Mass export of 200+ users

[Bruno Gorga]

Hello Community,

I hope you're doing well.

I am new using GAM, so I don't have much experience using it for big admin operations.

I am on my GWS renewal period (it will be on the 31th) and I need to reduce 220+ licenses.

My plan is Google Enterprise Standard, so I cannot export group data (so that I can add the users I plan to delete in a single group and export only the group's data).

I have set the export of the entire organization's data, and the bucket will be ready on the 17th, so I will have roughly 13 days to extract the data.

My question is: I have already read older posts stating that it is not possible to extract the data from the bucket directly to a Google Drive folder, because of API limitations.

So I would like to ask if any of you have already been through this situation, and how did you manage to do this in the best time-saving manner. 

I extracted the entire org's data, but I will be downloading only the data of the specific 220 users that I will be deleting from my Admin Console.

Is is possible to use GAM to extract only the selected user's from the bucket with the entire org's data? And also, as it isn't possible to redirect the extraction directly to a Drive folder, would it be possible to automatize the process in any manner?

For example, if I'm going to spin up a VM to do this without it consuming my network, how can I create an automation or a process with GAM so that, whenever an user's data is downloaded into my VM, it can be uploaded directly to the Drive Folder and then deleted so that it doesn't occupy much space? Does GAM support this action?

Thanks in advance

[Jay Lee]

Some thoughts here:

1. My recommendation is...don't. Don't export/download former employee data. Doing so as a process creates a significant amount of IT work (export/download/verify/recover/etc) on what should be a routine process of employee exit and thus takes away from other IT projects. Instead my strong recommendation is to look at Google Archived User licensing. Archived user allows you to place a special license on former employees and keep their data in place and subject to existing data archiving and retention rules. Instead of a major export operation on each employee exit all you need to do is set the archived bit for the employee and then once they've reached your retention period, delete the account.
   
   
2. Having said all that, if you do want to download the Org Takeout and then upload it to Google Drive and wish to do so in as efficient manner as possible I'd look at setting up a Google Compute Engine VM with sufficient storage space to a) download all the data from Google Cloud Storage bucket that Takeout creates b) upload the data to Google Drive. Using Compute Engine here means all download/upload traffic occurs on Google's network (Google Cloud Storage to Google Compute Engine VM) and does not impact your actual network.

Jay

Jay Lee

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[Bruno Gorga]

Hello Jay,

Thanks for your reply.

Regarding 2., this is what I'm thinking about, but I wanted to know if GAM could help on that, because my plan doesn't support the export of a group's data, and I need the backup only of some of my users. So the only solution I had in mind was requesting the export of my entire org, and then downloading only the data from the users I need from the bucket. Can we do this using GAM? Because as far as I remember, the users data is separated by folders on the bucket, right? So can I configure GAM to extract only the folders I need? Is there any sort of automation possible so that I don't need to repeat the entire process with another folder?

Thanks in advance

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[Bruno Gorga]

Also, regarding the first recommendation, I tried arguing that... but it didn't work.

[Jay Lee]

See:

https://github.com/GAM-team/GAM/wiki/Vault-Takeout#download-a-takeout-bucket

the download is currently everything, no way to filter and since the Takeout export format isn't fully detailed it's unlikely we'll do so in the future.

You'll need to download the entire Takeout to the Compute Engine VM. From there you can decide what's worth uploading to Google Drive.

Again, be sure to consider the level of effort and time this takes to perform on a regular basis vs. the cost of Archive User licensing. Document IT hours spent on this, risk (org data loss, possibly legal implications) of doing it wrong, etc

This is reinventing the wheel but it looks more like a square.

Jay

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[Bruno Gorga]

Hello Jay,

I see, I will record this and take it to the upper level.

Thank you so much for the help! 

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[Joel Romero]

Hi

Maybe this option can help you.

Export all your organization's data

It can be downloaded individually.

Joel