The enterprise has followed a similar trajectory. According to Gartner, global spending for the Software as a Service (SaaS) market is forecast to grow to $32.8B in 2016 (up from $13.5B in 2011) and global spending for public cloud services is expected to grow from $76.9B in 2010 to $210B in 2016. Our early success in the consumer market led to inquiries from businesses, which led to the launch of our Google Apps backup business product in early 2010.

As cloud adoption across enterprises increases, so does the demand for a secure, reliable cloud backup solution.  That is why our business products have gone from a small percentage of our revenue 3 years ago to over 90% of our revenue today.  For that reason, we recently decided to begin phasing out our consumer backup solutions in order to focus 100 percent on serving the B2B market for cloud-to-cloud backup.

We’ve experienced significant growth in the B2B space and want to remain focused on providing the type of continuous innovation and proactive support that our customers have come to expect from us. Below are more details on how this will impact customers.

• There is no immediate impact to our current customers – we will continue to service and support all of our personal backup products for the foreseeable future;

• As we begin phasing out our consumer services over the next few months, we will provide a clear and easy path for customers to export their existing data and move their backup service to a comparable offering;

• We have no plans to discontinue our backup service for Facebook Fan Pages, Twitter or personal Gmail accounts;

• We will begin limiting new sign ups for the following personal services right away and will look to discontinue these products by the end of this year: Facebook personal profiles, Blogger, Picassa, Flickr.

Over the next several months, Backupify will provide customers with detailed information on how they can retrieve their data. Additionally, we will suggest alternative solution providers where customers can go to continue to backup their personal data, including SocialSafe, a product that pulls your data down to a local device. (Note they are giving Backupify customers 6 free months) Now that there are many other options to protect personal cloud data and our customers will be in good hands, we feel like the time is right for us to focus on what we do best.

Startups are filled with many difficult decisions. This particular decision was debated for close to two years and in the end we feel strongly that we’re taking the business in the right direction and will be better positioned to serve and support our B2B customers.

If you have questions or comments, please reach out by emailing support@backupify.com

More common than you may think

Symantec’s survey of 3,236 companies in 29 countries late last year showed that 83% of enterprises and 70% of SMB’s encountered rogue cloud deployments.  In India, the numbers were even higher where 89% of enterprises and 92% of SMB’s found rogue clouds.  

Why It’s a Problem

When employees circumvent IT and deploy their own cloud solutions, the chance they take proper IT precautions are low.  Often they incorrectly configure the cloud and can easily make data available to the public as a result.  Symantec found that 40% of companies had confidential information exposed because of rogue clouds.

What You Can Do About It

The trend of BYOA seems to be similar to BYOD in that companies are no longer trying to resist or avoid it, but rather they are (perhaps forced into) embracing it.

To secure rogue clouds at your company, consider the following options:

1. Security & Privacy Audits:  Eric Friedberg compared the rogue cloud phenomenon to the early days of corporate Wi-Fi when employees similarly set up unauthorized and unencrypted hotspots that exposed internal information to people on the street.  He credited security and privacy audits to solve those problems and thinks they can solve these problems as well.  Understanding what data on your servers is available to the public is important and such audits can help you keep a pulse on this.

2. IT Policies:  Maintaining best IT practices when it comes to the cloud is important.  That might mean educating employees on the risks of deploying their own cloud solutions, or training them on the proper way to do so.  That may mean setting rules such as requiring the internal control of encryption keys.  Just remember that the reason employees engage in rogue clouds in the first place is to save time and avoid cumbersome processes, so figure out how to balance your employees time with the security needs of your company.

3. Cyber Liability Insurance: To protect against lawsuits that may arise from a security breach, some companies purchase cyber liability insurance.  While this is not a solution per say, it might be worth considering to prevent potential losses if something does happen.

4. Backup:  Aside from the other ways to mitigate risks, having a second copy of your information is certainly a great idea, so that if hackers to get in and your data is deleted or corrupted, you still have it when you need it.

We suggest a balanced approach including education, training, putting into practice the right policies and procedures, and a proper backup solution.  Have any more ideas to add?  Let us know below!

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Malaysia is part of a remarkable trend among today’s schools – the adoption of Google Apps technology. The lyrics “no more pencils, no more books” seem increasingly outdated. Kindergartners now use their chrome laptops alongside coloring books. This is the new normal.

Google Apps for Education is quickly gaining traction because connectivity is now an essential part of everyday learning. Students and teachers can easily collaborate in real time through a web application and the vast majority are already familiar with Google and gmail. This means adoption to these tools is fairly seamless. Google Apps for Education is also compelling for IT departments working on tight budgets with limited infrastructure resources.

