The Google Cloud Storage Platform offers durable and highly available object storage. With Google Cloud Storage, you can store and retrieve any amount of data, at any time, from anywhere on the web.

With the arrival of ChronoSync v4.7, connecting and backing up to Google Cloud Storage is quick and easy. This guide will provide all the steps necessary to get you set up with Google Cloud and get your important data backed up to your own personal cloud.

If you already have a Google Cloud Platform account, you can begin with the next step, CREATE A PROJECT. Follow these steps to sign up for a Google Cloud Platform account:

• Go to the Google Cloud Platform website and click on "TRY IT FREE". At the time of this writing, Google will give you $300 to spend on Google Cloud Platform over the next 60 days.
• Log into your Google account.(If you don’t have a Google account, click on “Create account”).
• Fill out the ‘Try Google Cloud Platform for free’ form. You must provide your credit card/banking information.
• Accept and start your free trial.

In Google Cloud, projects are organized entities for which you store your buckets. You must have one or more projects before you can create buckets. You can create multiple projects and use them to organize your Google Cloud Storage data into logical groups. If you already have a project set up that you'd like to use, you can skip to the CREATE BUCKETS TO ADD TO PROJECT section. Here's how you create a project:

• After signing up, you should be presented with an option to create a project. If so, give your project a name and click on “Create”.
• If not presented with the option to create a project, click on the 3 horizontal lines at the top left to activate the menu.
• Choose “IAM & Admin”.
• Click on “Create Project”.
• Give the project a name.
• Click on “Create”.

If you already have buckets defined that you wish to backup to, you can skip to the next section, RETRIEVE ID & KEY FOR CHRONOSYNC.

A 'Bucket' is a container for objects stored in Google Cloud. You can create as many buckets as you'd like. In ChronoSync, once connected to the Google Cloud service, you'll select one of your buckets to backup to.

To create a bucket:

• Open the menu and choose “Storage” from the Storage submenu.

• Make sure “Browser” is selected.
• Click on “Enable Billing”.
• Click on “Create Bucket”.
• Provide a name, storage class, and location.

Google recommends that all bucket names comply with DNS naming conventions and need to be unique. We recommend using hyphens or periods in the name, e.g. “smith-fred-pics-graduation" or “smith.fred.pics.graduation". Google bucket name requirements.

• Click on “Create”.

To make a connection to Google Cloud, ChronoSync needs your access key credentials in order to access the buckets under your account. ChronoSync requires two keys: the 'Client ID' and the 'Client Secret'. Follow these instructions to enable your access keys:

• Open the menu and choose “API Manager”.

• Click on “Credentials”.
• Click on “OAuth consent screen”.
• Complete the necessary information and click on “Save”.

• Click on “Credentials”.
• Click “Create Credentials”.

• Select “OAuth client ID”.

• For “Application Type”, choose “Other”.
• Provide a Name.
• Click on “Create”.

• You are presented with your OAuth client information which is what ChronoSync needs to connect to Google Cloud.
• Save this information.
• For the client ID, ChronoSync only needs the part up to the first period.

Now that you have everything set up in Google Cloud, you can move over to ChronoSync and set things up so you can begin backing up to the Cloud. Follow the steps below to set up a Google Cloud connection profile. Once this is done, you can select Google Cloud as one of your targets and then back up to it.

• Open Preferences in ChronoSync.
• Go to Connections Preferences.
• Click on the plus sign to add a new connection profile.

• Provide a name.
• Choose “Google Cloud Storage” for Connection Type.
• Use the Client ID (up to the period) and Secret Key you received in the Google Cloud Platform.
• Click on “Sign in”.
• Enter your Google email address and password to sign into Google.
• “Allow” Google to access information. Note: Gaining access to your information is part of the OAuth authentication scheme and it is Google, not Econ, that requires it.
• “Test” the connection.
• If valid, click on “Next” to set up the Advanced connection profile features.

• Set whichever Advanced options you'd like. For a thorough explanation of them, click on the Help button to visit the ChronoSync help.
• When finished, click on “Save” to save the profile.
• Now you’re ready to connect to it.

To connect to Google Cloud, you set up your targets just like you would with any sync document. Follow these steps to set up a Left-to-right Backup of a local folder to an Google Cloud bucket:

• Select your Source target by clicking on "Choose..." in the Setup panel's Source pane.
• On the Destination pane, choose the Google Cloud connection you just created from the "Connect to:" menu.
• Click "Choose..." to select a bucket from your Google Cloud account.
• Click on "Select" to close the sheet.

At this point, your backup is ready to run. If you wish to set rules or options, visit the respective panel.

• Click the big right arrow in the middle of the Setup panel (or choose 'Synchronize' from the toolbar) to perform the backup.

That's it! You have now backed up files to a Google Cloud bucket!

For most people, the above steps will work flawlessly for setting up a Google Cloud account, connecting and backing up to it. However, we live in an imperfect world and sometimes things just don't work out as expected. If you encounter any problems following this tutorial, here's some tips that may help you get back on track:

The Google Cloud website has documentation and forums in case you run into any problems with your account.

From the "Help" menu in ChronoSync, you can try some of the following search terms (minus the quotes):

"Connections"
"Profiles"
"Google Cloud"
"Targets"

Check out the following guides that may help you when configuring connection profiles:

• Remote Bootable Backups (Configuring a connection profile starts at the 1:06 mark)
• Configuring Connection Profiles

Contact our technical support team and just ask! We don’t mind — we're here to help!