deleted file or email, users can often resolve the issue themselves in just a few minutes.

Restoring Deleted Emails

Email recovery is one of the most common support requests in educational environments.

Students and staff may accidentally delete:

  • Important communications

  • Assignment instructions

  • Meeting invitations

  • Administrative notices

Through the self-service portal, users can search historical backups and restore individual messages without requiring IT intervention.

This dramatically reduces the number of routine email recovery tickets.

Recovering OneDrive Files

OneDrive serves as the primary storage platform for many students and faculty members.

Accidental deletions can impact:

  • Coursework

  • Research projects

  • Administrative documents

  • Shared resources

Self-service recovery allows users to locate and restore files quickly, reducing disruption to teaching and learning activities.

Protecting Microsoft Teams Data

As collaboration increasingly moves into Teams, organizations need reliable recovery options for:

  • Shared files

  • Team content

  • Project information

  • Collaboration resources

The ability to restore Teams-related data helps maintain continuity when content is accidentally removed or modified.

Real-World Benefits for Educational Institutions

Schools that deploy self-service recovery solutions often experience measurable improvements.

Common results include:

  • Reduced help desk workload

  • Faster user recovery

  • Improved productivity

  • Greater user independence

  • Better backup utilization

Rather than functioning solely as a disaster recovery tool, backups become a practical everyday resource.

Security and Administrative Control

Self-service recovery does not mean unrestricted access.

Administrators maintain control through:

  • Role-based permissions

  • Recovery policies

  • Audit logs

  • Access controls

  • Administrative oversight

Users can recover their own authorized content without gaining access to data belonging to others.

This balance between convenience and security is critical in educational environments.

Lessons for K-12 and Higher Education IT Teams

Schools considering self-service recovery should focus on:

User Training

Even simple recovery tools benefit from basic user education.

Clear Policies

Define what users can recover independently and when IT involvement is required.

Regular Backup Validation

Verify that backup data remains available and recoverable.

Long-Term Scalability

Choose solutions that can support growing student populations and expanding Microsoft 365 environments.

These practices help maximize the value of self-service recovery programs.

About Synology Solutions

Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 provides centralized protection for Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams while offering secure self-service recovery capabilities. Educational institutions can reduce support workloads, improve recovery times, and maintain greater control over Microsoft 365 data without relying exclusively on native retention features.

About Epis Technology

Epis Technology helps educational institutions deploy and optimize Microsoft 365 protection through Synology consulting, backup architecture design, disaster recovery planning, cloud data protection, and infrastructure modernization. The company specializes in helping schools simplify backup management, reduce administrative overhead, and improve long-term data resilience.

By combining Synology solutions with proven deployment expertise, Epis Technology helps schools empower users, reduce support tickets, and create more efficient IT operations.

The Hybrid Backup Strategy That Defeated Ransomware

The Ransomware Attack That Hit Both On-Prem and Cloud Data, How Our Hybrid Backup Strategy Saved the Day

Ransomware attacks have become far more sophisticated. Modern attackers no longer focus solely on encrypting local file servers. Today’s ransomware groups actively target cloud applications, Microsoft 365 environments, backup systems, shared storage, and administrative accounts in an effort to maximize disruption and increase the likelihood of a ransom payment.

At Epis Technology, we recently worked with an organization that experienced exactly this type of attack. What began as a compromised user account quickly escalated into a coordinated ransomware incident affecting both on-premises infrastructure and cloud-based services.

The attack impacted file shares, user workstations, and portions of the company’s Microsoft 365 environment. Fortunately, the organization had previously invested in a hybrid backup strategy that combined Synology storage, cloud protection, and multiple recovery layers.

That strategy ultimately prevented a potentially devastating business interruption.

The Initial Compromise

The incident began when attackers gained access through a compromised user account.

Initially, the activity appeared legitimate because valid credentials were being used.

Over the following days, the attackers:

  • Moved laterally through the network
  • Enumerated storage resources
  • Identified backup systems
  • Accessed shared file repositories
  • Gathered information about cloud services

The attack remained largely undetected until ransomware execution began.

The Impact

Within hours, multiple systems became affected.

The organization experienced:

  • Encrypted file shares
  • Inaccessible business documents
  • Disrupted user access
  • Locked workstations
  • Cloud data concerns
  • Operational interruptions

The attack impacted both traditional infrastructure and cloud-based collaboration platforms.

This immediately elevated the incident from a localized problem to an organization-wide crisis.

Why Modern Ransomware Is Different

Many businesses still assume ransomware only targets file servers.

Today’s attackers increasingly target:

  • Microsoft 365
  • OneDrive
  • SharePoint
  • Exchange Online
  • Backup repositories
  • Administrative accounts

The objective is simple: eliminate recovery options and force organizations into paying ransom demands.

This is why modern recovery planning requires multiple protection layers.

Immediate Incident Response

When Epis Technology was engaged, our first priority was containment.

We worked to:

  • Isolate affected systems
  • Disable compromised accounts
  • Review administrative activity
  • Secure backup infrastructure
  • Preserve recovery options
  • Prevent further encryption activity

Rapid containment significantly reduced additional damage.

Evaluating Recovery Options

The next question was critical:

Could the organization recover without paying the ransom?

Fortunately, the answer was yes.

Because the company had implemented a hybrid backup architecture, multiple recovery paths remained available.

The Hybrid Backup Strategy

The organization’s protection strategy included both local and cloud-based recovery resources.

This approach provided resilience against attacks targeting a single environment.

The solution included:

On-Premises Protection

The client utilized Synology infrastructure for centralized storage, snapshots, and backup repositories.

This provided:

  • Fast local recovery
  • Snapshot-based protection
  • Backup isolation
  • Storage redundancy

Cloud Backup Protection

Additional cloud-based recovery copies provided:

  • Geographic separation
  • Independent recovery points
  • Long-term retention
  • Additional resilience

Microsoft 365 Backup Coverage

Critical Microsoft 365 workloads were protected independently, including:

  • Exchange Online
  • OneDrive
  • SharePoint Online
  • Microsoft Teams

This ensured cloud-based collaboration data remained recoverable. Protect Microsoft 365 with reliable independent backups.

Recovering the Environment

Once containment was complete, Epis Technology initiated recovery operations.

Restoring File Shares

Protected snapshots and backup repositories were used to restore encrypted business files.

Recovering Microsoft 365 Data

Cloud collaboration platforms were validated and restored where necessary.

Rebuilding Critical Systems

Affected devices and services were restored using clean recovery points.

