Archive for the ‘Customer Interviews’ Category

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.

Rolling Out Google Apps and Spanning – A Chat with AMAG Pharmaceuticals

[Editor’s Note: This is the first 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 leveraging Spanning for backup, and tips they have for other businesses looking to protect their Google Apps data.]

We recently had the chance to interview Steve Simmons, associate director of systems infrastructure at AMAG Pharmaceuticals. Steve has a unique story about his successful rollout of Google Apps to his entire business. As you can imagine, the data that AMAG Pharmaceuticals has in Google Apps is absolutely critical to their business, and Steve moved quickly and decisively to ensure it was 100% protected for every user.

Why did you choose Spanning Backup for Google Apps?

It was never a question when we decided to move our company to a collaborative SaaS based environment and selected Google Apps for Business as our solution. Still, we did uncover a few gaps that we would have to address outside of Google to ensure data safety and compliance.

While Google provides high availability and redundancy of its collaboration services, we were still exposed as to what would happen with accidental or purposeful deletion of Google Apps objects within our environment. As we all know in Google, once data is gone, it is gone for good with no recourse.

Until we found Spanning Backup (which does backups for Gmail, Gdocs, Gcal and contacts), that was a significant gap to close with no easy means to execute. Other offerings were far and few between, not to mention incomplete. Migrating to the cloud is tough enough without the tried and true brick and mortar backup solutions that have traditionally protected our data. Spanning’s cloud backup solution for Google Apps addresses just this problem.

An added bonus is that Spanning safely and securely puts the restore function back into the hands of the users, hence reducing support tickets and mitigates those midnight and weekend phone calls. The sales team was extremely attentive to our questions and concerns. The development team demonstrated a willingness to listen and act on feature requests and provide direct feedback on their product road map. Most importantly, the support team has been responsive and timely in helping my team from the evaluation stage all the way through to post-production support.

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

It was extremely simple to setup. There was no hardware to deploy, no software to configure. Furthermore – it was very easy to provide documentation for our users to begin leveraging the service on their own to restore their Google Docs, Gmail contacts and calendars without having to call support.

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

The process is extremely intuitive and simple to use. There are just 5 clicks:

1. Launch Spanning from Gmail
2. Select restore,
3. Select what you want to restore, (docs, gmail, etc),
4. Select the date,
5. Select your data set.

Because Spanning keeps everything, it is a breeze.

What’s your favorite story (crazy, funny, surprising, etc.) about backup with Spanning Backup?

Every user is like “WOW, we can do that now?!?”

What new features would be most useful to your business?

My only gripe is with user administration and the ability to search specifically on a document or email to restore it.

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

While Google provides HA, once an object is deleted (accidentally or maliciously) and purged, that’s it. You will not get it back without a secondary mechanism like Spanning to protect your data. I also recommend that businesses make sure to find a service that encompasses the entire Google Apps suite.

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

Google Apps is the centerpiece of creating a very simple to use collaborative workplace that’s accessible anytime, anywhere, from any device, strategically positioning us much closer to a ubiquitous computing environment for our user base.

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

These are in order of importance for us:

• I would recommend a company whose security and privacy policies and procedures are paramount and only partner with a firm that is SSAE 16 or SAS70 certified to address compliance risk. Make sure you get get all the necessary documentation and SLA’s addressed via the contracts you sign.
• No quota on data or hold time for backed up data. Pay for what you use.
• Make sure you can actually call someone in support and that they are responsive.
• Ease of use for administrators and ease of use for users to be able to self-serve.

Steve Simmons, Associate Director of Systems Infrastructure