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"You always backup" is an oversimplification. If you run a medium-size company, chances are, you don't back up stuff yourself. Instead, you pay someone else to do it. You trust them to do it right. This article raises a good question. Why can't you trust Google to do it right as well?

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You should always have at least 2 different backups, one on site and one off site (disaster recovery) these are completely separate from "it's in the cloud so I don't have to worry about it." And this is why I personally dislike "the cloud" because too many people rely on it and don't have a proper plan in place. You can rely on it sure, but don't only rely on it.

A decent hoster or mail service provider takes care of that for you. They have at least 2 different backups, one on site and one off site. You don't take care of that yourself and the backup is entirely transparent to you. This is why service providers can make money: because they can take care of things for you. It is their raison d'être. Taking care of that yourself is as ridiculous as hosting the email servers yourself. It's not cost effective anymore. The only conclusion from this story is that Google is not a decent hoster or email service provider. The company using them can be excused for expecting better service and they are rightfully moving their business elsewhere.

And to address who does it, it doesn't matter. Someone in the company should be in charge of doing the backups. If no one else will, then take it upon yourself to do so. If you have a medium sized company, someone in your IT department should be doing it. And if you are a large company, there is simply no excuse.

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