1. Backup Historical and Progressive Data
   A backup solution should protect all the data in your system, not just the data that’s added after you install the backup. If you need to restore data that has been unaltered for three years – which is precisely the sort of historical content that is prone to corruption or accidental deletion – your backup system should have a copy of it on hand.
2. Data Versioning (Incremental Backups)
   Backing up just the most recent version of SaaS data means that – if you don’t catch an error before your backup archive updates – you have two copies of corrupted data. Data versioning means you have multiple copies of the same data elements, each captured at regular intervals, allowing you to roll back to whichever state has the most accurate or necessary information.
3. Local Export Options
   Data trapped in your cloud application should not be equally trapped in your cloud application backup. Your SaaS backup provider should offer local download and export options so you can keep local copies of any items (or even accounts) you deem fit.
4. Scheduled and User-Initiated Backups
   Regular, scheduled, automated backups ensure that no critical data is omitted from your archives simply because an administrator forgot to trigger a backup. User-initiated backups ensure that, following a critical update to live SaaS data, the backup archive can be immediately updated to ensure this data is protected. A competent backup system should offer features, rather than simply one or the other.
5. Proactive Status Updates and Error Notification
   Backup administrators shouldn’t have to log into a backup system – let alone individual backup accounts – to learn whether a backup process has been successful. The backup application should proactively alert admins to backup failures and, ideally, allow an admin to diagnose and correct the problem as soon as possible from a central interface.
6. Support for Your Recovery-Time Objectives (RTO)
   It’s not enough for a cloud application backup to restore data; it must restore data fast enough that your business isn’t significantly harmed by data loss. How long does it take to restore one item, one account, or the complete data archive? Know the answer before you deploy your SaaS backup solution.
7. Restore for Individual Items
   Rarely is all the data corrupted or erased from a cloud application; a typical data loss scenario involves only a handful of missing or damaged items. Your SaaS backup solution should allow you to restore just those items – the mail your user accidentally erased, or the single table your database dropped – rather than deal with reinserting a complete copy of your entire account (or archive) back into your cloud application.
8. System-Wide Search
   Most restoration tasks involve single items, so your SaaS backup solution should make it easy to find those individual items within your archives – and that requires system-wide search. Manually browsing chronological archives can significantly slow down restore efforts, and search is a must-have shortcut to ensure your Restore-Time Objectives are met.
9. Comprehensive Data Backup (AKA “Complete Suite” Backup)
   Many SaaS backup products only backup a portion of the data in your cloud application, often leaving out certain feature sets (backing up text but not images, documents but not emails) or ignoring key metadata (emails but not attachments; documents but not their tags and access control lists, etc.). Your cloud application backup should protect every data type necessary to keep your SaaS solution running with full data integrity.
10. Centralized Account Management
    Administrators should be able to view backups and archives for all accounts through a single interface, so that as your business grows and you add new employees, account administration stays fast and efficient.
11. Robust Permission Controls
    Administrators should be able to monitor and control what features their users can enable, disable or configure. Backups do you no good if end users can prevent or delete them without administrator knowledge or consent.
12. Streamlined, Versatile Onboarding
    A backup solution should allow administrators to quickly opt-in which user accounts to include in the backup archives. Mandatory backups for all accounts are unacceptable, as is a tedious, manual selection process. The SaaS backup solution should also allow for new SaaS application users to automatically be backed up.
13. Documented Security Procedures
    A backup provider should offer documented security procedures for the transfer and protection of your data. It’s not enough to claim to be “secure;” your SaaS backup provider should be prepared to give reasonable specifics – like level of encryption of data at rest, and which data transactions occur over SSL – to assure the safety of your data.
14. Documented Support Options
    A cloud application is only as good as its technical support, and this goes doubly so for SaaS backup services, as you’ll be relying on your backups to function during times of need. Your SaaS backup solution should have a clear method for contacting technical support and self-service support options (like FAQs and help forums) so you can work towards solving problems on your own, without waiting on a response from the service provider. It’s not either-or, it’s both.
15. Documented Service Level Agreement
    Just as you wouldn’t purchase a SaaS product or cloud application without a documented Service Level Agreement, the system backing up your cloud apps should have an SLA. Specifically, your backup system should lay out explicit uptime guarantees and the compensation provided if those guarantees aren’t met.
16. Flexible Billing
    Your SaaS backup solution should offer as much contract flexibility as the service it’s backing up. It should fit into your existing buying and budget cycle, not force another one on you.