Verifying Data Integrity

Recovered information was reviewed to ensure operational accuracy and completeness.

Because multiple recovery layers existed, the organization was able to restore operations without negotiating with attackers.

Lessons Learned

The attack reinforced several important realities.

Organizations should never assume:

  • Cloud platforms are immune to ransomware
  • Backups cannot be targeted
  • Single recovery layers are sufficient
  • Native retention policies replace backups

Effective protection requires multiple independent recovery options.

Strengthening Security After Recovery

Following the recovery effort, Epis Technology helped the client improve:

  • Multi-factor authentication
  • Administrative controls
  • Backup monitoring
  • Endpoint security
  • Security awareness training
  • Recovery testing procedures

The objective was to improve both prevention and resilience. Enhance protection with comprehensive cyber security services.

The Results

Following recovery, the organization achieved:

  • Successful restoration of critical data
  • Recovery without paying ransom demands
  • Improved security controls
  • Stronger backup resilience
  • Better business continuity planning
  • Enhanced recovery readiness

Most importantly, the company avoided a potentially catastrophic loss of business operations.

Why Hybrid Backup Matters

Modern businesses operate across multiple environments.

Critical information often resides in:

  • Microsoft 365
  • Cloud applications
  • On-premises storage
  • Virtual infrastructure
  • Shared collaboration platforms

A hybrid backup strategy protects these environments through multiple independent recovery layers.

When ransomware strikes, organizations with diversified backup architectures are far better positioned to recover quickly and confidently.

About Epis Technology

Epis Technology helps organizations protect business-critical systems through Synology consulting, hybrid backup strategies, Microsoft 365 protection, disaster recovery planning, and cybersecurity resilience services. The company specializes in enterprise storage solutions, cloud data protection, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace backups, fully managed PC backups, and business continuity planning. Build hybrid backups with expert Synology consulting.

By combining secure backup architecture, proactive monitoring, and proven recovery expertise, Epis Technology helps businesses maintain operational continuity even when facing sophisticated ransomware threats.

Scaling M365 Backups for Large Organizations

Scaling M365 Backups for Large Enterprises: Tales from the Finance Department and More

As Microsoft 365 environments grow, many organisations find that protecting thousands of users poses challenges far more complex than mere backup management. Large enterprises need to achieve business continuity while managing performance, storage efficiency, compliance, recovery objectives, and long-term scalability.

For companies in finance, healthcare, education, legal services and other highly regulated industries, Microsoft 365 backups have become a critical part of operational resilience. As such, many enterprises are turning to Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 to help them gain more control over backup infrastructure, while also reducing operational complexity.

Lessons learned from real-world enterprise deployments of Microsoft 365 backup operations offer valuable insights for scaling them successfully.

The Challenges of Large-Scale Microsoft 365 Backup Environments

Large organisations often have a need to protect:

  • Thousands of employee accounts
  • Mailboxes in Exchange Online
  • OneDrive repositories
  • SharePoint websites
  • Teams data from Microsoft
  • Discontinued user accounts
  • Previous compliance history

As data volumes increase into multi-terabyte ranges, organisations should consider:

  • Performance of backup
  • Storage usage
  • Rate of recovery
  • Requirements for retention
  • Protection offsite
  • Administrative efficiency

These challenges often require organisations to reconsider traditional backup strategies.

Idea Bank Managing enterprise data growth

One of the most recognisable enterprise deployments of Synology is at Idea Bank, one of Poland’s largest financial institutions.

Idea Bank, like many financial institutions, needed:

  • Secure data protection
  • Solid recovery capabilities
  • Efficient storage
  • Long term scalability
  • Centralised management

Financial institutions produce huge amounts of data and do so under strict regulatory requirements. Backup systems must be able to support operational recovery as well as compliance obligations.

The deployment demonstrated how organisations can leverage the Synology infrastructure to improve storage efficiency while retaining a high level of backup performance.

Enterprise lesson

Storage efficiency is important One of the biggest concerns of large Microsoft 365 environments is storage consumption.

Without optimisation organisations often struggle with:

  • Fast storage growth
  • Rising costs of infrastructure
  • Capacity is hard to plan
  • Problems with expanding backup repository

Here’s where Synology’s storage optimisation technologies come in.

The Advantage of Deduplication

Large Microsoft 365 environments tend to have duplicate content across:

  • Files shared
  • Attachments from email
  • Repositories in departments
  • Collaboration spaces for teams
  • OneDrive-accounts

Organisations can utilise data reduction technologies to significantly reduce backup storage requirements.

For enterprises protecting thousands of users, storage efficiency improvements can mean substantial long-term cost savings.

Performance that Scales

The more users you have, the more critical backup performance becomes.

Many of the large Microsoft 365 environments have to handle:

  • Data sets of multi terabytes
  • High daily rate of change
  • Large Teams Repositories
  • Large SharePoint libraries

The first backup is often the most resource-intensive part.

Factors that impact performance are:

  • Microsoft 365 data size
  • Bandwidth of the Internet
  • Microsoft APIs throttling
  • NAS hardware resources
  • Configure storage
  • Creating backup tasks

If your organization has thousands of users to protect, your very first backup should be treated as a deployment project, not a routine backup job.

Incremental Backup Speed

Once the initial sync is done, incremental backup speed usually improves dramatically. Learn the differences between incremental and full backup strategies

Incremental jobs only care about:

  • New e-mails
  • Updated files
  • Updated SharePoint content
  • Switches teams
  • User activity since previous backup

This allows organisations to keep protection effective as environments continue to grow. 

How to Duplicate Offsite

Do not rely on a single location for enterprise backup storage.

Most large organisations adhere to variations of the 3-2-1 backup methodology. See how to build a 3-2-1 backup strategy using Synology solutions

  • 3 copies of data
  • Two sites of storage for
  • One offsite copy

Typical replication models

Organisations often use:

Secondary Synology Replication

Backup repositories are replicated to a second Synology system in a second site. View how to configure snapshot replication on Synology NAS systems

Data Center Recovery Sites

The organization has geographically separate recovery sites.

Security in Hybrid Cloud

Critical backup data is replicated to cloud repositories, while maintaining local recovery ability. Explore how hybrid cloud integration enhances modern data protection strategies

These strategies help to improve resilience to ransomware, hardware failures, and site-level disasters.

Lessons from Education and Large Institutions

Education organisations often have similar problems to enterprises.

Protected by thousands of institutions:

  • Schüler
  • Faculty
  • Administration staff
  • Alumni stories

has to balance growth, retention and cost control.

