Disaster recovery - built right in to Google Apps

Posted by John Collins, Senior Global Trust PM, Google Apps Editors note: This post is part of a series that explores the top ten reasons why customers trust Google with their business data.

Technology failures and natural disasters can significantly impact your business. Planning for them can be cumbersome and expensive. In a typical on-premise IT environment disaster recovery often means redundant infrastructure, backup tapes or storage area networks and a lot of IT complexity. Some businesses even build and manage duplicate data centers, specifically for disaster recovery, and those data centers sit idle the majority of the time.

Google Apps Adventures: Explorers film climate change in action

Posted by: Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team Editor's note: The Google Apps Adventures series features stories from the people and organizations that use Google Apps to explore, discover and push the boundaries. These businesses truly embody the freedom enabled by the cloud. Back in January we shared the story of Berlin-based multimedia agency Traffic Konzept + Film, and award-winning polar explorer Børge Ousland as they set out to film a record-setting expedition to document global warming in the Arctic. Ousland’s goal was to be the first to sail through both Passages of the North Pole in a single voyage, and the first to circumnavigate the Arctic in a single season – a feat other explorers have tried and failed to do for 500 years. Unfortunately, due to global warming, such a journey is now possible

Google Apps data protections - verified by third parties

Posted by Eran Feigenbaum, Director of Security, Google Enterprise Editors note: This post is part of a series that explores the top ten reasons why customers trust Google with their business data. We believe our customers should have lots of visibility into how we protect the data that is stored in Google Apps. And while it’s one thing for us to tell you how we protect the data, as we do in our blog posts and security white paper, it’s also helpful when independent third parties perform inspections and audits.

Google Apps helps Philz Coffee focus on brewing the perfect cup

Posted by Jacob Jaber, President, Philz Coffee Editor’s Note: To celebrate National Coffee Day, today’s guest blogger is Jacob Jaber, President for Philz Coffee based in California.

In the late 1970s, my father Phil experimented with coffee blending at a grocery store on the corner of Folsom and 24th in San Francisco’s Mission district. He combined beans of multiple origins and brewed them one cup at a time. Since then, “Philz Coffee” has opened up seven more locations, hired 120 employees, and garnered a very loyal following. By this time next year, we expect to have six more locations and twice the number of employees so it’s very important that our operations and systems keep up. We decided to check out Google Apps because our old system tied us to individual computers and wasn’t user friendly. In 20 minutes I set up Google Apps, gave everyone their usernames and passwords, and our 30 managers across all store locations were instantly connected. From day one, we’ve used chat in Gmail to ask quick questions, just like we would if we were all in the same room. I can now go on any computer in the world and it feels like I’m in the office, without actually needing to be in the office.

Strong authentication to protect business user accounts

Posted by Rishi Dhand, Product Manager, Google Apps Editors note: This post is part of a series that explores the top ten reasons why customers trust Google with their business data. We recently announced that more than 4 million businesses run on Google Apps and 5,000 more are signing up every day. Many of these business “go Google” for enhanced security features. One example is 2-step verification, an opt-in security feature that we added to Google Apps last year. 2-step verification adds an additional layer of protection to your account and significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access. With 2-step verification, you sign into your account with both your password and a one time verification code you get on your phone. You can generate the code with a mobile app (on Android, iPhone and Blackberry), or get it in an SMS text message or a voice call.