Archive for the ‘Customer Interviews’ Category

Bay Cove Human Services Frees Up Help Desk with Spanning Backup

[Editor’s Note: This is the sixth 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”.]

Hilary Croach, CIO
Bay Cove Human Services

Why did you choose Spanning Backup for Google Apps?

Spanning Backup gave us the ability to protect against our most frequent restore issue: user mistakes. We now have individual user access to the restore process as well as administrators, freeing up our Help Desk for more complex issues.

Tell us a bit about your setup process with Spanning Backup? What is the good, bad and ugly of the setup?

Setup is as easy as turning it on. The bigger challenge is educating our users about how to setup their own backup.

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

When we were looking a number of months ago – Spanning stood out particularly in their accessibility and willingness to talk about the specific needs of our agency.

What prompted you to back up your businesses Google Apps data initially?

As we move more of our unstructured, mission critical data to from a network-based Microsoft paradigm (Word, Excel & PowerPoint) to Google Apps, we have an obligation to protect user data at least as well as we did on our network.

What new features would be most useful to your business?

Granular Calendar and Contacts restore – point in time restore of the whole Calendar or Contacts databases is useful for disaster recovery, but not for the majority of our problems, which are accidentally deleting individual events or contacts.

Venture Technology Groups Mitigates Risk With Spanning

[Editor’s Note: This is the fifth 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”.]

Tom Pace,
Venture Technology Groups

Why did you choose Spanning Backup for Google Apps?

Even though Google’s servers should not lose information, it’s always possible. To easily backup our data on Amazon’s servers as well as Google’s is a great solution to achieve backup redundancy.

Spanning provides the ability to access data without using the Google interface. When I was told this, that was a huge selling point because when servers are down, and if everything is stored online, the ability to access our information is critical.

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

Yes. We considered about 3 other providers. No other option seemed to be as ‘hands-off’ as Spanning. Spanning is a great deal for what you get, and the customer service is fantastic as well.

Tell us a bit about your setup process with Spanning Backup? What is the good, bad and ugly of the setup?

It was pretty much as simple as informing the team at Spanning which users to backup.

That’s it. Done.

What prompted you to back up your businesses Google Apps data initially?

More than any other reason, it was risk mitigation. Pure and simple.

Have you ever restored data using Spanning Backup? How would you describe the process?

Fortunately, I have not only had to restore any data for testing purposes. It is not a complicated process, and this feature is paramount in selling the cloud strategy to old-school colleagues.

What new features would be most useful to your business?

I would like to be able to access backed up files without going through Google Apps – in case there is an outage and I cannot access Google. If there were a way to search for a file that was needed and then download it directly through Spanning, it could be very beneficial. It would also be helpful to be able to search for files to backup.

How does Google Apps fit within your organization IT/cloud strategy?

The less I have to manage in house, the better. That said, I need to ensure that data being stored off-site is available after a disaster strikes.

How much of your business’s content/data is in Google Apps?

Currently, it’s mostly email, calendars, contacts and some product spec sheets. It’s a big shift for users to get them using the spreadsheet, presentation and word processing apps. I think that once there is better email/docs integration, more users will use it. The docs need to resemble local drives that users are familiar with in order to appeal to many populations.

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.

Decision Time – How HHS Selected a Backup Solution

[Editor’s Note: This is the third 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”.]

As businesses move to the cloud, evaluating and assessing third party vendors to help with business-critical issues like backup becomes incredibly important. David Blazek at Hospital Housekeeping Systems conducted a thorough assessment of the market for backup solutions for Google Apps, and has tremendous insights on how to approach the big decision. Here are David’s recommendations for businesses looking to implement a backup product for their Google Apps users:

Why did you choose Spanning Backup for Google Apps?

We chose Spanning Backup for Google Apps because it was simply the best choice for us on the market. After weeks of research, trial and discussion with similar backup solutions, we found that Spanning provided the best backup at the lowest cost.

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

Yes, we considered other backup providers before choosing Spanning. We found that although they were very similar, Spanning provided a more cost effective solution while also providing backup for everything we needed.

Tell us a bit about your setup process with Spanning Backup? What is the good, bad and ugly of the setup?

The set up process with Spanning Backup was smooth, easy and faster than we originally expected. We sent Spanning a list of users that needed access with their respective email addresses. That night, all of our users were enabled and the first entire backup took place without any hiccups.