Deployments like Western Reserve Academy show how organisations can centralise backup management while meeting long-term retention requirements for large user populations.

Why Large Microsoft 365 Tenants Should Consider Synology

Benefits of Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 for large organisations:

  • Centralised management
  • No license for account scalability
  • granular recovery capabilities
  • Use storage more efficiently
  • Flexible retention policies
  • Ownership of local backups
  • Offsite replication strategies incorporation

With these capabilities, organisations can scale their Microsoft 365 protection without continually increasing backup costs per user. Understand how to Scale enterprise M365 backups with Synology solutions.

Best Practices for Enterprise M365 Backup Deployment

Organizations planning to deploy Microsoft 365 protection at scale should consider:

  • Correct NAS sizing
  • Predict storage growth
  • Backup job split
  • Periodic testing of recoveries
  • Offsite replication planning
  • Hardening security
  • Retention policies for a long period

Such practices help to keep backup environments efficient as user populations grow.

About Synology Solutions

With Active Backup for Microsoft 365, Synology offers scalable Microsoft 365 protection that helps organisations protect Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams data from a centralised platform. Combined with storage optimisation, replication technologies and flexible retention policies, Synology empowers enterprises to build resilient backup environments that can support thousands of users.

Epis Technology

Epis Technology assists organisations with the design, deployment, and optimisation of large-scale Synology backup environments. Services include infrastructure assessments, storage planning, Microsoft 365 backup architecture, disaster recovery consulting, replication planning, and business continuity services.

Epis Technology leverages Synology expertise and enterprise-grade backup strategies to assist organisations in enhancing recovery readiness, minimising operational complexity, and establishing scalable data protection environments to facilitate long-term growth.

Site-to-Site VPN Backup Replication Strategies

Site-to-Site VPN Backup Replication Strategies

Protecting business data requires more than local backups. Hardware failures, ransomware attacks, natural disasters, and site-wide outages can all make locally stored backups unavailable when they are needed most. For this reason, many organizations implement site-to-site backup replication to maintain secure copies of critical business data at a secondary location.

A Site-to-Site Virtual Private Network (VPN) allows businesses to securely connect multiple offices or data centers over the internet. When combined with Synology NAS, organizations can automatically replicate backup data between locations while keeping communications encrypted and maintaining full control over their backup infrastructure.

By combining VPN connectivity with Synology’s backup and replication technologies, businesses can strengthen disaster recovery planning, improve business continuity, and reduce recovery times.

Why Offsite Backup Replication Matters

Local backups protect against many common failures but cannot protect against every disaster.

Organizations should prepare for:

  • Ransomware attacks

  • Hardware failures

  • Fire or flood damage

  • Power outages

  • Human error

  • Site-wide disasters

Maintaining an offsite backup copy significantly improves recovery readiness.

What Is a Site-to-Site VPN?

A Site-to-Site VPN securely connects two or more business locations over the internet.

Instead of exposing backup traffic publicly, organizations create an encrypted tunnel that protects data while it moves between locations.

This allows branch offices, headquarters, and disaster recovery sites to communicate securely without relying on public file-sharing services.

How Synology Supports Backup Replication

Synology NAS offers several technologies that support secure offsite replication.

Organizations commonly use:

  • Hyper Backup

  • Snapshot Replication

  • Shared Folder Sync

  • Active Backup repositories

  • Synology VPN Server

These tools help automate backup protection while reducing administrative effort.

Choosing the Right Replication Method

Different workloads require different replication strategies.

Organizations may choose:

  • Hyper Backup for long-term backup copies

  • Snapshot Replication for fast recovery

  • Shared Folder Sync for file synchronization

  • Active Backup repositories for centralized backup storage

Selecting the appropriate method depends on recovery objectives and business requirements.

Securing Backup Traffic

Backup data often contains sensitive business information.

Organizations should protect replication traffic with:

  • Encrypted VPN tunnels

  • Strong authentication

  • Multi-factor authentication

  • Firewall policies

  • Access controls

Layered security helps protect backup data while it travels between locations.

Planning Bandwidth Requirements

Large backup jobs can consume significant network resources.

Administrators should evaluate:

  • Internet upload speeds

  • Internet download speeds

  • Daily backup size

  • Available bandwidth

  • Replication schedules

Scheduling large replication jobs outside business hours can help reduce network congestion.

Monitoring Replication Health

Replication should be monitored continuously.

Organizations should review:

  • Replication status

  • Backup success rates

  • Storage utilization

  • VPN connectivity

  • System alerts

Early detection of problems helps ensure backups remain available when needed.

Supporting Business Continuity

Site-to-site replication plays a critical role in business continuity planning.

Organizations can improve resilience by combining:

  • Local backups

  • Offsite replication

  • Snapshot Replication

  • Disaster recovery testing

  • Recovery documentation

A layered approach provides stronger protection against a wide range of threats.

Planning for Future Growth

As businesses expand, replication strategies should scale with them.

Organizations should prepare for:

  • Additional branch offices

  • Larger backup repositories

  • Increased Microsoft 365 backups

  • More virtual machines

  • Growing storage requirements

Scalable Synology deployments make it easier to expand replication environments over time.

Best Practices for Site-to-Site VPN Backup Replication

Organizations can improve backup resilience by:

  • Encrypting all replication traffic

  • Monitoring VPN performance

  • Automating backup schedules

  • Testing disaster recovery regularly

  • Reviewing storage capacity

  • Expanding infrastructure proactively

These best practices help create a secure, reliable, and scalable offsite backup environment.

About Synology

Synology provides secure backup and disaster recovery through Hyper Backup, Snapshot Replication, Shared Folder Sync, VPN Server, Active Backup, centralized storage, and scalable NAS solutions. Its integrated platform helps organizations protect critical business data while supporting secure site-to-site replication and long-term business continuity.

About Epis Technology

Epis Technology helps organizations design secure backup replication environments through Synology consulting, VPN deployment, backup architecture design, disaster recovery planning, infrastructure optimization, cybersecurity consulting, and ongoing Synology support.

By combining extensive Synology expertise with practical infrastructure planning, Epis Technology helps businesses implement secure site-to-site backup replication strategies that improve resilience, reduce downtime, and support long-term operational success.

Cost Savings in Education with Synology M365 Backups

How to Save Money on Education with On-Premises Synology Instead of Per-User M365 Backup Fees

Educational institutions depend on Microsoft 365 for email, collaboration, online learning, and document management. As schools grow, so do the number of student, faculty, alumni, and administrative accounts that require protection. While many schools initially choose cloud-based Microsoft 365 backup services, recurring per-user subscription fees often become one of the largest ongoing IT expenses.

