Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery is now in Public Preview

๐Ÿ”’ Secure Bits ๐Ÿ’ก

๐— ๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐˜€๐—ผ๐—ณ๐˜ ๐—˜๐—ป๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ ๐—•๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ธ๐˜‚๐—ฝ ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜† ๐—ถ๐˜€ ๐—ป๐—ผ๐˜„ ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐—ฃ๐˜‚๐—ฏ๐—น๐—ถ๐—ฐ ๐—ฃ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐˜„ โ€” and it fills a major gap in identity resilience.

Someone disables a Conditional Access policy. A bulk import overwrites user attributes. A service principal loses its permissions. Until now, recovery meant digging through audit logs and manually reconstructing the state before.

๐—˜๐—ป๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ ๐—•๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ธ๐˜‚๐—ฝ ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐˜ƒ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜† changes that. It automatically creates ๐—ฑ๐—ฎ๐—ถ๐—น๐˜† ๐—ฏ๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ธ๐˜‚๐—ฝ๐˜€ of critical directory objects โ€” users, groups, apps, service principals, CA policies, auth methods โ€” and retains ๐Ÿฑ ๐—ฑ๐—ฎ๐˜†๐˜€ of history. No global admin can disable or modify them.

๐Ÿ› ๏ธ ๐—ช๐—ต๐—ฎ๐˜ ๐—ถ๐˜ ๐—ฑ๐—ผ๐—ฒ๐˜€

You can browse backups, run ๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ณ๐—ณ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐—ฒ ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฝ๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐˜๐˜€ to see what changed, and recover objects to a previous state โ€” all from the Entra admin center. Recovery can target all objects, specific object types, or individual objects by ID.

The recovery model is straightforward:

– Object added since backup โ†’ soft-deleted

– Object modified โ†’ reverted to backup state

– Object soft-deleted โ†’ restored

๐Ÿ” ๐—”๐—ฐ๐—ฐ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜€ ๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—น

Two new built-in roles โ€” ๐—•๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ธ๐˜‚๐—ฝ ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ and ๐—•๐—ฎ๐—ฐ๐—ธ๐˜‚๐—ฝ ๐—”๐—ฑ๐—บ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ถ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ผ๐—ฟ โ€” support least-privilege access. Your security team can review backup state without triggering recovery.

โš ๏ธ ๐—Ÿ๐—ถ๐—บ๐—ถ๐˜๐—ฎ๐˜๐—ถ๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜€

Hard-deleted objects cannot be recovered. On-prem synced objects are excluded from recovery. Not all properties are covered yet โ€” manager, sponsor, and group ownership changes are out of scope.

For organizations navigating ๐—ก๐—œ๐—ฆ๐Ÿฎ and identity security requirements, a native, tamper-proof backup of the identity control plane is a welcome addition.

Requires at least Entra ID P1. Available now in preview.

๐Ÿ’ฌ How do you handle recoverability of your Entra ID tenant today?

๐˜ˆ๐˜ถ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ฐ๐˜ณ ๐˜ฐ๐˜ง ๐˜ต๐˜ฉ๐˜ฆ ๐˜ฑ๐˜ฐ๐˜ด๐˜ต:

Martin Strnad