At Backupify we have thousands of users representing the education sector. From large universities such as Berklee College of Music to smaller private schools like The Meadowbrook School. Due to this technology adoption, these schools are years ahead of businesses in other industries. This got us thinking about the Google Apps landscape within the education sector. Kids are literally growing up on Google and we were interested to find out how widespread Google Apps for Education really is. Below is a visual interpretation showing how schools are adopting Google. (Click on image to enlarge.)

 With more college students using Google Apps, will they bring this experience to the working world? Will we now see more businesses adopting Google Apps because these new workers have literally been raised by Google?

On Friday, the city of Boston announced it would ditch Microsoft and move its government employees to Google Apps. The transition will cost $800,000 but save the city $280,000 a year going forward.

Boston is not the first city to adopt Google Apps to save money.  In fact, governments in 45 states across the US have gone Google, including the states of Wyoming and Colorado, the US Department of the Interior, the US Naval & Coast Guard Academies, the cities of Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Orlando, St. Louis, and many more.  In the transition for Colorado, the state forecasted it would save $2 million annually.

The benefits of using Google Apps for government employees are obvious.  Given governments’ constant need to cut costs, it makes sense to implement Google Apps which can save thousands of dollars a year in IT infrastructure costs. For example, with Google, IT teams don’t need to purchase and then maintain servers. Microsoft has condemned such transitions criticizing Google for being insecure.  Microsoft claims Boston citizens deserve better security than they would get through Google Apps.

What Microsoft failed to recognize in its criticisms are that while Google Apps does have world class security, there are additional solutions customers can implement to feel more secure.  For instance, adding a cloud-to-cloud backup solution can combat security fears and ensure a reliable, secure second copy of its data.  We look forward to learning whether Boston will backup its Google Apps and become cloud confident.  Are you concerned with government data in the cloud?

1. 62% of organizations will allow BYOD by the end of 2013.

According to Symantec’s survey of 236 businesses:

2. 59% of employers encourage BYOD, but they don’t allow the same productivity apps used on corporate-owned devices.

3. 42% of employees use a personally owned mobile device for business, regardless of company policy.

4. 83% of organizations allow personally owned devices (such as mobile phones) for business use.

5. While 80% of organizations enforce their policies, only 68% use technology to do so and 11% rely on HR, the honor system, or information supplied by other employees.

It’s clear from the numbers that BYOD is on the rise.  But these statistics make me wonder – what does this mean for all the data we store in the cloud?  The short answer: it stresses the importance of securing data and understanding security and compliance changes that take place.

The Guardian noted that personal devices used in business are more shared and therefore more prone to data loss, theft, or damage.  The cloud data we access through such devices may be increasingly susceptible to the risks we normally worry about: third party access, corruption, accidental deletion, etc.  Symantec found that 60% of organizations had incidents of lost or stolen devices, so the impact on security is evident.  As Rip Gerber asked, how do you keep your in-the-cloud data secure in a BYOD world?

Many companies are creating policies around BYOD that outline what employees can and cannot use and how to securely sync business data and access internal servers on personal devices.  Other companies don’t agree with BYOD policies, but they mitigate the risk of data loss with a comprehensive backup solution so that no matter what, they can still access their information.  What are your thoughts around the changing technology scene?  Should companies allow for BYOD?  If so, how does your firm ensure security and compliance?

We’d love to hear your perspective.  For more on BYOD, check out this great infographic that SAP and NetBase put out on the topic.

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As TechCrunch notes in the above article, Amazon has a first mover advantage due to the high cost for customers to switch providers.  And according to Bernstein’s research, the majority of businesses they interviewed would not change IaaS providers even for a 20% discount, as switching would bring new risks and added costs in the re-development of tools on the new provider’s API.  So AWS seems to be in a great spot.  But lately, we have started to wonder what the future of the cloud will look like.

James Staten, in his cloud predictions for 2013, thinks that we will stop equating the cloud with AWS.  There are already other players making moves in the market, including Windows Azure, Google’s Compute Engine, Rackspace, Verizon, IBM, HP, etc.  These haven’t yet made much of a dent, but Google recently announced increased investment in its cloud technology and Microsoft slashed its prices showing there are real competitors willing to go head-to-head with Amazon.

A Neovise analyst describes two battles in the IaaS market:  one for basic services such as computing, networking, and storage, and the other for higher-level services such as databases, security, disaster recovery, and running business applications.   The former, he says, is where competitors are starting to grab market share while the latter is where AWS still entirely dominates.