To reduce costs while maintaining complete control of their data, many educational institutions are replacing subscription-based backup services with Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365. Schools such as Western Reserve Academy in the United States and Het Streek in the Netherlands demonstrate how a one-time infrastructure investment can provide long-term savings, simplified management, and enterprise-grade data protection.

The Challenge of Per-User Backup Licensing

Most SaaS Microsoft 365 backup providers charge based on the number of protected users.

Educational institutions typically need to protect:

  • Students

  • Teachers

  • Administrative staff

  • Alumni accounts

  • Shared mailboxes

  • Service accounts

As enrollment grows, backup costs increase every year regardless of whether the backup platform changes.

For schools with thousands of users, annual licensing expenses can quickly consume a significant portion of the IT budget.

Why Schools Are Moving to Synology

Unlike many cloud backup providers, Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 does not require per-user backup licenses.

Instead, organizations invest in:

  • Synology NAS hardware

  • Storage capacity

  • Backup infrastructure

Once deployed, schools can protect large Microsoft 365 environments without paying recurring backup license fees for every user.

This creates a far more predictable long-term cost model.

Western Reserve Academy: Lower Costs, Greater Control

Western Reserve Academy needed to protect thousands of Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace accounts while preserving long-term access to alumni data.

The school wanted to reduce the high recurring costs associated with cloud backup subscriptions while improving data ownership.

After implementing Synology, the institution gained:

  • Centralized Microsoft 365 backups

  • Google Workspace backup protection

  • Long-term alumni data retention

  • Local ownership of backup data

  • Simplified backup administration

  • Lower long-term operating costs

The school also discovered an additional benefit by using available Synology storage to extend surveillance video retention without purchasing another storage platform.

Het Streek: Scaling Without Growing Licensing Costs

Het Streek faced a similar challenge as its digital learning environment expanded.

By adopting Synology, the school achieved:

  • License-free Microsoft 365 backup scaling

  • Simplified backup administration

  • Greater storage flexibility

  • Lower operational costs

  • Improved recovery capabilities

Rather than paying more every year as users increased, the institution expanded storage capacity only when needed.

Understanding the Return on Investment

One of the biggest financial advantages of Synology is replacing recurring subscription costs with infrastructure ownership.

Example Scenario

EnvironmentSubscription BackupSynology
500 usersAnnual per-user licensingOne-time hardware investment
1,000 usersLicensing doublesStorage expansion only
2,500 usersLicensing continues increasingSame backup software with scalable storage

Although hardware requires an initial investment, many schools recover those costs within several years while continuing to reduce operational expenses over the life of the system.

Actual savings vary depending on the size of the Microsoft 365 environment, retention requirements, and existing infrastructure.

License-Free Scaling

One of Synology’s greatest advantages for education is its ability to scale without increasing software licensing costs.

As schools add:

  • New students

  • Additional teachers

  • Administrative staff

  • Shared mailboxes

  • Alumni archives

they simply expand storage when required instead of purchasing additional backup licenses.

This provides significantly better budget predictability.

Supporting the 3-2-1 Backup Strategy

Educational institutions must protect against accidental deletion, ransomware, hardware failure, and long-term retention requirements.

Synology helps schools implement the widely recommended 3-2-1 backup strategy:

  • Three copies of important data

  • Two different storage media

  • One offsite backup copy

Schools often combine:

  • Microsoft 365 backups

  • Local Synology storage

  • Hyper Backup

  • Offsite replication

  • Snapshot Replication

This layered approach improves both resilience and disaster recovery readiness.

Reducing Backup Administration Complexity

Managing thousands of student accounts can become time-consuming.

Synology centralizes administration by providing:

  • One backup management console

  • Unified monitoring

  • Flexible retention policies

  • Granular recovery

  • Self-service recovery options

  • Centralized reporting

This reduces administrative workload while improving visibility.

Long-Term Storage Ownership

Many educational institutions retain student records and alumni information for years after graduation.

Owning the backup infrastructure allows schools to:

  • Retain data longer

  • Control storage costs

  • Define retention policies

  • Avoid vendor lock-in

  • Expand capacity gradually

Long-term ownership often delivers greater value than ongoing subscription models.

Why Synology Is a Strong Fit for Education

Synology provides educational institutions with centralized Microsoft 365 backup, scalable storage, Snapshot Replication, Hyper Backup, disaster recovery, and unified management without recurring per-user backup licensing. This allows schools to strengthen data protection while maintaining predictable IT budgets and supporting future growth.

About Epis Technology

Epis Technology helps educational institutions modernize Microsoft 365 backup environments through Synology consulting, backup architecture design, capacity planning, disaster recovery strategy, storage optimization, cybersecurity consulting, and ongoing Synology support.

By combining extensive Synology expertise with practical education IT experience, Epis Technology helps schools reduce long-term backup costs, improve operational efficiency, and build scalable data protection platforms that support students, faculty, and future growth.

Idea Bank’s Synology Backup Success

Banking on Synology: How Idea Bank S.A. Secured 2,500+ Microsoft 365 Accounts

In the financial sector, data protection is not just an IT priority it is a regulatory and operational necessity. Banks must safeguard customer information, maintain audit trails, meet strict compliance requirements, and ensure rapid recovery from data loss incidents. Idea Bank S.A., a major financial institution, addressed these challenges by implementing Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 to protect more than 2,500 Microsoft 365 accounts.

The Challenge: Protecting Critical Financial Data

Like many modern financial institutions, Idea Bank relied heavily on Microsoft 365 for email, collaboration, document management, and communication. This created several key concerns:

  • Protecting thousands of Exchange Online mailboxes

  • Securing SharePoint Online sites containing sensitive financial documents

  • Ensuring compliance with financial industry regulations

  • Maintaining business continuity in the event of accidental deletion, ransomware, or service disruption

  • Reducing the complexity and cost of third-party backup solutions

The Synology Solution

Idea Bank deployed Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 on a Synology NAS infrastructure to create a centralized, scalable backup platform.

Key Features Utilized

  • Agentless Backup: Protected Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, and Teams data without installing additional software on endpoints.

  • Centralized Management: Allowed administrators to manage backups for more than 2,500 user accounts from a single interface.

  • Deduplication Technology: Reduced storage consumption by eliminating duplicate data across users and workloads.