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These are general points about backing up any SaaS application, though specific SaaS apps often have specific needs. What’s true of, say, Google Apps backup may not be explicitly applicable to a Salesforce backup solution. With that in mind, are there must-have features you don’t see on this list? Got questions about how well Backupify meets each checkpoint? We’d be glad to hear from you in the comments section.

Your address book is the Holy Grail for social engineering attackers. First, if I want you to download malware, the classic method is to embed it in a faked message from a trusted source — the kind of name and email address your contact list could give a hacker. Most of us have gotten these emails at some point, and they’re usually pretty crude, but the chance of a competent attacker getting hold of your contact data increases drastically every time an app slinks away with your mobile address book.

Second, your address book could give me all the data I need to deduce your password. Of the ten most common passwords, #1 is the name of a significant family member — a spouse or child — which is exactly the sort of information a hacker could get from your address book. The sixth most common password is the birth date of those same family members, which could be discovered simply by matching names from your contact list with public Facebook profiles.

These are just the obvious attacks, which could be automated in a matter of minutes. Combine that with the common practice of using one password for all online accounts, and once a hacker has penetrated a soft account — the kind that doesn’t block your login after multiple password failures — they are free to wardial every other account you might possess. Oh, and the number of accounts you “might” possess gets much more obvious if the attacker has your address book, which likely includes contact listings for those alert emails you get from your bank, investment account or security service.

In all likelihood, your data isn’t valuable enough to draw the interest of sophisticated attackers, but the attack methods described above aren’t terribly sophisticated. All it takes is for one fly-by-night mobile app to suffer a security breach, and your stolen contact information becomes a weapon to be used against you.

[Side note: This is why Backupify encrypts every scrap of data you give us. Path didn't encrypt anything.]

Don’t stop using mobile apps. Just don’t be naive about what those apps can do with your data. And, above all, always have a good backup plan.

Google owns everything.

More specifically, between Gmail, Picasa, the remnants of Buzz, Google Reader, Chrome, Android, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Voice, Gtalk, Google Apps domains and — above all — Google Search, Google already has all the data and the platforms that Facebook is trying to connect and integrate. All Google has to do is steal a page from the classic Microsoft Windows playbook and “embrace and extend” all these distinct products into one cohesive social experience — and one that you simply can’t get away from on the contemporary version of MS Windows, also known as “the Internet.”

You can see this vision at work already with the Google-wide style redesign to match Google+ and the unification of Google’s privacy policies. Google is merging the underpinnings of all its products, and that means Google+ will be everywhere sooner rather than later.

So what’s the tenth/second reason we’ll all be on Google+ a year from now? The best reason, really: You can export all your Google+ data really easily. As Caleb Garling summarizes in the Tom’s report:

“Google has provided users with an obvious and quick way to export each aspect of your data: photos, profile information, stream data, Circles and Contacts. And should you so choose, you can click over to your Account Settings and, front and center, find the option to hide or delete your account.”

Pair that up with the ever-improving Google Takeout service, and Google at least appears to be approaching data liberation with serious and respectful intent. That’s a good thing, and while it almost certainly ranks dead last amongst the reasons why Google+ will give Facebook a real run for its social money, Google’s export options may be the slight edge it needs to ultimately win the social war.

“Some social media companies, including Path, subscribe to a philosophy that says access to your personal data — if used safely and in the right way — can only improve your experience.”

Here’s the thing: Path is right. Personal data can make social experiences better. Knowing who my friends are can only make it easier to build a friends list. That said, there are a number of privacy and ownership issues tied up in who is allowed to share my friends list, with whom, and under what context.

