IT Admin: How to back up Google Workspace (G Suite)

Overview

Establishing a backup for your Google Workspace is a straightforward and effortless task.

  1. Install, cloudHQ to your Google Workspace (G Suite) domain.
  2. Get your backup storage ready (this can be your Amazon S3, Box account, etc.).
  3. Create backup synchronization pairs to back up Google Shared Drives.
  4. Create backup synchronization pairs to back up Google Drive accounts.
  5. Create backup synchronization pairs to back up Google Mail accounts.

A short movie showing how to backup all Google Drive accounts to Amazon S3 is here:

Why is backing up Google Workspace essential?

Prior to delving into the backup setup procedure, it’s essential to understand the significance of backup systems. So let’s discuss the importance and necessity of backups.

Prominent organizational theorist and sociologist Charles B. Perrow, in his book “Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies”, highlighted that operational errors and mishandling by personnel are responsible for 60-80% of data losses. Consequently, there’s a high risk of accidental data deletion, which can’t always be rectified through ‘trash’ or ‘history’ recovery methods, as end users can inadvertently delete these as well. Therefore, consistent and effective backups are crucial in ensuring data safety and integrity.

Beyond the reasons already outlined, there are several other compelling factors that underscore the importance of reliable data backups:

  1. Data Integrity: Even the most organized systems are susceptible to data corruption. By maintaining backups, you’re able to restore corrupted data to a previous, uncorrupted state, ensuring data integrity.
  2. Disaster Recovery: Natural disasters, fires, or other unpredictable calamities can lead to devastating data loss. Backups can serve as a safety net, allowing a quicker recovery of critical data in such scenarios.
  3. Regulatory Compliance: Certain industries, such as healthcare and finance, are governed by regulations that require data to be backed up regularly and accurately, often with specific retention periods.
  4. Business Continuity: In a world where data drives decisions, any data loss can halt business operations. Regular backups can ensure minimal downtime and uninterrupted business operations.
  5. Cybersecurity: In the event of a cyber-attack like ransomware, where attackers lock you out of your data, having a recent backup allows you to restore your data without succumbing to the attackers’ demands.
  6. Archiving: Backups can serve as an archive, preserving a record of changes over time. This can be particularly useful for tracking progress, identifying trends, or meeting certain legal requirements.
  7. Peace of Mind: Perhaps most importantly, knowing that your data is safely backed up provides peace of mind. You can work with confidence, knowing that in the event of a failure or mistake, your data is safe and recoverable.

cloudHQ real-time backup of Google Workspace

With cloudHQ, you can set up a real-time backup of all your Google Drive, Google Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts accounts to any cloud storage (Amazon S3, Amazon Glacier, Dropbox, etc.).

Real-time data backup is the backup of files by automatically making a backup copy of every change made to your Google Drive files. In other words, backup will creating backup copies for each modification made to your Google Drive files, thereby ensuring their safety and preservation.

cloudHQ backup essentially encapsulates every iteration of your Google Drive files, storing them in a dedicated cloud space. This not only enables the Google Apps administrator to restore data to any historical point, but also to create a snapshot of your system at any given time. Analogous to a robust version of Apple Time Machine, cloudHQ backup provides a comprehensive solution for preserving your digital history.

cloudHQ offers the backup of the following components:

  1. Google Shared Drives, with real-time backup capabilities
  2. Google Drives, backed up in real-time
  3. Google Gmail accounts, benefiting from real-time backup services
  4. Google Contacts, with real-time backup support
  5. Google Calendars, featuring real-time backup

To set up real-time backup of your Google Workspace files and emails, you’ll need to create backup sync pairs that will back up each of your users’ Google Drive account to a dedicated folder. For example, something like this:

Google Drive (bob@acme.com)   -> Amazon S3/Backup_bucket/bob@acme.com/Google Drive (bob@acme.com)
Google Drive (alice@acme.com) -> Amazon S3/Backup_bucket/alice@acme.com/Google Drive (alice@acme.com)
...
Google Gmail (bob@acme.com) -> Amazon S3/Backup_bucket/bob@acme.com/Google Gmail (bob@acme.com)
...

Supported Backup Storage Services

cloudHQ supports backup to the following cloud storage services:

  1. Amazon S3 and Amazon Glacier/Deep Archive
  2. Dropbox
  3. Box
  4. Google Drive (both gmail.com and Workspace)
  5. Microsoft 365 SharePoint
  6. Microsoft 365 OneDrive Business
  7. OneDrive Personal
  8. Egnyte

Setup Procedure

Here are the instructions for how to back up and consolidate all your Google Workspace (G Suite) accounts to your cloud storage (i.e., Amazon S3):

  1. Install cloudHQ to your Google Workspace (G Suite) domain
  2. Prepare your backup storage
  3. Create backup sync pairs that will backup Google Shared Drives (Team Drives)
  4. Create backup sync pairs that will backup Google Drive accounts
  5. Create backup sync pairs that will backup Google Mail accounts
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