  • Flexible Recovery Options: Enabled granular restoration of emails, files, folders, and entire SharePoint sites.

Compliance Benefits for Financial Institutions

Financial organizations operate under strict regulatory frameworks that require reliable data retention and recovery capabilities. Synology’s backup platform helped address several compliance objectives:

1. Data Retention and Audit Readiness

Active Backup for Microsoft 365 preserves historical versions of data, supporting long-term retention policies and audit requirements commonly found in the banking sector.

2. Protection Against Accidental or Malicious Deletion

Even if data is deleted from Microsoft 365, the bank retains an independent backup copy, ensuring recoverability and reducing operational risk.

3. Enhanced Business Continuity

Rapid recovery capabilities help financial institutions meet internal recovery objectives and minimize service disruptions that could affect customers and regulatory obligations.

SharePoint Site Protection

One of the most critical aspects of the deployment was protecting SharePoint Online, where financial documents, policies, and collaborative workspaces are often stored.

Synology provided:

  • Full SharePoint site backups

  • Granular file and folder restoration

  • Point-in-time recovery

  • Centralized visibility across all SharePoint sites

This ensured that important financial records remained protected against corruption, deletion, or cyber incidents.

Meeting Regulatory Requirements in Finance

Banks face increasing scrutiny regarding data governance and operational resilience. Synology’s backup solution supports these requirements by providing:

  • Immutable backup architecture options

  • Secure access controls

  • Detailed backup and recovery logs

  • Support for geographically distributed backup strategies

These capabilities help financial institutions demonstrate due diligence in protecting customer and operational data.

Extending Protection Beyond Microsoft 365

Idea Bank’s deployment also highlights the advantage of integrating Active Backup for Microsoft 365 with other Synology data protection tools.

Comprehensive Infrastructure Coverage

Organizations can combine:

  • Synology Active Backup for Business for endpoints, servers, and virtual machines

  • Active Backup for Microsoft 365 for cloud productivity data

  • Snapshot Replication for rapid NAS recovery

  • Hyper Backup for offsite and cloud backups

This creates a unified backup ecosystem capable of protecting:

  • Microsoft 365 workloads

  • Windows and Linux servers

  • Virtual machines

  • Physical PCs

  • Synology NAS data

Why This Matters for Growing Enterprises

Idea Bank’s implementation demonstrates that Synology is not limited to small businesses. With the right architecture, Synology can support enterprise-scale deployments while delivering:

  • Lower total cost of ownership

  • Simplified management

  • Scalable storage growth

  • Strong compliance and recovery capabilities

  • Integrated protection across cloud and on-premises environments

The successful protection of more than 2,500 Microsoft 365 accounts at Idea Bank S.A. illustrates how Synology can serve as a powerful data protection platform for the financial sector. By combining Microsoft 365 backup capabilities with broader infrastructure protection tools, organizations can build a resilient, compliant, and cost-effective backup strategy.

For banks and other regulated enterprises, Synology offers a practical path to strengthening data protection while simplifying backup management across both cloud and on-premises environments.

About Epis Technology

Epis Technology specializes in enterprise IT infrastructure, data protection, and Synology consulting services. The company helps organizations deploy and optimize Synology solutions for Microsoft 365 backups, large-scale storage, business continuity, and regulatory compliance. With expertise in Synology NAS deployments, cloud backup integration, and disaster recovery planning, Epis Technology enables businesses to build secure and resilient data protection environments.

3-Layer Backup Strategy for Complete Business Protection

Every business depends on reliable access to its data. Whether it is Microsoft 365, virtual machines, file servers, databases, or business applications, losing access can quickly disrupt operations and lead to significant financial losses. While many organizations believe they are protected because they have a cloud backup, a single backup destination often leaves critical gaps in a disaster recovery strategy.

Cyberattacks, ransomware, accidental deletion, insider threats, hardware failures, and even provider outages can affect both production systems and backup repositories. This is why more organizations are adopting a 3 layer backup strategy that combines fast local recovery, secure offsite replication, and air gapped immutable backup protection.

This layered approach creates triple redundant business backup protection that improves resilience while reducing recovery times during major incidents.

Why Traditional Two-Layer Backup Can Fail

Many organizations rely on only two copies of their data:

  • Production systems

  • A cloud backup

While this is better than having no backup, both copies may still be vulnerable to the same operational or security risks.

Potential issues include:

  • Ransomware targeting connected backups

  • Administrator mistakes

  • Cloud account compromise

  • Misconfigured retention policies

  • Backup corruption

  • Long recovery times

  • Single provider dependency

If both production and backup environments are affected, recovery options become significantly more limited.

Understanding a 3-Layer Backup Strategy

A 3 layer backup strategy introduces multiple independent recovery layers that complement one another.

Each layer serves a different purpose:

Layer 1: Fast Local Recovery

The first layer focuses on minimizing downtime.

Organizations maintain a local backup repository that supports:

  • Rapid file recovery

  • Virtual machine restoration

  • Microsoft 365 recovery

  • Database recovery

  • Business application recovery

Because backups remain close to production systems, restore times are often much faster than downloading large datasets from remote cloud storage.

Technologies commonly used include:

  • Synology ActiveProtect

  • Active Backup for Business

  • Active Backup for Microsoft 365

  • Snapshot Replication

This layer is designed for everyday recovery scenarios such as accidental deletion, hardware replacement, or operational mistakes.

Layer 2: Offsite Data Center Replication

The second layer protects against site-wide disasters.

Backup copies are replicated to a secure offsite location such as a professionally managed data center.

Benefits include:

  • Geographic separation

  • Disaster recovery readiness

  • Protection against building loss

  • Independent storage location

  • Business continuity support

If the primary office experiences fire, flooding, theft, or prolonged power loss, organizations still have access to a separate backup repository.

Offsite replication also reduces reliance on a single physical location.

Layer 3: Air-Gapped Immutable Backup

The third layer protects against sophisticated cyberattacks.

An air gapped immutable backup is designed to prevent backup data from being modified or deleted after it has been written.

Key characteristics include:

  • Write-once protection

  • Backup immutability

  • Restricted administrative access

  • Protection against ransomware

  • Isolated recovery copies

  • Long-term retention

Because immutable backups cannot easily be altered, they provide a final recovery option if production systems and connected backups are compromised.

Organizations should verify how immutability is implemented within their chosen backup platform, as capabilities vary between technologies and vendors.

Why Each Layer Has a Different Purpose

No single backup layer solves every problem.

Each layer addresses different recovery objectives.

