Cohesity Data Cloud

I have been in a relationship with Cohesity Data Cloud  for more than five years now. I have used Helios  in the past.

Cohesity Data Cloud  itself has two separate lines of products: the backup platform and the NAS  shared platform. They offer both. This is the only backup company that offers the NAS  solution. From a backup perspective, I believe they are one of the leaders, especially in case of ransomware protection and disaster recovery.

They provide a common pool of storage that you can purpose each component of the storage to a specific task. So you have unified access regardless of the platform using it. You can use it for backup, you can use it for NFS, you can use it for CIFS or S3 , all combined. Additionally, there is seamless access whether on-premises and cloud.

We have used the AI interface to optimize the performance, and we have seen actually a better than expected performance and behavior. In most cases, you can tune the performance to meet the expectation from the workload. Let's assume you have a backup environment and you have two different hosts with different recovery requirements. You can tune the performance to meet each platform without impacting the other.

From a deduplication perspective, I have been working with deduplication for about 25 years, when Data Domain and Avamar  came to the market. They were a great invention, but Cohesity Data Cloud comes with a different flavor where they provide global deduplication across multiple platforms. This provides a tremendous return on investment from a storage perspective because if you have a segment that can be deduplicated in one box and you have multiple boxes, you cannot repeat the deduplication function across different hardware. With Cohesity Data Cloud, you can still have deduplication regardless of where the data is. If you have a component in the cloud and another component on-premises, but there is a segment that repeats itself on both, you need to copy only one. That is a great return on investment.

Since we have a simple interface across all platforms, search is much easier, and that is out of the box. You can search across different infrastructure components as part of Cohesity Data Cloud. That is a great feature.

Cohesity Data Cloud is not unique in this area. There are a couple of other vendors who are playing in the same area. They provide some sort of isolation for the protected data that makes it very difficult, almost impossible to tamper with once it is stored on the platform. One of the major issues of ransomware attacks is that they happen in the background and it is too late after being hit. Giving a hard time for bad actors to access the data provides more immunity for your data from ransomware attacks.

All organizations are very interested in as-a-service model where they do not pay upfront costs, but only get the services and pay for what they use. Converting from CapEx to OpEx is the ultimate goal for any financial manager in any organization. The model uses some sort of object storage for the backup data and contents, which gives a better level of safety than the traditional file system because normally the object storage is not subject to alteration.

The only concern I have with cloud implementation is that if you have a presence on-premises, trying to use the cloud may become a performance challenge. It is a perfect situation for workloads that live in the cloud. The way I design things is we should not send data across the WAN to the cloud if it is a large volume that could potentially affect performance. A cloud solution is ideal for a cloud workload from Cohesity Data Cloud perspective. It is best to have some sort of local presence of a repository to do the backup using LAN performance. Then we can always send or upload the data to the cloud without impacting the actual backup window.

Support for additional platforms and the option to do multi-tier performance would be beneficial. For example, if I have three types of workloads - SAP database, Oracle database, and SQL database - each with different backup window requirements, the ability to tier performance to meet these specific needs would be perfect for the actual workload and meeting the availability requirements of each application domain.

The general perception is if it is not broken, do not fix it. In most cases, organizations do not see value for security until they are hit with something bad. With ever-increasing threats and risks of ransomware and data theft, the problem is becoming more obvious. Looking at what is happening in the market and seeing organizations being hit by security threats, the level of loss of services and client dissatisfaction makes security investment worthwhile. There is no real tangible ROI for security, but considering the potential of losing data forever or having it exposed unnecessarily to the market, it is worth the investment. The bad actors and risks are always reinventing themselves, so we must reinvent our security posture.

I have been in a relationship with Cohesity Data Cloud for more than five years now.

I have not seen a challenge yet. It is stable and accessible.

The documents indicate they are infinitely scalable.

Cohesity Data Cloud has a representative that is always in direct contact with us and suggests to buy from a reseller. The reseller model works best for them.

