Business continuity solutions are critical. New regulations and high downtime costs drive customer demand for resilient, multi-vendor options.
Google Workspace for Business Continuity Plan is a secure, all-in-one business continuity solution for productivity and collaboration where you can continue running your business during a service disruption.
Important: Google Workspace for Business Continuity is intended to be a proactive solution that you deploy before a service disruption, for use during a disruption. It is not designed to be a reactive recovery option.
Compare Business Continuity editions
Google offers two solutions to meet your needs:
Business Continuity–a secure, isolated Google Workspace environment that leadership and critical teams can use to communicate and collaborate during a crisis.
Should an outage occur, key personnel can sign into Google Workspace and will have access to services like Gmail, Drive, and Google Meet. Aside from user names and passwords, none of your data is synchronized with Google.
Learn more about Business Continuity.
Business Continuity Plus–our full-featured solution for organizations that require a "hot" standby environment with more of your business data available during a crisis. It's designed to keep your core functions operating with minimal disruption.
Should a service disruption occur, key personnel can sign in to Google Workspace and will have access to services like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Meet. Additionally, their Workspace accounts can include synchronized data such as email messages, calendar events, chat messages, and more.
Learn more about Business Continuity Plus.
Note: Directory and data synchronization requires customer setup and ongoing maintenance. We recommend engaging a partner or third-party service for a successful deployment.
Business Continuity features
Business Continuity and Business Continuity Plus include the same premium features that Google's largest customers use to run their business, secure their Workspace environments, and keep their data safe.
Productivity and collaboration features
Business Continuity includes familiar cloud-based apps like Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar and Meet that let your people connect, collaborate and deliver impact from anywhere, on any device.
| Workspace service | Description |
|---|---|
| Gmail | Secure, private, ad-free email for your business. Learn more. |
| Calendar | Integrated online calendars designed for teams. Learn more. |
| Google Chat | A messaging platform built for teams. Learn more. |
| Drive storage and Docs editors | Store, access, and share your files in one secure place. Create and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Learn more. |
| Google Meet | Secure video meetings for your business. Learn more. |
| Google Sites | Create high-quality websites for your team, project, or event. Learn more. |
| Google Tasks | Manage to-do lists, create tasks and subtasks. Learn more. |
| Google Keep | A note-taking service. Learn more. |
| Google Vault | An information governance and eDiscovery tool for Google Workspace. Learn more. |
| Google Vids | An AI-powered video creation app for work. Learn more. |
For a detailed list of features, see the Enterprise Plus columns in these feature comparison tables.
Compliance and security features
Business Continuity includes specialized features that provide organizations with advanced tools and support for managing compliance and security requirements.
These features offer enhanced controls over data storage and service provider access, and make it easier for organizations to meet regulatory requirements and protect sensitive information.
These controls can help organizations that manage sensitive data and need to comply with data handling and security regulations across the globe, such as industry regulations or data sovereignty requirements in the US and the EU.
Some of these regulations are:
- Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) standards
- Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) security requirements
- International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR)
- Impact Level 4 (IL4) requirements
- Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) compliance
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Access Management for Google Workspace | Restricts access to customer data for users with certain attributes, such as U.S.-based personnel, EU-based personnel, or individuals with FBI background checks. Note: Customers who purchased Assured Controls and Assured Support prior to June 14 2024 will still have this feature. |
| Access Approvals for Google Workspace | Require that Google support teams receive explicit approval from authorized customer personnel before granting access to sensitive or restricted data. |
| Client-side encryption: default mode | Enables you to turn on client-side encryption (CSE) by default for users that regularly handle sensitive data. |
| Client-side encryption: email hardware key encryption | Allows your organization to use existing Personal Identity Verification (PIV) or Common Access Card (CAC) smart cards to send and receive CSE-protected email messages in Gmail. |
| Client-side encryption: Send to anyone (beta) | Allows you to enable Gmail encryption without the need to configure S/MIME certificates. Also allows users to exchange client-side encrypted email with any external recipients, even those without S/MIME. Note: For this beta release, Send to anyone is available only for external recipients with Gmail. |
| Compliance data exports | Allows your organization to export and archive your Workspace data to comply with FINRA compliance rules, including SEC Rule 17a-4, SEC Rule 18a-6, and CFTC § 1.31. |
| Data regions advanced reporting | Indicates that data is being both stored and processed properly. You can see storage and processing status on an app-by-app basis. |
| Local data storage | Enables you to maintain your organization's Workspace data in the geographic locations of your choice using a Google Cloud Storage bucket. Admins can opt for continuous or one-time exports. |
| Policy compliance log events | Allows administrators to get a report of all Assured Controls users and a history of their data regions configurations, including:
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