On its face, the Path+Hipster dust-up looks like a series of privacy and/or Terms of Service violations. As Dustin Curtis puts it:

“[T]here’s a quiet understanding among many iOS app developers that it is acceptable to send a user’s entire address book, without their permission, to remote servers and then store it for future reference. It’s common practice, and many companies likely have your address book stored in their database. Obviously, there are lots of awesome things apps can do with this data to vastly improve user experience. But it is also a breach of trust and an invasion of privacy.”

Actually, it’s not a privacy violation. A breach of trust, sure, but not a privacy violation. Nobody using Path, Hipster or almost any other social networking app could reasonably conclude that those apps couldn’t see their address books. And we’re not just talking about the notification screens you get when those apps are installed. Simply using those apps is a giveaway they know who your contacts are, if only by the friend suggestions they make.

No, the mistake Path and Hipster (and who knows how many other companies out there) made is in assuming that because they can see your data, they get to keep your data. This wasn’t a privacy violation. This was an ownership violation.

You can use my data to benefit me, to help me find my friends and improve my experience. You don’t get to use it to build a contacts list for your exclusive benefit, and you certainly don’t get to do so without asking me first. This is fundamentally different than a privacy breach, and the distinction is not insignificant.

Think of it this way: Just because I lent you my car that one time doesn’t mean you can borrow again it without asking me first. Me lending you my car once doesn’t make it your car. Path was invited by users to take their address books for a little road trip, but then it snuck into the garage and took it for a spin every night without asking.

Now, Path has apologized and deleted the user data. Hipster has gone one better, asking for an “Application Privacy Summit.” And, of course, the perfunctory demands for clearer EULAs — which nobody reads, no matter how clear they are — have made the scene. These are all half-measures and distractions.

What’s needed is a clear understanding that access does not equal ownership. Even if I leave the keys to my car out in the open where anyone can grab them, actually using them to open my car without permission is still a crime. Too many companies — and too many users — seem to have forgotten that.

The data you create belongs to you. How it gets used is your decision. This is the fundamental principle of data ownership. Until we make data ownership rights a priority, Path won’t be the last company to copy personal data, they’ll just be the latest ownership violator to get caught.

Don’t get Pathed. And, as always, have a good backup plan.

• Bucket-level versioning creates multiple copies of each data point and retains that data once any change is made from the original document. This gives us the ability to preserve, retrieve, and restore earlier versions of data stored in an Amazon S3 bucket.
• AWS multi-factor authentication gives Backupify an additional layer of security mitigating risks around delete operations.

Backupify also partnered with Rapid7 to conduct penetration testing, identify the largest potential threats and provide guidance on how to mitigate any risk associated with those threats. This structured approach to security identifies the top threats that have the greatest potential impact on an organization’s infrastructure.

Security matters immensely for a backup company, so when comparing Google Apps backup providers, ask if they have been tested by an outside security firm. Backupify has, because the security of your data is our top priority. For more information on Backupify security, feel free to check out our Backupify Security Brief.

No mention, it seems, of what the IPO means for Facebook’s users. The smart money says privacy, security and data ownership are the big winners of the Facebook IPO. Why? Take a gander at Facebook’s actual SEC filing. This is a peek behind the curtain at Facebook’s financials that the company would never have allowed in the past. Yes, it’s trading that close-to-the-vest secrecy for an expected $5 billion cash infusion, but once you cross the threshold to publicly traded entity, that kind of secrecy is never coming back.

So what has this to do with privacy, security, and data ownership? Well, for starters, the SEC spotlight makes it possible for the data liberation movement to keep a much keener eye on Facebook’s inner workings. And where the SEC goes, the Federal Trade Commission often follows, and they have some rather strong feelings about consumer protections.

