Protect Google Drive

Before you configure backup, make sure you have:

You have two different methods to apply protection for users’ data in your Google Workspace environment: auto protection and manual protection.

Auto protection: When auto protection is enabled for a group and users are added to or removed from that group in your Google Workspace environment, Cloud Protection Service automatically discovers the changes and applies protection to the new users. Auto protection can be applied at the group level and not at the individual user level.

Manual protection: If you choose manual protection, Cloud Protection Service still discovers when users are added to or removed from a group. However, you must manually select the new users for protection.

Understand the Sources page

On the Sources page, tabs are available for different applications. For example, Gmail has its own tab. For Google Drive, there are two tabs: User Drives and Shared Drives. Under each tab, the objects discovered by Cloud Protection Service are listed and are available for backup.

The Unprotected and Protected sections display the count of items in each category. The Protection Status and Legal Hold filters let you refine the grid to show protected or unprotected objects, objects on legal hold, and active objects.

The Group icon lets you list only groups. The View List icon lets you list all discovered objects. The Auto Protected icon lets you list only auto protected objects.

In the grid, details for each object are displayed, including backup status, SLA status, and the latest snapshot timestamp. A blue check mark indicates that backup is complete. The auto protection icon indicates that the object is auto protected.

After backup completes successfully, additional options become available, such as recovering the object, unprotecting the object, editing backup configuration, pausing future runs, and running protection.

To protect data in Google Drives:

  1. In Cloud Protection Services, navigate to Sources.

    Your registered Google Workspace source is listed on the Sources page.

  2. Click the required Google Workspace source.
  3. Click the User Drives or Shared Drives tab as required.

    You can apply auto protection or use the manual protection method.

  4. Do any of the following:
    • For auto protection of user drives, select the Users check box and click Auto Protect This Google User Group.
    • For auto protection of shared drives, select the Shared Drives check box and click Auto Protect This Shared Drive Group.
    • To manually protect user drives, select the check box for the required users. To select all users, select the Users check box and click Select All Child Objects.
    • To manually protect shared drives, select the check box for the required objects. To select all objects, select the Shared Drives check box and click Select All Child Objects.

    When auto protection is enabled, the auto protection icon is displayed on the child objects.

  5. Click Protect.
  6. On the New Protection page, do the following:
    • Select the required policy to specify backup frequency and retention. If a suitable policy is not available, you can create one.
    • Click More options.
    • Configure the options under Settings and Additional Settings and then click Protect.
    • Start Time: Available only if the selected policy is set to Backup Daily. Specifies when the protection run starts. Enter the start time and select AM or PM. The default time zone is the browser time zone. You can change the time zone if required.
    • SLA: Defines how long a protection run is expected to take.
      • Full: Expected duration for a full protection run.
      • Incremental: Expected duration for an incremental protection run.
    • Cancel Runs At Quiet Time Start: Available only if the policy has at least one Quiet Time. When enabled, active protection runs are canceled when Quiet Time begins. By default, this option is disabled.

Backups start immediately, regardless of the configured start time. After the first protection run completes, you can recover protected Google Drives as needed.