Microsoft Backup and Retention Policies for Dynamics 365 Business Central

This document is a technical report detailing Microsoft's backup and retention policies for Dynamics 365 Business Central SaaS. It outlines the platform's resiliency and redundancy measures, emphasizing the use of Microsoft Azure infrastructure and Azure SQL Database for data storage. The report explains that Microsoft implements local, zonal, and regional redundancy to ensure fault detection and recovery. It describes the automated backup processes for both Production and Sandbox environments, allowing administrators to initiate self-service restores from selected backups within a 28-day retention window. The document also highlights limitations regarding restore capabilities, including region restrictions and monthly restore limits. Additionally, it covers disaster recovery and business continuity strategies, noting that Microsoft employs Availability Zones to ensure high availability and low recovery time objectives for critical environments. The report concludes with recommendations for organizations regarding data retention and compliance needs beyond the built-in retention window.