Now, being publicly traded isn’t a panacea. Facebook may remain an online dictatorship when it comes to user rights, and their culture of privacy indifference can’t change overnight, but there’s a rather powerful impetus to keep from playing fast and loose with user data: A public share price. Facebook will need to step lively to keep Uncle Sam happy, because nothing smacks a share price around like a federal investigation. Look no further than Google’s recent mini-dust-up over its unified privacy policy — and the Congressional oversight thereof — to see the level Facebook is playing at now.

Facebook is going public, in more ways than one. And they’ll have to work twice as hard to keep the public on their side. That can only be good for users.

Just make sure you have a good backup plan.

• Backupify for Google Apps is a backup solution
• Postini Message Discovery is an archiving tool

Archiving and backup are two very different use cases, and it’s important to understand the distinction when evaluating products designed to meet each demand.

The rule of thumb: Archiving is for discovery, backups are for recovery.

More broadly, archiving tools are for expediting auditing and compliance tasks, backup tools aid in error correction and disaster recovery. While you can use most backup tools to aid discovery tasks, and it’s possible to employ some archiving systems as recovery solutions, neither are ideal for those use cases.

Why You Need An Archiving Tool
Because you have to know where your data has been, and have to be able to prove it.

Archiving tools are designed to make compliance audits and legal discovery requests simpler. Archiving systems create copies of data that are intended to illustrate who had access to emails and documents when, and who made which changes at what time. Their interfaces and data exports are designed to satisfy regulators and investigators.

If you ever get sued, you’ll be glad you deployed an archiving tool beforehand. However, if you try to restore an email or document with your archiving tool, you’ll be upset you didn’t have a backup system instead.

Why You Need A Backup Tool
Because you can’t live without your data and, if it’s ever lost, you want to get it back as fast as possible.

Backup tools are designed to keep your business data secure and intact in the event of natural disasters, security breaches or good, old-fashioned user error — the latter of which makes up nearly one-third of all data loss, and two-thirds of data losses within Google Apps. Backup systems create copies of data that are intended to maximize speed of recovery, such that you can restore any lost items or accounts with the absolute minimum delay. Their interfaces and data exports are designed to satisfy I.T. professionals.

If your system ever gets hacked or someone maliciously deletes your data, you’ll be glad you deployed a backup tool beforehand. However, if you try to piece together an audit trail with your backup records, you’ll be upset you didn’t have an archiving system instead.

Backupify vs. Postini
Backupify and Postini are not competing products, they are complementary solutions. Archiving is a best practice in regulated industries, and backup is a best practice for any critical system. It is entirely possible, and often best practice, to deploy both Postini and Backupify on your Google Apps domain. That said, there are specific differences between the two products, and you should know beforehand exactly what functionality you require — and are legally obligated to possess — before deciding whether Postini and/or Backupify is the right solution for you.

Unlocked from solitary confinement on an isolated local hard drive, server or network, cloud data can (theoretically) appear in any browser, be shared with any application, and be put to any use you see fit. Connected via the Internet to any online system, your data is infinitely more versatile and valuable than ever before.

But only if your information is actually free.

Is your email really free if you can’t extract it from your webmail provider? Are your business contacts and relationships really yours if there’s no meaningful way to transfer them between online CRM systems? Do you really own your e-books, movies and music if their attached DRM dictates which devices you can consume them on?

Information locked inside one online application is just as restrained as information trapped on a single hard drive — but worse, because you don’t control the storage system in question.

Let’s go one step further and consider all the data you passively create, which has no analog on local systems.

The ad-tracking information innately generated by your surfing habits has value, and consequences, to which you should be privy. The meta-data divined from analysis of all your online data storage is also a product of your labors, and you should have as much access to, and benefit from, that information as the system you’re using. Moreover, the applications and services storing and creating this data are vulnerable to attack and exploitation, and you deserve to be apprised of the dangers — new and old — that arise from the widespread adoption of cloud computing.

The preeminent technical issue of this decade is data ownership. This blog is dedicated to discussing the implications of data ownership, and how individual users and organizations can take and retain control of their online data.