When we arrived at the office the following day, we were able to see all of our data completely backed up for all of our users. It was very impressive, to say the least.

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

Our initial reasons for backup were peace of mind, data management and security. We have many users who have documents in the cloud that need to have a secure backup location that is easily accessible. If anything were to happen to these important documents, it is vital to our business to recover them without losing large amounts of information.

What new features would be most useful to your business?

New features that would benefit our company would be the ability to administer all of our Google document permissions in one central location. Currently, we are unable to search for or share documents that are shared privately between users. If we were able to change sharing permissions for an entire users documents or manage documents that we did not personally create, that would diminish many of our Google Docs related troubles.

Another feature that would be nice would be to increase the search feature functionality to find documents that were backed up.

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

When selecting a backup service provider for Google Apps, the key features you need to look for are time/date stamped archives; automatic scheduled backups and full administrative control on users who have the backup service enabled.

These features are essential for any organization big or small because they allow you to have full control over the user’s stored data. It removes a step from your daily workload and allows you to efficiently handle any recovery requests with little to no stress.

Going Google at Clear Lake Schools

[Editor’s Note: This is the second 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”.]

We recently interviewed Jason Christenson, technology director at Clear Lake Schools, about how his organization switched over to Google Apps. They’ve been on Google Apps for three years and have seen incredible adoption of the platform with their end users. As adoption grew, Jason saw the need for a backup solution to protect his company’s data. Here’s how Jason made his backup decision.

Why did you choose Spanning Backup for Google Apps?

I chose Spanning Backup to fill a void in the Google Apps system: backup. Sure, you can get a form of back up using the Outlook sync feature but that requires setup for each user and the user to perform the sync. Plus, in an organization like ours where users roam between computers as the norm, this really wasn’t practical.

Having the backup done automatically with no intervention or training of the end users is ideal for us. In addition to what the Outlook sync could grab (email, calendar and contacts), Spanning Backup captures Docs, which is nearly as critical to have backed up as email for us.

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

Yes, as with any purchase I considered alternatives. The other options available, while somewhat comparable to Spanning Backup, do not match what Spanning Backup offers. The cost, unlimited storage and the SLA offered, in addition to the entire feature set of the service, made Spanning Backup a no-brainer.

Tell us a bit about your setup process with Spanning Backup? What is the good, bad and ugly of the setup?

There was a setup process? I must have missed it. All I had to do was email a list of users in, which took me about 1 minute to export from Active Directory, drop that list into a spreadsheet and attach it to an email.

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

Not having a backup of my users Google Apps data has been hanging over my head since we moved to Google Apps 3 years ago. The ability to perform backup with Spanning Backup has eliminated the last “yeah but” that my Exchange administrator friends have when trying to point out what Google Apps cannot do.

Have you ever restored data using Spanning Backup? How would you describe the process?

Yes, I did a restore during testing of Spanning Backup to see how it worked. It took 5 mouse clicks to restore a document. The interface is extremely intuitive and quick, and the restore process only took a couple seconds. As a systems administrator I’ve restored lots of files over the last 12 years for users who accidentally delete something using lots of different backup solutions.

This one by far was easiest.

What new features would be most useful to your business?

I would like to see an interface where I can see all accounts at once – their back up status, and have the ability to do a backup for one or more accounts from one screen. Right now I have to impersonate each user which is really time consuming.

I would also like to have the ability to get email notifications of backups and restores, for peace of mind and to know when users are accessing the service.

What are some tips you would give to a peer about backup for Google Apps?

Simple: use Spanning Backup. There’s not much more to it.

How does Google Apps fit within your organization IT/cloud strategy?

Perfectly. And Spanning provides the final piece of the Google Apps system with backup.

How much of your business’s content/data is in Google Apps?

100% of our email, contacts and calendars are in the cloud. As of this morning, we have about 12,000 Docs in the cloud compared to about 450GB on local file servers.

Since we’ve “gone Google” the use of Docs has slowly but surely increased. At the start, I was probably the only user. Now, I’d say, easily, 60% of our users utilize Google Docs as their primary document creation and storage facility.

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

I’d recommend they closely consider security, reliability, cost, ease of use and storage limits.

Or just go with Spanning Backup.