Item: afi.ai
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use afi.ai to back up Microsoft 365 ExchangeOnline, SharePoint Online, and Teams for the whole organization. With COVID-19 and working from home, it became absolutely critical for us to have a secure copy of all data and all communications, as user errors increase tenfold and the number of requests to recover/move data overwhelmed our helpdesk team.

Pros and Cons

Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and MS teams data backup and recovery
Granular ACL
Self-service recovery for end users

Reporting API could be improved
Data center in the UK to be post-Brexit proof would be good (which, as I understand, is planned)

Return on Investment

Helpdesk load reduced significantly once we introduced self-service recovery
Significant savings on Microsoft 365 licenses with archiving of departed employees

Alternatives Considered

Spanning Backup for Office 365 and Veeam Backup for Microsoft Office 365

We looked at a few vendors, the two most notable solutions being Spanning and Veeam. Spanning is good a well-recognized vendor; however, we found it not to be that flexible in terms of access control configuration. Teams backup is quite limited--neither private channels nor conversations are supported. Veeam is good and reliable, but the cost of hosting and managing it was simply too high for us.

Usability

The UI is very intuitive and requires almost zero training to use. Our end users were able to use it with after just reading a simple one-pager.

Support Rating

We needed to contact them three times over the course of two years, and it was very good. Very fast response, and the people are super technical and to the point.

Key Insights

Do you think afi.ai delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with afi.ai's feature set?

Yes

Did afi.ai live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of afi.ai go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy afi.ai again?

Yes

Other Software Used

MySQL, Google Kubernetes Engine, Prometheus

Likelihood to Recommend

The ease of use, and strength of Microsoft 365's workload backup are the strongest sides of the service. We looked at a few vendors providing Microsoft 365 backup and afi.ai was one of the best in terms of deep technological support for SharePoint and Teams.

1. We use it to protect all data in Microsoft 365
2. We enabled self-service for end users to perform data recovery, a huge relief for the helpdesk team
3. It also allows us to archive departed employees mailboxes and files

Self-service data recovery
Data archiving

Innovative Uses

Delegate access to departed employees mailbox and OneDrive data

Likelihood to Renew

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

It's super intuitive and easy to use

Microsoft 365 backup--a lifesaver for the work from home era

Overall Satisfaction with afi.ai