What is Datto SaaS Protection?

This article defines Datto SaaS Protection, describes its technical benefits, and identifies the licenses and services it supports.

Datto SaaS Protection definition

Datto SaaS Protection is a data backup, recovery, and restore software solution built exclusively for MSPs. It provides comprehensive backup and recovery of cloud data stored in Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace servers.

The application performs continuous, automatic backups which are stored in Datto’s own private cloud. Therefore, it does not require an environment's local storage resources.

Datto SaaS Protection ensures data that is lost or deleted, either accidentally or intentionally, can be recovered and restored. While data recovery and restore can be performed for many files at once, the application enables these tasks to be performed granularly, for example, recovering and restoring only one file.

Datto SaaS Protection enables MSPs to protect their organizations’ Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace data while efficiently managing licenses and costs. Or, if desired, the organization can manage the account.

Key technical benefits

The technical benefits of implementing Datto SaaS Protection in your environment include the following:

  • Private cloud infrastructure.
  • Unlimited data storage capacity.
  • Indefinite retention options (length of time data is stored).
  • Manage organization backup data from a single pane of glass.
  • Monitor backup performance.
  • Quickly identify and recover individual objects or entire accounts with the folder structure and permissions intact.
  • Restore data to a point in time before a data loss or ransomware attack occurred.
  • Easily move files from one user to another.

Licenses and services supported

The following Google Workspace licenses are supported by Datto SaaS Protection:

  • Business Starter
  • Business Standard
  • Business Plus
  • Enterprise
  • Business for non-profit, Enterprise for non-profit
  • Google Workspace for Education

The following Google Workspace licenses are not supported by Datto SaaS Protection:

  • VFE (Vault Former Employees)
  • Archived Users
  • Suspended Users
  • Legacy Free Edition
  • @GMail.com users

The following Google Workspace services are supported by Datto SaaS Protection:

  • Gmail
  • Google Drive
  • Google Calendar
  • Google Contacts
  • Google Shared Drives

NOTE  All Gmail labels are backed up except the Chats label.

Google Drive data

SaaS Protection backs up all critical Drive data, including:

  • Native Google documents
  • Microsoft Office documents
  • Images

There is a small subset of files Datto SaaS Protection does not back up. These are:

  • Google Forms: While form itself cannot be backed up (due to Google not having an API available), the resulting response spreadsheet which contains the questions from the form is backed up.
  • Google Scripts and Fusion Tables: These are not available for export through the Google APIs. The underlying data for fusion tables will be backed up as a spreadsheet if it is in your drive.
  • Microsoft Office temporary files: When you edit an Office doc that is saved in Drive, Office creates a temporary file that gets deleted once your file is saved. You might see it as ~$example.docx. Since these temporary files have no content and cannot be restored, they are not backed up. This helps backups run faster and keeps your folder uncluttered.
  • 3rd-party application documents: Docs from 3rd parties like Smartsheet and Lucidchart cannot be backed up if they do not reside within Google Drive.
  • Google Classroom files: Cannot be backed up.