With total security and instant recovery from data loss, Google Apps customers no longer need to worry about their backup strategy. Google Apps Backup is designed to backup Gmail accounts, as well as other Google Apps data such as Google Docs, Calendar, Contacts and Sites to enterprise shared storage folders. This tool makes it simple to search lost, deleted, or inaccessible files and restore the content back to the respective Google account.

The benefits include:

• Unlimited Domains for Google Apps for Business
• Automated on-premise backup of Google Apps data
• Offline access to Google Docs and email data
• Complete Security
• No Downtime
• Immediate data restoration to Google account
• Unlimited Storage of archived Gmail and Google Apps data

Learn more about this single click, fully automated software at ltech.com/google-apps/products/backup.

Google began revising the look and feel of their products back in June, a year after updating the design of Google Search. The changes included bolder colors, a more consistent visual experience between devices, and new technologies like HTML5. Since then, Google has been consistently rolling out new features in News, Maps, Translate, Gmail and more. In November, Google revealed a new bar that appears on each of their products with a drop-down menu containing links to Google services that displays when you hover over or click the Google logo. Google encouraged users to start trying out the new look immediately in order to prepare for permanent transitions.

Updates are rolled out on an ongoing basis, with some features offered as an opt-in/opt-out option. The changes are phased in for Google Apps users following the Google App Release Track process.

The makeover came as part of Google’s goal to create the most intuitive user experience possible without sacrificing style.

With more and more employees using personal mobile devices in the workplace, the importance of keeping data secure is as imperative as ever. Organizations will now be able to define password requirements, roaming sync preferences and other policies, as well as revoke Google Apps access to individual devices if necessary. The improvements also include trends and analytics for admins to monitor mobile productivity.

Dave Girouard, Vice President of product management at Google, made the announcement during Monday’s Atmosphere 2011 event. Girouard noted that “It’s increasingly difficult for any employer to tell any employee what devices to use,” claiming that employees prefer working for companies that support their right to choose their own mobile device.

Google has also updated the Google Apps Device Policy app for Android. The new version will help users understand the information that is available to administrators and to provide support for Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich.

The announcement came during the Atmosphere 2011 event in Mountain View, when Amit Singh, Google’s vice president of enterprise sales and operations, unveiled the new offer. As part of Google’s previous support plan, customers were given access to email support, with phone support only for critical issues.

Jocelyn Ding, vice president of Google enterprise operations, writes on Google’s enterprise blog, “We now provide 24×7 phone support to small, medium, and large Google Apps for Business customers for all issues affecting the core services. Our customers may also receive support through our Web-based support portal, online help forms, and online help center. All support cases are handled directly by trained Google Apps experts.”

Google Apps for Business users will now be able to call Google for support with Google Docs, Calendar, Sites, Talk and Video.

Ding asserts that Google is extremely passionate about customer satisfaction. “90 percent of our large business customers indicate that they’re more than satisfied with their support experience. While we’re proud of these ratings, we want to do even better. Our goal is to achieve an overall satisfaction rating of 95 percent.”

Google recommends these steps for rolling out Google+ to your users:

1. Review the list of considerations for enabling Google+ and understand how the program can benefit your users.
2. Review system requirements for Hangouts to be certain that users’ computers can satisfy browser, operating system, and other requirements.
3. Check firewall settings for Hangouts.
4. Enable Google+ for your entire system or just specific users. In order to activate Google+ for your organization, Google Apps administrators must turn it on and ask users to sign up a google.com/+ to get started.
5. Be sure to alert users of new services!

1. Click the gear icon in your Documents List and choose Documents settings.
2. On the editing tab your settings tab, select the box next to “Create new presentations using the latest version of the presentation editor.”
3. Click save,

Google has recently approved users offline access to Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Calendar. After testing the feature in-house, Google has met the summer deadline to make the company’s cloud-computing vision even more practical.

“Offline Gmail lets people read and write messages, respond to others’ messages, apply labels and stars, and archive messages,” said Alex Gawley, a Google senior product manager, according to CNET News. “Of course, none of the actions taken offline do anything outside a person’s computer until a network connection is established and the software synchronizes with Google servers again.”

The Gmail offline app can be installed from the Chrome Web store, and the Calendar and Docs can be activated by simply clicking the gear icon at the top right corner of the web app and selecting the offline access option.

In order to activate 2-step verification, Google Apps for Business users can sign into their account with both a password and a one time verification code that is created on a phone. The code can be generated with a mobile app (on Android, iPhone and Blackberry), or via SMS text message or a voice call.

According to the AWS website, GovCloud is physically and logically accessible solely by U.S. government agencies and will remain compliant with strict federal requirements such as the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). It also supports existing AWS security controls and certifications such as FISMA, SAS-70, ISO 27001, FIPS 140-2 compliant end points, and PCI DSS Level 1, as well as HIPAA regulations.

A few of the leading service highlights are:

• Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud– delivers scalable compute capacity in the cloud.
• Amazon Simple Storage Service– creates a data infrastructure for storing and retrieving any amount of data at any time.
• Amazon Elastic Block Store– provides block level storage volumes for use with Amazon EC2 situations
• Amazon Virtual Private Cloud– provisions a private section of the AWS Cloud which allows you to launch AWS resources in your own virtual network.
• AWS Identity and Access Management– enables you to securely control access to AWS services and resources.
• Amazon CloudWatch– provides monitoring for AWS cloud resources such as Amazon EC2 and Amazon EBS.

• Call Phone - This Gmail feature, previously only available to users in the United States, is now available in 38 languages. Call phone currently accepts Euros, British pounds, Canadian dollars or U.S. dollars.
• Spreadsheets - Google has introduced a feature which easily allows users to copy charts from spreadsheets into documents and drawings. The program also supports candlestick charts and combo charts, as well as GeoMap charts and TreeMap charts.
• Documents List - Google Documents List has created a clean and bold new look for searching and sorting documents. Test it out by clicking ‘Try the new look’  in the upper right.