It certainly will be interesting to see where the cloud computing market goes.  New technologies might deflate AWS’s advantages or perhaps the cloud’s exponential growth will prove too big even for Amazon to scale fast enough leaving room for more players.

What do you think?  Will Amazon maintain its leading position, or will companies like Google and Microsoft make a big enough impact to dominate?   Tell us your thoughts in the comments below….

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It’s often hard to keep track of all the “cloud” lingo out there. Today we tackle the hybrid cloud. What is it and why are companies adopting hybrid solutions?

In deciding among a public, private, or hybrid solution, it’s important to understand which benefits of migrating to the cloud your company values most and align your company’s priorities with the advantages of each type of solution.  The public cloud attracts companies because it’s the most cost-effective solution, while the private cloud is popular because it offers the most control.  But for companies that can’t move entirely in one direction or the other, the hybrid cloud can provide the best of both worlds.  Below we describe these three cloud solutions and the advantages of each.

Public Cloud

The public cloud is an off-site solution where your data is stored through the resources of a third party provider. It is the most cost-effective solution, since there are no upfront costs, hardware or need to build anything in-house.  The downside is that your data is beyond your own firewall, so it’s important to assess the reliability and security of vendors.  But since you’re relying on a third party, you can capitalize on their expertise, trained staff, customer service, and the scalability associated with their services.

Private Cloud

The private cloud, on the other hand, is an on-site solution where an organization owns and manages the infrastructure itself but rather than traditional hardware, it is storing data in its own cloud.  The data is within your own firewall and offers the internal data control, but at a higher price, as you still need to pay for hosting, servers, infrastructure, and security.  This solution minimizes third-party risks, but may be less scalable and more expensive.

Hybrid Cloud

The hybrid cloud is a mixture of these two solutions, where lower priority data is stored on the public cloud and more sensitive data is stored in a private cloud.  It allows you to have some information behind your own firewall but also capitalize on the lower cost and convenience of the public cloud.  Businesses can leverage their existing infrastructure to become more efficient.

The hybrid approach can be an excellent way for those hesitant about the cloud to try it out without a full commitment in one direction or the other.  As Rajeev Chawla noted, the advantages of a hybrid cloud extend beyond combining the best of public and private clouds. He credits it with enabling a new generation of solutions superior to hardware and premise-bound predecessors, including cloud migration & integration, cloud cloning, cloud failover, and cloud bursting.

In determining your path to the cloud, consider your organization’s needs – if you need to control 100% of your infrastructure, then the private cloud may be the best solution for your company.  But if you are most interesting in minimizing costs and the convenience of having your data accessible from anywhere, then consider the public cloud.  Or if these solutions both seem attractive but not entirely appropriate, then consider the hybrid cloud for a balance between the two.

A powerful search on the first screen

We’ve heard in interviews that the most important task for Backupify admins is to find a user’s account and be able to retrieve documents quickly. After you select a user , a preview panel slides down. Without leaving the page, you will see the status of their backups and will be able to search their archives, initiate an immediate backup, or export one or more of their services.

User summary

Below the search is an illustration showing the status of all the users in your domain. We have also introduced the concept of archived users — those who are no longer active in your Google domain. For example, employees who have left, and whose backups you may still want to access. The orange bar will alert you to all the people in your Google domain who are not yet protected by Backupify. Click the “Add Users” button to add them before they do something you can’t undo!

Backupify storage summary

The storage bar  shows the total storage used on Backupify for all the users in your domain, across all the services you have enabled. At a quick glance you can see which service uses the most storage on Backupify.

Our user interface is always evolving. Have an idea for a feature that would brighten your day? Contact us or leave your feedback in the comments.

Last week I read a blog post on the anxiety inducing ordeal of San Francisco based writer Tienlon Ho who was locked out of her Google account for six long days. Tienlon found she couldn’t do much without access – including her taxes as she had been storing pertinent information throughout Google Apps.

The post entitled “Dumped! by Google” described how Tienlon was essentially kicked out of all things Google due to violating (unknowingly) Google’s terms of service. Tienlon like so many of us keep a tremendous amount of critical data in the cloud through Google Drive. From calendar appointments and contacts to passwords and personal notes, Google Apps has become the definitive place to store information. It’s web-based and easy. But what if you’re suddenly locked out? A situation that would easily lead to heart palpitations.

Teinlon found out why she had been dumped – she had uploaded a suspicious looking doc with various passwords on behalf of a client. This prompted her to start looking into Google’s policies discovering that Google reserves the right to “terminate your account at any time, for any reason, with or without notice.” The story does have a happy ending though as she was able to get her account up and running.

