G-Suit, formerly known as Google Apps, is a cloud web-based suite of applications for day to day office use. A lot of people consider it as a cloud service for email hosting for their business, but G-Suit is far more than that. It offers a range of cloud base applications from a text editor, spreadsheet calculations to creating and editing a web page.
G Suite (Google Apps) Basic apps are:
- Gmail: Using regular Gmail with your professional address, as in Your.Name@yourcomapny.com
- Calendar: Schedule meetings and events and easily share with others in your domain or publicly
- Docs, Sheets, Slides: Collaborate in real-time on online documents, spreadsheets, and presentations
- Drive: Store, manage and back up files securely in the cloud
- Hangouts: Join video meetings from a laptop or other devices
And a set of additional services and apps that are available from Google like YouTube, Google Photos, AdSense, AdWords and etc..
Administrative controls
Your administrative or IT team can also:
- Manage user accounts and security settings from a central Admin console
- Control user access to features and services
- Remotely manage your mobile fleet
- Track usage trends via audits and reports
- Receive 24/7 support from G Suite experts
Characteristics
G-Suit or Google Apps have all the software tools that are needed in day to day office use. Cloud oriented processing gives this product unique characteristics over standard apps that work on your computer and depend on software/hardware that you have. Part of these characteristics is availability, cross-platform, safety, privacy, cooperation or/and sharing, offline availability, integration and data backup.
Availability
Standard office applications that are based on a personal computer have limitations and are only available from one location. Because google apps are based on cloud, you can access them virtually from any location on earth that has an internet connection. Like for all the cloud-based apps, the problem is that you need an internet connection in order to use them. But don’t worry, Google has an option to access your apps even if you are off-line, so you can continue to work with your apps and documents and answer your e-mail and sync everything the next time you connect.
Not only that you can access your apps from any location with internet, but you can also have access to your files. You have on-line storage space for keeping the files you upload to Drive or receive in your e-mail. Even tho you have quotas for that, Google doesn’t count certain types of files towards your quota. These files are Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites, and files in “Shared with me.”
Cross-platform
You don’t need to have that specific piece of hardware or operating system in order to run Google apps. The only thing you need to run Google apps is to have access to the internet and a web browser. So you can access your apps and your files using your computer, laptop, tablet, mobile…
Data Safety
All companies and governments invest a lot of time and effort in their data safety and security. The protection of vital data and computer systems is the main characteristic that makes a good information system. Google, like many other companies that offer cloud services, makes their top priority to protect the data of their clients. Google has industry-leading knowledge and expertise in building secure cloud infrastructure and applications.
Data privacy
One of the most common questions regarding your data in Google servers is who has access to it. The answer to that question is located in the Google Privacy Policy that can be found here: https://policies.google.com/privacy, and also in Terms of Service located here: https://policies.google.com/terms. Here are a couple of policy terms on how Google treats your data:
- Your data won’t be shared with third parties except in a situation defined in Privacy Policy. So basically Google is going to share your information only with your consent or in case of legal reasons. You can read more here: https://policies.google.com/privacy#infosharing
- Your data will be kept as long as you need it, but it can take up to 180 days to remove it from all Google’s servers and data centers.
- You can export a copy of your information or delete it from your Google Account at any time
- You get a range of security features, like Safe Browsing, Security Checkup, and 2 Step Verification to help you protect your account