In an example of the growing reseller market surrounding Google (GOOG) Apps and other cloud-based productivity services, backup and recovery vendor Spanning Cloud Apps has announced a reseller “console,” as well as the introduction of new product features. Read on for a closer look at both pieces of news and their significance for cloud backup and recovery.

Spanning launched the reseller product, called the Authorized Reseller Console, earlier this month. The platform is designed to provide channel partners with “clear visibility and control over their customers’ Spanning Backup services,” through a central interface that allows them to manage all of their Spanning customers.

The console is only the latest move in Spanning’s efforts to expand its engagement with the channel. Back in March, it launched a reseller program offering discounted pricing, referrals and marketing programs for VARs working with the company’s products.

Also this month, Spanning expanded the feature set of its flagship product for the summer 2013 release of Backup for Google Apps. New functionality includes email retention policy enforcement, which allows administrators to specify how long backup copies of email will remain in storage in accordance with enterprise compliance policies, and better support for large domains.

Accompanying the summer 2013 product release is a new “knowledge base” on Spanning’s website. The resource provides documentation for end users in the form of whitepapers, videos, articles and more covering the use of Spanning’s products.

Without getting into specifics, Spanning says its customers base is “rapidly growing,” along with enterprise use of the Google Apps suite itself. That growth means increasing demand for value-added features that smooth over the “pain points” involved in backup and recoverty for Google’s cloud services, according to Spanning CEO Charlie Wood.