Spanning Backup Blog

Check Out Charlie’s Guest Post on Mashable

Today, Mashable published a guest post written by our CEO, Charlie Wood: GDrive: 5 Ways Google Could Dominate the Cloud Storage Market in 2012.

He writes about the highly-anticipated (and often-rumored) Google cloud storage product nicknamed GDrive, and what Google will need to do to make it successful. There’s all kinds of potential for a really awesome product here, and we’re crossing our fingers they get it right.

Click here to read the full article at Mashable.

Reports of Missing Folders in Google Docs

Just yesterday I wrote about why it’s important to back up not only docs but also folders in Google Docs. Today Bas Braams, a Level 13 Google Help Forum user, posted a list of recent reports of Google Docs users losing their folders:

1. Collections missing from “My collections”
2. Collection suddenly missing
3. Most of my collections are gone. Not all, just most. They were shared with others and they cannot see them either.
4. My collections disappeared
5. All of my collections are suddenly missing!
6. Collections have disappeared or become un-nested, docs disappeared from collections
7. My Collections are missing
8. Where have my collections gone?
9. I just looked through all the posts and see that it is not an isolated problem. I have LOST ALL MY FOLDERS.
10. I have clicked on my collections or spreadsheets, and I have lost them. They were erased. How can I recover them?

Bas points out that this “will not help the [original poster], but it may be helpful if someone at GDocs should look into the matter again.”

In the mean time, we strongly suggest backing up Google Docs with a system like Spanning Backup that backs up not only docs but also folders.

Why It’s Important to Back Up Not Only Docs But Also Folders

Imagine buying a backup program for your PC and using it diligently every day. Now imagine that one day your hard drive crashes. “Good thing I’ve been making backups every day,” you say to yourself as you restore your files from your backup. But your horror, instead of being restored along with their the original folder structure, all of your files are restored directly onto your Desktop in a disorganized mess. You spend the next few days—or weeks—recreating your folders by hand and figuring out which file goes where.

Folders in Google Docs

The moral of this story is that your backup system needs to back up not only your data (documents, spreadsheets, email, etc.) but also your metadata, which is data about your data, like the folders into which you’ve organized your documents.

Unlike our competition, Spanning Backup retains not only each of your Google Apps documents, but also information about the folders (collections) to which each document belongs and the hierarchical structure of those folders. And while this may sound esoteric, it turns out to be critically important.

Our company uses Google Docs for just about everything, including HR information. Documents are organized into folders for each employee, and further into folders for each department. Each employee folder contains some standard documents: Resume.pdf, Signed Offer Letter.pdf, etc.

Folders in Spanning Backup

If our backup system didn’t retain the folder structure of our documents, it would be losing important data every day. We’d be left with a jumble of documents all with the same title, and if we ever needed to restore all of them at once, we’d be left to sort them out manually.

With any nontrivial number of documents, this could be a nightmare. But Spanning Backup retains metadata and understands how to use it during the restore process, so documents are backed up and restored¹ with their folder structure intact.

Again, this may sound like an obvious approach but it turns out to be a competitive differentiator for us.

¹ As always, all Spanning Backup restores are non-destructive.

Support Matters – Why AnnounceMedia Chose Spanning Backup

[Editor’s Note: This is the fourth post in a new Q&A series with Spanning customers. Keep an eye out for new posts to learn more about how our customers are using Google Apps, how they’re using Spanning for backup, and tips they have for other businesses looking to “Go Google”.]

Adam Barciszewski,
AnnounceMedia

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that while we rely our IT departments for great support when we’re having a problem with a device or system, the IT department also needs high-quality support from the vendors they select to help them better manage and serve their end users.

Adam Barciszewski from AnnounceMedia balanced his assessment of backup solutions between not only finding the right technology fit for his business, but finding the right customer support fit.

Here’s Adam’s story about how he chose Spanning for backup.

1. Why did you choose Spanning Backup for Google Apps?

After evaluating several solutions and finding that Spanning Backup met our needs, the clincher was the staff. They were all prompt and personable. When I bring up ideas or issues, I honestly feel that Spanning listens and cares.

2. Did you consider any other backup providers, and what do you think about the other options out there?

Yes we did. Without mentioning names, we found their UI’s cumbersome and their feature set incomplete.

3. What prompted you to back up your business’s Google Apps data initially?

We were looking to be as redundant as possible. While the chance of data loss with Google Apps is small, it does happen. We cannot afford data loss.

Who can, really?

4. What new features would be most useful to your business?

I would like to see an admin suite with reports I can have generated that give me a high-level view of backup status for each user. I would also like more control of each user without “impersonating them”.

5. What criteria would you recommend someone consider when selecting a backup provider for Google Apps?

The most important detail to consider in my mind is: will the company you pick be reliable enough to help you when you need to be pulled out of the fire?

I feel that Spanning Backup’s staff will be there when I need them.

Google Chooses Spanning Backup as Staff Pick

Last week, Spanning Backup was selected as a Google Apps Marketplace Staff Pick, a program designed to help businesses find awesome applications offered in the Apps Marketplace. This is the note we received from the guys over at Google:

“Congrats on being chosen as an Apps Marketplace Staff Pick! This designation is awarded to apps which have a combination of great functionality and ease of use due to their deep integrations with Google Apps.”

Needless to say, we’re pretty stoked to be recognized by the Google staff. We’ve been listed in the “try popular & notable apps” section in a rotation for quite some time now, but it means a great deal to us to not only be popular but to be endorsed by the very people that make Google Apps.

On top of that, we’re excited to be in the company of other great, top-notch apps like SmartSheet, Mavenlink, Nimble, and Solve 360 to mention a few of the other apps on the Google Staff Picks list.

In case you missed it, we were also chosen as a founding member of the Cloud Alliance for Google Apps last month along with SherpaTools, Okta, Expensify, Insightly, RunMyProcess, and SmartSheet. As a company that prides itself as being business-class, we are thrilled that the Google Apps community is recognizing us one of the top-tier products in the marketplace.

Thanks Google Apps Team!