Local Recovery

Best for:

  • Individual file recovery

  • Fast restores

  • Daily operational issues

  • Hardware replacement

Offsite Replication

Best for:

  • Building disasters

  • Regional outages

  • Disaster recovery

  • Business continuity

Immutable Backup

Best for:

  • Ransomware

  • Malicious deletion

  • Insider threats

  • Recovery assurance

Together, these layers provide significantly greater resilience than relying on only one backup destination.

Supporting the 3-2-1-1-0 Principle

Many organizations build their backup strategy around the 3-2-1-1-0 model.

This generally includes:

  • Three copies of data

  • Two different storage media

  • One offsite copy

  • One immutable or air-gapped copy

  • Zero backup verification errors

A three-layer architecture aligns well with these principles by distributing risk across multiple independent recovery mechanisms.

Faster Recovery During Business Interruptions

Recovery speed is just as important as backup success.

Organizations should define:

  • Recovery Time Objectives (RTO)

  • Recovery Point Objectives (RPO)

  • Critical workloads

  • Recovery priorities

  • Recovery testing schedules

Local backups often provide the fastest recovery, while offsite and immutable copies offer additional protection when larger incidents occur.

Why Cloud Backup Alone May Not Be Enough

Cloud storage remains an important component of many backup strategies.

However, organizations should evaluate:

  • Recovery bandwidth

  • Large-scale restore times

  • Provider dependency

  • Administrative control

  • Retention flexibility

  • Recovery testing

Cloud backup should complement, rather than replace, broader business continuity planning.

Many organizations achieve the best results by combining local infrastructure with offsite replication and immutable storage.

Continuous Monitoring Matters

A backup strategy is only effective if it is continuously monitored.

Administrators should review:

  • Backup success rates

  • Storage utilization

  • Replication status

  • Recovery testing results

  • Hardware health

  • Security alerts

  • Capacity growth

Regular monitoring helps identify issues before they become recovery failures.

Best Practices for Triple Redundant Business Backup

Organizations can strengthen backup resilience by:

  • Maintaining fast local backup repositories

  • Replicating backups to secure offsite infrastructure

  • Using immutable backup technology where appropriate

  • Encrypting backup data

  • Performing routine recovery testing

  • Monitoring backup health continuously

  • Reviewing retention policies regularly

  • Updating disaster recovery plans as infrastructure evolves

These practices improve resilience while supporting long-term business continuity.

Why Organizations Choose Synology

Synology provides enterprise backup capabilities through ActiveProtect, Active Backup for Business, Active Backup for Microsoft 365, Hyper Backup, Snapshot Replication, Btrfs, immutable snapshot support on compatible platforms, and centralized management. Combined with properly designed local, offsite, and immutable backup architecture, Synology helps organizations build resilient data protection strategies that support rapid recovery and long-term operational continuity. Build resilient triple-layer backups with business solutions.

About Epis Technology

Epis Technology helps organizations design and implement resilient backup architectures that combine high-speed local recovery, secure offsite replication, and immutable data protection. Services include infrastructure assessments, Synology ActiveProtect deployment, Microsoft 365 backup implementation, storage architecture, disaster recovery planning, cybersecurity consulting, backup optimization, and ongoing managed support. By building layered backup strategies tailored to business requirements, Epis Technology helps organizations reduce downtime, strengthen cyber resilience, and protect critical data against evolving threats.

Reducing Microsoft 365 Administrative Complexity

Reducing Microsoft 365 Administrative Complexity

Microsoft 365 has become the foundation of modern business productivity, providing organizations with email, file sharing, collaboration, document management, and communication tools. As businesses grow, however, managing Microsoft 365 environments becomes increasingly complex. Additional users, expanding storage requirements, security policies, compliance obligations, and backup management all place greater demands on IT administrators.

Without a well-planned management strategy, administrative tasks can consume valuable time and increase the likelihood of configuration errors, security gaps, and inconsistent data protection.

Organizations can reduce this complexity by combining Microsoft 365 with Synology’s centralized backup and storage solutions. Together, they simplify administration while improving security, business continuity, and long-term scalability.

Why Microsoft 365 Administration Becomes More Complex

Managing a small Microsoft 365 environment is relatively straightforward.

As organizations grow, administrators often need to manage:

  • Additional user accounts
  • Larger OneDrive storage
  • More Microsoft Teams workspaces
  • Expanding SharePoint sites
  • Exchange Online mailboxes
  • Security and compliance policies

Each new employee, department, or business location increases administrative responsibilities.

Common Administrative Challenges

IT teams frequently face challenges such as:

  • Managing user permissions
  • Protecting Microsoft 365 data
  • Monitoring storage growth
  • Supporting remote employees
  • Recovering deleted data
  • Meeting compliance requirements

Without centralized management, these tasks become increasingly time-consuming.

Centralize Microsoft 365 Backup Management

One of the biggest administrative challenges is protecting Microsoft 365 data.

Organizations need reliable backups for:

  • Exchange Online
  • OneDrive
  • SharePoint
  • Microsoft Teams

Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 centralizes backup management into a single platform, reducing administrative overhead while improving data protection.

Simplify Backup Administration

Instead of managing multiple backup tools, administrators can manage Microsoft 365 backups from one centralized interface.

Benefits include:

  • Simplified backup scheduling
  • Centralized monitoring
  • Faster recovery
  • Consistent backup policies
  • Improved visibility

This reduces the time spent managing daily backup operations.

Improve Data Recovery

Recovering Microsoft 365 data should be fast and straightforward.

Organizations often need to restore:

  • Individual emails
  • Entire mailboxes
  • OneDrive files
  • SharePoint documents
  • Teams data

Centralized recovery tools reduce administrative effort while minimizing business disruption.

Strengthen Security

Growing Microsoft 365 environments require stronger security controls.

Administrators should implement:

  • Multi-factor authentication
  • Role-based permissions
  • Secure backup repositories
  • Access monitoring
  • Backup verification

Combining strong security with centralized backup management improves overall resilience.

Reduce Storage Management Complexity

As Microsoft 365 data grows, storage planning becomes increasingly important.

Synology helps organizations manage:

  • Backup repositories
  • Storage expansion
  • Capacity monitoring
  • Retention policies
  • Archive management

Centralized storage planning simplifies long-term administration.

Support Compliance Requirements

Many industries require long-term retention of Microsoft 365 data.

Organizations may need to retain:

  • Email communications
  • Business documents
  • Collaboration records
  • Project files
  • Audit information

Synology provides flexible retention options that help organizations support compliance requirements while maintaining administrative simplicity.

