Support Statement — Impact of SharePoint Service Prioritization on Veeam Backup Performance
Purpose
Overview
SharePoint Service Prioritization is a paid, consumption-based feature billed through your Microsoft Azure Subscription that increases the SharePoint and OneDrive API resources available to a given Entra ID application. When applied to the Entra ID application used by Veeam for backup, it raises the effective API usage limits and increases the amount of data that can be processed per day.
Whether enabling SharePoint Service Prioritization is right for an organization depends on several factors:
- Organization size
- Workload patterns
- Amount and types of SharePoint data to be backed up
- Current ability to complete backups within the required window
Customers who suspect SharePoint Service Prioritization may benefit their environment should consult Microsoft Support to determine current API usage, evaluate expected impact, and obtain a detailed cost estimate.
How SPSP Affects Veeam Backup Jobs
Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 and Veeam Data Cloud for Microsoft 365 rely on Microsoft APIs (CSOM and Microsoft Graph) to read SharePoint and OneDrive data.
- Backup performance is often limited by Microsoft API quotas in the form of Resource Units, not infrastructure.
- When limits are reached, these APIs are throttled (HTTP 429/503 results).
- When throttled, adding proxies or jobs does not increase throughput.
With SharePoint Service Prioritization enabled:
- The associated Entra ID application is allowed to consume more API resources.
- Overall daily throughput may increase (nominally 2x), depending on tenant size and SharePoint service conditions.
SharePoint / OneDrive Data Processing Example
| Organization Size | Without Prioritization | With Prioritization |
| 50,000 Licensed Users | ~1 TiB/Day | ~2+ TiB/day ~3M "Standard" billable requests ~7M "Heavy" billable requests [Current Pricing] |
Note: Actual data processing rates and API quota usage will vary significantly by customer environment.
When SPSP Has the Most Impact
SharePoint Service Prioritization provides the most benefit when:
-
The Latest Version protection setting is enabled, and only the latest versions of files are backed up.
-
Daily incremental backup jobs do not complete within the required window.
-
There is a large backlog to process with a clear understanding of how prioritization will improve outcomes.
It provides limited benefits when:
-
Backup jobs are already completing within the backup window.
-
Backup performance is constrained by CPU, proxies, or storage rather than Microsoft APIs.
-
Performing initial full backups of PiB-scale datasets.
Considerations
-
When onboarding a PiB-scale dataset, it may be more beneficial to leverage Veeam Data Cloud Express for immediate in-place protection.
-
SharePoint Service Prioritization uses Microsoft metered APIs (cost per 1000 requests).
-
Charges vary by request type (Standard vs. Heavy). For a breakdown of how many SharePoint API requests in your environment are Standard vs. Heavy, contact Microsoft Support to obtain telemetry information for your SharePoint and OneDrive tenant.
-
Throughput gains are not guaranteed and depend on Microsoft-side capacity.
-
Exchange Online workloads use a different throttling model and are not affected by SharePoint Service Prioritization.
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