Not all, or even most, online services or applications seek to imprison your data — but some do. Data transparency and portability are not in the direct, short-term interest of your online service providers. The harder it is for you to change services, which is to say extract the content you create from an online application, the easier it is for vendors to protect their revenue. The less you know about the meta-data that online services collect on you, the more those vendors can exploit that data without oversight or opposition. That isn’t a conspiracy, that’s basic business.

The promise of the cloud is that your data can go anywhere and do anything you want. The peril of the cloud is that your data can only go where and do what your web application provider will allow. What is allowed should be indistinguishable from what you want. This blog will be dedicated to advancing that cause.

Welcome to the cloud, where everything will be possible only when your data has been set free.

Hope you’ve got a good backup plan.

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What do you love — and what do you fear — about the cloud? Is data ownership a legitimate concern, or are we tilting at windmills? We welcome your feedback in the comments below.

One of the most common criticisms of Google’s Apps business is that it’s just a bunch of small companies using the free version of Google Apps. But is that really true? We did a little research to find out, as summarized in the infographic at the left.

Over 8,000 businesses have signed up for a trial of our Google Apps backup product, or Snapshot – our Google Apps account download tool. When someone signs up for a trial, one of the pieces of information Google sends us over the API is the total number of seats on the domain (which we use for capacity planning). As a result, we have a nice sample of data to look at to see who is on Google Apps*.

Now, to be clear, this is not a random sample. This sample consists of people who want to buy backup for Google Apps. And in our experience, it skews towards domains with at least 30+ users. Why? Because that is the point where companies add an I.T. person, and I.T. pros are the ones who love to buy backup for anything and everything. Our close ratios on larger companies are much, much better than on the small ones.

But getting back to the data… what does our sample of companies on Google Apps say about the Google Apps ecosystem? Here are some inferences that can be drawn based on the data:

1. Most of the domains are small

As you can see from the chart, 53% of the domains are 10 seats or less, just what you would expect based on what you hear in the tech media about Google Apps. Domains with 10 or fewer seats are free, and free is a popular price point. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

2. The number of small domains doesn’t matter because the big domains overwhelmingly drive revenue and seats on Google Apps.

Notice that 0.33% of domains drive 54% of seats. Even with educational institutions removed — Schools also get Google Apps for free, regardless of domain size – 0.22% of domains drive about 40% of seats. If that ratio holds true across Google’s number of 50 million total Google Apps users, then more than 20 million paying business users are on Google Apps. If that’s the case, Google Apps should be closing in on a billion dollar annual revenue run rate.

I will add that, based on our data, it also seems that the average size of a Google Apps deployment is increasing. That is, larger and larger accounts are moving to Google Apps.

3. If you sell a per-domain product in the Google Apps marketplace, you should probably customize it for smaller accounts. If you sell a per-seat product, you should probably customize it for larger accounts.

Selling add-ons to Google Apps can be difficult because the large customer base spans many customer segments — more than most small companies or startups can target. Very few solutions work for mom & pop accounting firms and real estate office and also work for large universities and software consultancies. But, because Google Apps is relatively young, there is a lot of whitespace around the product, and thus lots of add-on opportunities for those who find their niche. Moreover, Google has increased staffing in their partnership department this past year, signaling that they take their partners seriously and want to build a strong ecosystem that includes add-on developers.

4. If you remove educational institutions, the largest industry on Google Apps is the technology industry.

No surprise there. But why don’t we hear more about some of the cool tech companies on Google Apps? Well, from dealing with customers in this industry, I can tell you that many of them don’t want to be reference customers and don’t want any publicity. But there are some big names on Google Apps, some that would surprise you.

That is our take on the Google Apps ecosystem, based on our own survey. You can see the full infographic here, and of course, if you are on Google Apps and need a backup, sign up for our 15 day free trial.

*Note: All data shared about our Google Apps install base is derived from aggregated user data. We don’t share any customer- or account-specific user data without clearing it with the customer first. If you want to see customer-specific data, check out our testimonials and case studies.

We’re contacting you to let you know that your Backupify account needs attention. Recent changes in Facebook’s API required us to alter our Facebook backup system. As a result, we need you to re-authorize your Facebook account to re-start your backups. Don’t worry, it’s easy. Here’s what you need to do:

Step 1. Login to Backupify.