Support Business Growth

As organizations expand, Microsoft 365 environments continue to evolve.

Administrators should prepare for:

  • Additional employees
  • More Microsoft Teams sites
  • Larger SharePoint deployments
  • Increased backup requirements
  • Growing storage capacity

Scalable infrastructure helps support business growth without increasing management complexity.

Why Synology Simplifies Microsoft 365 Administration

Synology provides organizations with centralized backup, scalable storage, flexible retention policies, Active Backup for Microsoft 365, Snapshot Replication, and unified management tools. These capabilities reduce administrative workload while improving data protection, recovery readiness, and operational efficiency.

Rather than managing multiple disconnected solutions, organizations can centralize Microsoft 365 protection within a single, easy-to-manage platform.

About Epis Technology

Epis Technology helps organizations simplify Microsoft 365 administration through Synology consulting, Active Backup for Microsoft 365 implementation, storage architecture design, infrastructure planning, disaster recovery consulting, cybersecurity services, and ongoing Synology support.

By combining deep Synology expertise with practical Microsoft 365 management strategies, Epis Technology helps businesses reduce administrative complexity, strengthen data protection, and build scalable IT environments that support long-term growth.

How to Manage Microsoft 365 Storage Consumption Effectively

As organizations increasingly rely on cloud-based productivity tools, managing storage consumption in Microsoft 365 has become a critical part of IT administration. Uncontrolled data growth can lead to increased costs, reduced efficiency, and challenges in maintaining backups and compliance requirements.

For businesses using Microsoft 365 alongside Synology DiskStation Manager (DSM) environments, implementing a proactive storage management strategy helps optimize costs, improve performance, and strengthen data protection.

Why Microsoft 365 Storage Management Matters

Microsoft 365 generates significant amounts of data across services such as:

  • Exchange Online
  • OneDrive for Business
  • SharePoint Online
  • Microsoft Teams

As organizations grow, storage consumption can increase rapidly due to:

  • Large email attachments
  • File versioning
  • Team collaboration content
  • Long-term data retention
  • Duplicate files

Without proper oversight, businesses may face higher storage expenses and more complex backup requirements. See why every business needs a Microsoft 365 backup strategy

Understand Where Storage Is Being Used

The first step in controlling storage growth is identifying where data is accumulating.

Exchange Online Mailboxes

Email remains one of the largest contributors to storage consumption.

Common causes include:

  • Large attachments
  • Historical emails
  • Shared mailboxes
  • Inactive user accounts

Regular mailbox reviews help identify opportunities to reduce unnecessary storage usage.

OneDrive for Business

OneDrive storage often grows quickly as employees store:

  • Project files
  • Multimedia content
  • Personal work documents
  • Duplicate data

Monitoring user storage trends helps prevent uncontrolled growth.

SharePoint Online

SharePoint can consume significant storage through:

  • Departmental document libraries
  • Team collaboration sites
  • Version history
  • Archived project data

Organizations should regularly review site storage usage and retention policies.

Microsoft Teams

Teams conversations, recordings, and shared files contribute to overall storage growth because much of this data is stored within SharePoint and OneDrive.

As collaboration increases, storage demands often rise accordingly.

Implement Data Retention Policies

One of the most effective ways to manage Microsoft 365 storage is through well-defined retention policies. Learn about common gaps in Microsoft 365 retention policies

Retention policies help organizations:

  • Remove outdated content
  • Archive inactive data
  • Meet compliance requirements
  • Reduce unnecessary storage growth

Policies should align with business and regulatory requirements while avoiding excessive data accumulation.

Manage File Versions Carefully

Version history provides valuable protection against accidental changes but can significantly increase storage usage.

Organizations should:

  • Review version retention settings
  • Limit excessive version counts
  • Archive older documents when appropriate

Balancing collaboration needs with storage efficiency is essential.

Identify and Remove Redundant Data

Duplicate files are a common source of wasted storage.

Best practices include:

  • Reviewing shared folders regularly
  • Eliminating outdated copies
  • Consolidating duplicate content
  • Encouraging standardized file management practices

Reducing redundancy improves both storage efficiency and data organization.

Archive Inactive Data

Not all business data needs to remain in active Microsoft 365 storage.

Older information can be archived to:

  • Synology NAS systems
  • Long-term storage repositories
  • Backup archives

This approach reduces cloud storage consumption while maintaining access to important historical data.

Integrate Microsoft 365 Backups

Many organizations assume Microsoft 365 alone provides sufficient long-term data protection. However, dedicated backups remain essential. Explore Microsoft 365 backup best practices for modern IT teams

Backup solutions offer:

  • Additional recovery options
  • Protection against accidental deletion
  • Long-term retention flexibility
  • Improved business continuity

Businesses can move older data to backup repositories while maintaining active cloud storage efficiency.

Use Synology for Long-Term Data Management

Organizations looking to control Microsoft 365 storage growth can benefit from integrating Synology NAS systems into their data management strategy.

Benefits include:

Centralized Backup Storage

Synology can serve as a secure repository for Microsoft 365 backups, helping organizations reduce reliance on expanding cloud storage allocations.

Long-Term Retention

Archived emails, files, and documents can be stored on scalable NAS infrastructure while remaining accessible when needed.

Cost Optimization

Using local or hybrid storage can help reduce long-term cloud storage expenses, particularly for organizations managing large volumes of historical data.

Monitor Storage Usage Regularly

Storage management should be an ongoing process.

Organizations should regularly review:

  • Mailbox growth trends
  • OneDrive consumption
  • SharePoint storage utilization
  • Backup storage requirements

Continuous monitoring helps identify issues before they result in unexpected costs.

Educate Users on Storage Best Practices

User behaviour significantly affects storage growth.

Organizations should encourage employees to:

  • Avoid storing unnecessary duplicate files
  • Remove outdated content
  • Use approved collaboration platforms
  • Follow document retention guidelines

A well-informed workforce helps support efficient storage management.

How Epis Technology Helps Optimize Microsoft 365 Storage

Managing Microsoft 365 storage effectively requires a combination of technology, governance, and backup strategy.

Microsoft 365 Backup Solutions

Epis Technology helps businesses implement secure backup solutions that protect cloud data while supporting long-term retention requirements.

Synology Integration

The company designs Synology-based storage environments that complement Microsoft 365 deployments and improve storage efficiency. 