Stories like this often leads to questions on the safety and security of the cloud. So, is the cloud safe? Absolutely. But is cloud backup necessary? Of course. In Tienlon’s case, had she been using a cloud-to-cloud backup solution, she could have easily accessed the data she needed – instantly. It’s essential to have a Google Apps backup plan in place so that access to data is never lost. More people and businesses are turning to Google Apps for ease of use and collaboration. But just like you would have backed up that important college essay ten years ago, it’s crucial to backup cloud applications such as Google Apps.

The default in Backupify has always been search because our user behavior surveys show that people are more likely to remember some part of the document metadata, such as the name, than they are to remember where it was located. But today we are excited to announce a third way to find deleted data that is even better than searching or browsing – the Deleted Items list.

Two Backupify-ers, Ben Povlich from engineering and Ryan Harnedy from sales, came up with this idea at one of our internal hackathons, and we thought it was such a useful feature that we decided to polish it up and push it to customers as quickly as possible. If you have an Enterprise account and you login to your Backupify account today, you will see deleted items on your Google Drive backups page, and soon it will be rolled out to all accounts, regardless of plan. So, how does it work?

Backupify monitors Google Drive for each domain user that you have set up, and when something is deleted from Gdrive, we add it to the Deleted Items list when we next back you up. When you login, the list you see is the most recently deleted items which, more than likely, contains the item you want to restore. You can restore it from the backup to Google Drive with a simple click right from the Deleted Items list. No more searching, no more browsing, we serve the deleted item straight to you with no fuss.

What is so interesting about this feature is that it provides a new, innovative way to find the data you are most likely to restore, without relying on searching or browsing. It saves you time; which is the one thing we all need more of.

We are adding new functionality to Backupify all the time, and this feature is a great example of how we are always thinking about how to make your life even easier. So login and try it out. Let us know what you think via email or in the comments section.

And if you came to this post via a search for restoring data back to Google Drive, you should know that 32% of all companies on SaaS have lost data in a SaaS application. Don’t be one of them. Backup your Google Drive today with Backupify.

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We don’t want to leave you with too much anticipation so you can take a Sneak Peak Tour of all the updates that are coming that are coming for your Google Apps backup admin dashboard!

We’re very excited about these helpful updates. They’re the result of the tireless work of our engineering and design team, and the generous input by many of our users. Check out our designer’s infographic on the process!

There are a few changes that you should be aware of when navigating in the new header. See below for a direct comparison of the ‘old’ header versus the new one. You will notice that you can access your account settings by clicking on the gear icon. The search bar can still be accessed from the Archives, and an advanced search bar will be added to the admin dashboard as part of the new UI changes.

New Header:

Old Header:

Not yet a Backupify customer? Go check it out yourself with our 15-day Free Trial!

PC-level security is designed to ensure the security of PC-resident data. Your local antivirus or anti-spyware suite is not equipped to secure your cloud data. The simple act of walking away from a logged-in laptop at a coffee shop, or leaving your unsecured office workstation unattended during a long meeting, could lead to the theft or destruction of all your Salesforce or Google Apps data.

The same rules apply for mobile devices and tablets. Constantly logging out of online accounts and routinely locking devices is indisputably tedious, which is why a surprising number of users don’t bother to lock or log off all their devices all the time. Even the most scrupulous and security-aware among us is bound to slip eventually.

Moreover, even if you would never be so foolish as to let a stranger borrow the iPhone that has logged-in access to your Gmail account, are you absolutely certain that everyone on Google Apps domain is equally as vigilant? As xkcd taught us, the weak point in all security systems is people.

Well, that and weak encryption. To say nothing of easily guessed passwords. Or passwords that are carelessly reused. Or the false sense of protection provided by Security Theater.

Bottom line: No security system is perfect, and security designed to protect your hard drive can’t and won’t protect your cloud data. If you rely on cloud-based data and SaaS applications, you need a good, SaaS-specific cloud backup plan.

(Don’t get it? Don’t worry. The good folks at www.explainxkcd.com can parse out the esoteric humor for you.)

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As a CIO or IT manager, you may be thinking of summer vacation plans (sun and sand anyone?) but there are several upcoming conferences to consider adding to your 2013 calendar. Here are seven can’t miss events for the CIO crowd coming up this spring and summer.  Backupify will be at the CIO Cloud Summit and the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium from this list so if you’re attending those events, be sure to come by and say hello!

1. CIO Perspectives Forums
   Dates vary by region

   This series of one-day regional events put on by CIO Magazine is aimed at senior IT leaders from mid-to-large sized companies.  The content-rich networking events help executives collaborate on business and technology issues.  CIO magazine hosts additional  events including CIO 100 and The CIO Leadership Event, which are also worth considering.