Step 2. Select your Facebook account(s) listed in the Backup tab

Step 3. Click the Reauthorize button at the top of the page, then follow the instructions

That’s it. After these steps, Backupify will again be able to connect to your Facebook account and verify that all your Facebook data is safely backed up.

If you have any questions, or receive any email that takes you to a non-Backupify URL, please the Backupify Support Desk.

The Backupify MigrationApp transfers Gmail (including labels and status), Docs (collections and permissions included), Contacts (groups and categories), and Calendar (primary and secondary) from one Google Apps domain to another. It is perfect for these commonly requested cases:

• Migrating a company domain you have acquired to your own domain
• Migrating an entire Google Apps account to a new domain because of a domain name change
• Migrating users across domains (for example, moving students who graduate to an alumni domain)

The app will be free for a single account on any domain, and cost $15/account for migrations after that. However, if you sign up now for beta access, you can get MigrationApp for 50% off. The first migration is free, and every additional MigrationApp transfer you purchase costs a mere $7.50.

Other features include:

• Self serve application – Easy set up and a single click to start migrations
• Monitor Progress of migration at any point in time
• Notification on migration completion, including details of data migrated
• Error reporting in cases of exception during the migration process
• Migrate data within the same Google Apps domain or between Google Apps domains
• Uses OAUTH2, so setting up authenticated domains is fast, easy and secure
• Uses existing Backupify infrastructure, domain expertise to ensure security and reliability

If you need to move all your data from one Google Apps domain to another, and would like to try our tool (and receive a 50% discount), fill out this short form to receive early access to the Backupify MigrationApp.

1. Data control allows companies to move to the cloud with confidence.

Data is a critical asset for most companies, and while I.T. managers aren’t generally worried cloud providers will lose their data, it isn’t an acceptable business risk to have the only copy of important business data in someone else’s control. Data control issues have prevented many companies from adopting the cloud. Backupify can give some control back to the I.T. department by providing a secure second copy of all cloud data, which means companies who wouldn’t consider the cloud before can now enjoy the benefits of going cloud without the downside of losing control.

2. Fragmented access to cloud data increases the chances of a mistake.

One of the main benefits of the cloud is the ability to collaborate with others online. You can share files so that others can edit them. You can “sync” data across multiple devices. You can install hundreds of apps that will access your data via APIs. All of these things increase the chance that a person makes a mistake that syncs across multiple locations, or a bug in a third party app screws up your original data source. With Backupify, you can have an independent backup to restore a piece of data or a full account so you can always revert to your previous state.

3. User error is real.

Google has great Disaster Recovery, but that DR is designed to protect users against disasters and incidents that may happen to Google. What about your disasters? What about accidental user deletion? What about malicious deletion by an employee who finds out he is about to get fired?

One of the main use cases we hear about from Backupify customers is that they accidentally delete an email or calendar event and don’t know how to get it back. With a third-party backup, this becomes a non-issue. If anyting goes missing or wrong within your account, simply head on over to your Backupify account to restore the file (or, dare we say, the entire account).

The TechWatch gang appeared to pick up what Rob was putting down and commended Backupify on allowing users to “manage their data on a personal level.” We’ve said before and we’ll say it again, the era of the cloud will be all about taking control of your data. We’re working to make Backupify a tool in the arsenal of that cause. TechWatch thinks we’re on the right track, how about you?

Got a take on data ownership, TechWatch, or Backupify in general? Drop us a line.

First, because most of our architecture is built upon Amazon Web Services (AWS), we passed Amazon’s SLA through to our customers. Secondly, in the early days of Backupify, our business customers were mostly under 1,000 employees, and that customer segment didn’t ask much about SLA, and usually found the necessary legalese of a formal SLA to be an unnecessary burden. (Frankly, to many small businesses, the only SLA they care about is a support phone number they can call when something goes wrong.)