Data Protection and Compliance

Epis Technology assists organizations in developing retention strategies that balance regulatory requirements, storage optimization, and business continuity. Learn how Microsoft 365 protection supports business continuity

Scalable Infrastructure Planning

As data volumes grow, Epis Technology helps businesses build scalable storage architectures that support future expansion without unnecessary costs.

Effective Microsoft 365 storage management requires more than simply increasing storage quotas. By understanding storage consumption patterns, implementing retention policies, archiving inactive data, and integrating reliable backup solutions, organizations can control costs while maintaining accessibility and compliance.

When combined with scalable Synology storage and expert planning, businesses can build a sustainable strategy that supports long-term growth and data protection. Understand Microsoft 365 backup solutions for business data protection

About Epis Technology

Epis Technology specializes in enterprise IT infrastructure, cloud backup solutions, and scalable storage systems. The company helps organizations optimize Microsoft 365 environments through secure backup strategies, Synology consulting, and long-term data management solutions. With expertise in Microsoft 365 backups, Google Workspace backups, fully managed PC backups, and large-scale storage architectures, Epis Technology delivers reliable, secure, and future-ready data protection services.

Deployment Best Practices for Large Microsoft 365 Tenants

Deployment Best Practices for Large Microsoft 365 Tenants

Protecting a Microsoft 365 tenant with more than 1,000 users requires a different approach from backing up a small business environment. Large tenants contain thousands of Exchange mailboxes, OneDrive accounts, SharePoint sites, Teams channels, shared mailboxes, and Microsoft 365 Groups. Without careful planning, initial backups can take longer than expected, Microsoft throttling can interrupt progress, and storage requirements can grow rapidly.

Enterprise deployments demonstrate that Synology can support large environments successfully. Idea Bank used Synology Active Backup for Microsoft 365 to protect more than 1,250 accounts and hundreds of SharePoint sites on each of two RackStation systems. Corin protected 2,463 Microsoft 365 accounts, while King’s Baptist Grammar School reported using the platform for more than 1,000 cloud users.

The following practices help organisations deploy Synology Microsoft 365 backup efficiently at enterprise scale.

Assess the Tenant Before Choosing Hardware

Hardware selection should begin with a detailed tenant assessment rather than user count alone.

Administrators should review:

  • Total Microsoft 365 data volume

  • Average mailbox size

  • OneDrive and SharePoint consumption

  • Number of Teams and Microsoft 365 Groups

  • Daily data-change rate

  • Required retention period

  • Expected user growth

Two organisations with 1,000 users may have very different requirements. A school with small student mailboxes may consume less storage than a design company with large OneDrive and SharePoint repositories.

Choose Hardware with Sufficient Resources

Large tenants require adequate processing power, memory, storage throughput, and network bandwidth.

For enterprise deployments, organisations should prioritise:

  • A supported x86-64 Synology NAS

  • Btrfs storage volumes

  • At least 16 GB of memory

  • Enterprise or datacentre-grade drives

  • 10GbE connectivity

  • Sufficient free capacity for growth

  • Expansion support where required

Synology’s technical specifications indicate that systems with at least 16 GB of memory can support higher backup concurrency. Active Backup for Microsoft 365 also uses single instancing and block-level deduplication where supported to improve storage efficiency.

Separate Workloads into Manageable Tasks

Backing up every service and account through one large task may make troubleshooting and performance monitoring more difficult.

Large organisations should consider separating tasks by:

  • Exchange Online

  • OneDrive

  • SharePoint Online

  • Microsoft Teams

  • Departments

  • User groups

  • Geographic locations

For example, Exchange mailboxes may run in one task while OneDrive and SharePoint data are assigned to separate schedules. This makes it easier to identify which workload is experiencing errors or throttling.

Task segmentation also allows administrators to prioritise executives, finance teams, critical departments, or compliance-sensitive SharePoint sites.

Plan for Microsoft 365 Throttling

Backup speed is not controlled entirely by the Synology NAS. Microsoft applies global and service-specific throttling limits to protect Microsoft 365 availability. These limits may apply per application, tenant, service, or request type.

Throttling may appear as:

  • Slower transfer speeds

  • Temporary pauses

  • Failed requests

  • Longer initial backup windows

  • HTTP 429 or 503 responses

Synology recommends using a custom Azure application to reduce API throttling in Active Backup for Microsoft 365. Microsoft also advises applications to respect retry instructions and pause additional requests when throttling responses occur. Continuing to send requests can extend the throttling period.

Schedule Initial Backups Strategically

The first backup transfers the entire protected dataset and will usually take much longer than later incremental backups.

Initial tasks should be scheduled during:

  • Evenings

  • Weekends

  • School holidays

  • Maintenance windows

  • Other low-activity periods

Rather than starting all workloads simultaneously, administrators can introduce Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams tasks in phases. Microsoft notes that processing all content in a single task or operating during peak usage can increase the likelihood of SharePoint and OneDrive throttling.

Monitor Storage and Performance

During deployment, administrators should monitor:

  • CPU and memory utilisation

  • Disk latency and throughput

  • Network bandwidth

  • Backup task progress

  • Microsoft throttling messages

  • Storage consumption

  • Failed or skipped objects

If disk utilisation remains consistently high, the system may require faster drives, additional memory, improved RAID design, or a more capable Synology platform.

Storage forecasts should also include retention growth and temporary space for package operations, indexing, and future account expansion.

Use Deduplication to Improve Efficiency

Large Microsoft 365 environments often contain repeated files and attachments.

Synology reduces duplication through single instancing and block-level deduplication on supported Btrfs volumes. In one education deployment, Tampere Vocational College reported that deduplication reduced its first backup by approximately 7 TB, delivering a 46% storage saving.

Actual savings depend on file similarity, retention settings, and workload composition.

Validate Recovery Before Production Sign-Off

A successful backup does not guarantee a successful recovery.

Before completing the deployment, organisations should test:

  • Individual email restoration

  • OneDrive file recovery

  • SharePoint restoration

  • Microsoft Teams recovery

  • User permissions

  • Self-service portal access

  • Recovery time objectives

Synology’s recovery portal can allow authorised users to restore their own data, reducing routine IT support requests. Deploy large M365 backups with Synology best practices.

About Epis Technology

Epis Technology helps organisations design, deploy, and optimise large Synology Microsoft 365 backup environments through tenant assessments, hardware selection, storage architecture, task segmentation, throttling management, capacity planning, recovery testing, and ongoing managed support. With deep Synology expertise, Epis Technology helps businesses protect tenants with thousands of users while maintaining reliable performance, scalable storage, and efficient recovery operations.

Load More