Overview
When using Druva to back up Microsoft 365 environments, you may encounter delays or incomplete backups due to Exchange Web Services (EWS) throttling policies enforced by Microsoft. Disabling or increasing EWS throttling helps improve the performance and reliability of Druva backups.
Why Disable EWS Throttling?
Druva leverages Microsoft Exchange Web Services (EWS) to back up data such as emails, calendars, and contacts from Microsoft 365 mailboxes. By default, Microsoft imposes throttling policies to ensure fair usage of resources across all tenants. These policies can:
Limit the number of concurrent requests.
Reduce throughput for EWS operations.
Causes backup delays or incomplete backups due to request limits.
Disabling or relaxing EWS throttling ensures consistent backup performance by allowing Druva to make uninterrupted API calls to your Exchange Online environment.
Cause of Throttling
EWS throttling is imposed by Microsoft to prevent a single tenant from over-consuming Exchange Online resources. It affects:
The concurrent connections are allowed.
The amount of data transferred.
The number of requests per minute.
This throttling mechanism is beneficial for resource balancing but counterproductive during high-performance backup operations.
Steps to Disable EWS Throttling
🔔 Important: Only a Global Administrator can perform the following actions.
Step 1: Sign In to Microsoft 365 Admin Center
Log in using your Global Administrator credentials.
In the Admin center, navigate to the bottom-right corner of the page.
Click on Help & support.
Step 2: Search for EWS Throttling
In the Help pane, type EWS Throttling in the search field.
From the suggestions, select "Increase EWS Throttling Policy" and hit Enter.
Step 3: Run Diagnostics
Click on Run Tests.
Allow the diagnostic tests to complete.
Step 4: Select Throttling Duration
Once the diagnostic completes, you'll be prompted to choose the duration for disabling throttling:
30 days
60 days
90 days
Check the acknowledgment box.
Click Update.
Step 5: Confirm Throttling Update
You will receive a confirmation that the EWS throttling policy update has been initiated.
The changes will take up to 15 minutes to apply.
Step 6: Verify Throttling is Disabled
After 15 minutes, return to Help & support.
Repeat Step 3 and Step 4 to rerun the diagnostic.
Ensure the tool confirms that EWS throttling has been disabled.
Final Notes
You must repeat this process after the selected duration (30/60/90 days) if you wish to keep throttling disabled.
Disabling throttling does not impact other services and is a Microsoft-supported configuration for third-party backup tools like Druva.