Over the past year, we have seen multiple organizations with more than 1,000 employees sign up for our Google Apps backup service (you can read about one of them here), and this customer segment is always very interested in our SLA. After much feedback from these customers about what a web application backup SLA should contain, we are excited to announce a new Backupify SLA. Below are the key points.

1. 99.9% uptime on the front end of the website. This insures that we will be up when you need to access your backups.

2. Guaranteed complete daily backups, once your initial backup is completed. While we complete the majority of initial backups in a single day, Google’s API limits won’t allow us to pull all the data from large accounts in a single 24-hour period. However, once that initial backup is done, we guarantee completed daily backups going forward.

3. Remedies if we don’t complete your backups are:

We extend your term by 3, 7 or 15 days depending on the impact of the problem:

- Downtime: 3 days if over 99%, 7 days if over 95%, 15 days if under 95%

- Backups: 3 days if we miss 1 day, 7 days if we miss 2-4 days, 15 days if we miss 5+ days

Over the past 3 years, we have made significant investments in the quality, reliability, and scalability of our platform. Those investments have allowed us to introduce what our lawyers and PR tell us is an industry-leading Service Level Agreement, and become the first cloud-to-cloud backup provider to guarantee completed daily backups of your data. Feel free to contact us if you have specific questions or comments. The full SLA will be on the website next week, at which time we will update this post with a link.

The announcement prompted several questions from customers about how to access versions of Calendar events and Contacts entries. Below we detail the version data available in your Calendar and Contacts archives, as well as instructions on how to access them.

Google Calendar Versions:

We’ve all been invited to meetings that get changed five times because of unexpected scheduling conflicts. But sometimes, a mistake can happen when an event is rescheduled, such as an accidental deletion or removal of an invitee. How do you get that previous version back?

1. Login. Simply login to Backupify, click on your Google Calendar account and click the ‘Previous Versions’ button on the top right of your screen.

2. Choose a Version. In the dropdown menu of dated versions, choose the version you need to access (see screenshot below). You now have the ability to download any version you need and both save the event locally to your computer or open it to view immediately.

Google Contacts Versions:

Accessing different versions of Contacts in Google works in much the same way as Calendar versions. If you ever make a faux pas (by accidentally deleting something, misspelling an email address, etc.) in your Contacts, don’t worry about digging through emails to find their signature or calling them to get their information right. It’s as simple as:.

1. Login. Simply login to Backupify, click on your Google Contacts account and click the ‘Previous Versions’ button on the top right of your screen.

2. Choose a Version. In the dropdown menu of dated versions, choose the version you need to access.

3. Select ‘Restore’ to send the contact back into your Google Apps address book.

Check out Google Calendar and Contacts restore and let us know what you think!

Want backup versions for all your Google Apps accounts? Try Backupify.

Now, as I work in the early days of the cloud industry, I wonder how it will pan out, when we will hit certain tipping points, what new innovations are ahead of us, and what the industry will look like at maturity.

As a cloud industry watcher who also has a direct financial tie to the success of Google Apps, I was excited this week when Google announced that BBVA will move to Google Apps. It is Google’s largest deal to date, and is particularly interesting because the security-conscious nature of banks has made them late adopters to many technologies, the cloud included. The BBVA deal made me wonder if Google Apps, and cloud in general, is close to a tipping point.

I see some signs that it is. One of the trends we have seen at Backupify the last 3 years is the growth in size of the average company that is on Google Apps. At the end of 2010, we had no customers over 50 employees, and our largest lead was a 1,100-employee organization. At the end of 2011, we had hundreds of customers over 50 employees, our largest customer was 3,200 employees, and our largest lead was over 50,000 employees. We now see a handful of 10,000+ person companies every month moving to Google Apps and contacting us about our Google Apps backup product. In other words, from what we see in our customer base, bigger companies are moving to the cloud more frequently, and it is happening fast.

So congratulations to Google on the big win. Congratulations to BBVA on the smart decision to move to the cloud. Maybe 2012 will be the crossover year where more people are in the cloud than aren’t.