2. CIO Visions: Cloud & BI Summit
   April 28-30, 2013, NYC

   At this conference, over 200 CIO’s and IT leaders will come together to tackle Cloud and Business Intelligence issues in this 2-in-1 event.  There is a chance to participate in research meetings with leading solution providers, and learn about new technologies and solutions.  Last year, 94% of attendees found and connected with solution providers they intended to partner with after the conference.

3.  CIO Cloud Summit
   May 7-8, 2013, NYC

   This is an annual event for a small group of 50-60 CIO’s to discuss critical cloud computing issues and build relationships with IT exec peers in an intimate setting.  There are user-led educational sessions and networking events to share and explore new ideas.

4. InformationWeek CIO Summit
   May 8, 2013, Las Vegas
   
   During this day long summit, C-level and Senior IT executives will discuss the critical role they play in driving innovation at their companies.  This event is part of a larger week long Interop conference which focuses on the latest information technology trends.

5. MIT Sloan CIO Symposium
   May 22, 2013, Cambridge, MA

   This is a one day interactive event that brings together 700 global IT execs along with leading MIT faculty.  Attendees will enjoy thought-provoking discourse and practical education on the future of technology, best practices, and the changing role of the CIO through presentations, panels and networking.

6. The Society for Information Management (SIM)
   Various dates for various events
   
   The Society for Information Management (SIM) is a network for IT leadership and a community of thought leaders who share experience and intellectual capital at various events across the country.  SIM hosts in-person meetings including SIMposium, Advanced Practices Council, Regional Leadership Forums, chapter meetings, and CIO roundtables as well as online tools, publications, and more.

7. The CIO Event
   Date varies by global region. North America: June 20-21, 2013

   These events occur in various regions around the world and feature over 150 CIO’s in each region to champion think tanks, panel discussions, and workshops.  Sure to inspire thought leadership and best practices strategies.

1. A generational shift wherein students coming out of university are already using Gmail and other Google products in their personal lives. Thus, Google Apps will be the preferred system in the corporate setting when this cohort assumes management control.
2. Microsoft’s long-standing involvement with on-premise solutions and channel partners who push on-premise solutions, which will slow the necessary shift in Redmond’s core business operations to the cloud.
3. Microsoft’s preference for complicated pricing scares off buyers, whereas Google has a much simpler pricing plan.
4. Google’s competitive advantage with regards to timing as they came to the market just as web apps were coming out, while Microsoft is dealing with 20+ years of providing on-premise software.

While all of these points, particularly the third point on pricing, are interesting, we think the situation is a bit more complex. In fact, we at Backupify wrote a whitepaper about this particular topic: “Office 365 vs. Google Apps: Which is right for your business?”.

What it boils down to is that there are different situations in which either solution might be better for a company moving to the cloud, and each solution is superior on different features. Here is a summary on our conclusions found in the whitepaper:

Google Apps wins on:

• Price
• Online collaboration & file storage
• User interface & ease of use

Office 365 wins on:

• Instant messaging, web conferencing, voice chat & voice features
• Intranet integration
• Active directory integration
• Offline support

Google Apps and Office 365 Tie:

• Email & email archiving
• Mobile device support
• System setup & administration

Aside from these feature differentiators, we see the major difference in terms of business process improvement (BPI) vs. business process engineering (BPE). Instead of declaring a definite winner in all cases, we think different companies can appreciate one solution over the other depending on their preferences, reasons for adoption, and business needs.

BPI has to do with tweaking existing business practices to make them more efficient, while BPE involves dissecting a business’ existing workflows and redesigning them from the ground up. We consider Google Apps more of a BPI solution that replaces a current system with a cheaper one, and Office 365 more of a BPE solution that brings new processes to a company.

So as a company considering the cloud, ask yourself: Are you happy with your existing practices but want to transfer them online in order to save money? Or, are you unhappy with your current practices and want a new solution to provide new tools to employees? If the former, then Google Apps is probably your answer. If the latter, then Office 365 with its robust and customizable set of tools that may be worth the extra money.

For more help deciding between the two solutions, check out our blog post on the Top 10 Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office 365 Comparison Guides.

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Over the years, we’ve heard many great ideas from our customers about what they wanted to see in the product. We were also itching to implement some cool features that we came up with internally. To get to the final product, we followed the “lather, rinse, repeat” process of mocking up a design, showing it to users and iterating until the feedback was positive. We also, not surprisingly, needed to get everyone within the company on board. A redesign takes time, dedication, and A LOT of caffeine.

Below is a fun, summary infographic of all that went into our redesign.

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