Earlier this year, I discussed the benefits of Google Apps and why everyone should consider using it on their site.

Simply put, Google Apps is easy to set up on any server, adds a lot of great benefits to your site and makes it easier than ever to use Gmail’s functionality with your site’s domain.

However, what I didn’t cover is that, if you have a VPS or dedicated server, you need to pay special attention to Google Apps and what it can do.

The reason is that there are many “hidden perks” to running Google Apps for your domain if you manage your own server. If you implement it correctly, you may find that Google Apps can help make your site faster, more reliable and more user-friendly than ever before.

1. Greater Reliability

This one is pretty straightforward. One of the most common causes of server crashes and slowdowns, especially on low-memory VPS systems, is the mail server.

I’ve seen this twice myself, both times due to spam attacks. Once it was caused by an improperly-configured catchall account (my fault) and the other time was due to a buggy, overactive spam filtering system.

In short, every time you receive an email, you use server resources and, during spam spikes or if the server is mis-configured, you can find yourself running out of memory and unable to serve Web customers.

Google Apps, by taking over email functionality, removes one of the greatest weakpoints of any server and moves it to Google, who has the data centers and experience to run the service effortlessly.

2. More Hard Drive Space

Speaking of things that can bog your server down. One of the other greater limitations of a VPS or a dedicated server is the amount of hard drive space available, especially on a smaller account.

Basically, these types of accounts are built for speed and processing power, not storage, and usually offer smaller hard drives. Email, however, can take up a great of storage space, especially there are multiple users who routinely trade large attachments.

Even a small email user can eat up a 40 GB hard drive, a common limit for a lower-end VPS but Google offers 7 GB per user for free on Google Apps, making it a good deal for a VPS account that needs more than just a handful of email accounts.

This can also play to your server’s reliability as you can, quit literally, stuff your hard drive so full that your Web server can’t function: A dangerous problem that I’ve actually seen first hand.

3. Security

If you run your own email server, especially SMTP server, right now it is under attack from spammers, viruses and others who would love nothing more than to hack into it and use it for their own nefarious purposes. Though website defacements and SQL hacks make headlines, the silent and ongoing war for email servers is just as important and just as dangerous.

With Google Apps you can actually disable the email server that came installed with your account, both the IMAP/POP3 server and the SMTP. This not only saves memory but improves your security, turning over the security to a company with much more experience and resources to help with the matter and a proven track record in this area.

In short, rather than worrying about your own defenses and patching your own email services, you can worry about your Web, database and other servers.

4. Support

This one is important if you share or resell your server to anyone else, even just friends. As you probably know, supporting and troubleshooting email problems can be a tremendous pain, especially when trying to offer support to various mobile devices.

Fortunately, Google makes it easier to offer support by providing a series of help pages designed to make it simple for anyone to figure out how they need to do anything from setting up an iPhone to push mail or simply setting up Thunderbird.

Where you might find tutorials and how-tos on your IMAP server scattered and incomplete, Google has a complete list of guides for just about anything, making it both faster and more effective for the task.

5. New Features

Though most of the talk has been about email, specifically Gmail, on your own domain Google Apps actually adds a slew of other features including Google Wave, Google Docs, Google Calendar and more, all for your own site. Though these features can be obtained with a regular Google account, having them in a Google Apps account is similar to having your own private server for these tools.

But there are also features you can’t get with a regular Google Account, such as Google Apps Marketplace, which extends Google Apps with new features from third party developers. This marketplace is not available to regular Gmail and Google account users, only those with Google Apps.

Finally, Google Apps adds features that would either be difficult, expensive or impossible to do on your own server without it, such as Microsoft Exchange support (at least for mobile devices) and video hosting.

In short, Google Apps expands on what you can do with your server and what you can do with a Google account. It is easily the best way to get the most out of your server and your Google experience.

Bottom Line

To be clear, Google Apps is not for everyone. There are many cases where you need to stick with standard, off-the-shelf components that aren’t controlled by a third party. This is especially true if you have customized needs or have a wish to be able to work on all of your server’s components yourself.

However, for many, if not most, Google Apps is probably a good idea, especially those who already use most of Google’s products for most of their communications.

In short, if you use Google already, you have nothing to lose and you’re likely missing out by not taking advantage of Google Apps. However, if you’re trying to avoid Google or need additional customization and flexibility, then Google Apps is likely a poor choice.

Still, it is a great service well worth considering and one that I have been happy with for several years now.

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