The best technical support I have seen was from Data Domain. When someone would touch their machine at a customer site, Data Domain support would call the customer immediately. In case of Cohesity Data Cloud, they are not at that level yet, but I am sure they will improve over time.

I have worked with all of them.

There is nothing called a perfect product in the market. In my experience so far, I am extremely satisfied with what Cohesity Data Cloud and their competitor are delivering.

There is nothing called a perfect product in the market. In my experience so far, I am extremely satisfied with what Cohesity Data Cloud and their competitor are delivering.

I would not say they are the cheapest, but they are providing a good return on investment. There are some other platforms that are cheaper, but the level of confidence that Cohesity Data Cloud delivers to the clients is worth that cost. It is very reasonably priced.

All organizations are very interested in as-a-service model where they do not pay upfront cost, but they only get the services and pay for what they use as they use it. Converting from CapEx to OpEx is the ultimate goal for any financial manager in any organization.

Cohesity Data Cloud has two separate lines of products: the backup platform and the NAS shared platform. They offer both. This is the only backup company that offers the NAS solution. From a backup perspective, they are one of the leaders.

Cohesity Data Cloud and another vendor are providing a great solution where they pool the storage in one place, enabling more efficient data reduction for storage and ubiquitous access for different applications. This is a unique feature of Cohesity Data Cloud and their competitor. Others are not at this level yet.

I would rate Cohesity Data Cloud a 9 out of 10.

It is best to run a sort of bake-off before purchasing. Even the best product might not meet customer expectations in some situations. I would recommend expanding your selection and then shortlisting selected vendors to no more than three, ideally two. Run a bake-off to ensure it meets your requirements.

Assume we have two different applications, each one 50 terabytes. One is a production SAP database, and the other is a small Oracle application in a departmental office. Because of the critical nature of the SAP component, the return or recovery from the SAP backup is considered a much higher priority than the back office application. The ability to assign recovery priority for data types enables meeting RPO of each application without impacting the other, which simplifies DR and recovery from major incidents.

The interoperability between different hyperscalers or cloud providers can be challenging. For an organization with presence in the major three cloud providers (AWS , Azure , and GCP), implementing the solution across all three simultaneously requires extensive experience to ensure delivery meets expectations. The process is straightforward with one cloud provider, but with multiple providers, interoperability will always be a challenge.

The usual use cases are mainly for VMware-related backups and Nutanix backups. We have some physical servers where we perform backups and restores. It's physical as well as virtual, but mainly virtual, VMware-related systems.

It has excellent integration for virtualization, which means we can easily protect VMs, virtual machines, which consists mainly of snapshot backups that are quite easy to recover. The Data Platform is a cluster containing many servers, making it quite fast in backup as well as recovery.

It's quite secure because it's not depending on current VMware servers or vCenter. It's an isolated platform which makes it more secure and quite valuable as a solution.

They still have quite some way to go for improving their agents. As we have many snapshots which are agentless, we know that for recovery, for instance, if you want to do file recovery, an agent is normally not really required, but it's the best approach. This agent is not always stable. We also notice some difference between versions. In a previous version, certain features were possible, and in a newer version, they're not possible anymore.

Regarding physical server backup, they can improve. In the current world, most things are virtualized, but the physical servers are not to be left alone, so that's something they can improve as well.

We have been using Cohesity Data Cloud  since last August, so one year now.

There are definitely some challenges. That's not only related to the product, it's also related to the way of working inside the company and the networking part, the firewalling part, and the strict separation between our production and non-production environment. These factors made it more complex.

The setup of the Cohesity Data Cloud  cluster itself is quite straightforward nowadays.

The cluster itself is quite stable. The nodes within the cluster can have some issues from time to time by restarting some processes automatically. Regarding hardware, it can sometimes be a small issue, but that's normal because the cluster consists of many nodes, many servers separately, so you can have power supplies, DIMMs, disks failing. In general, the product itself is quite stable.

It's not the scale-up approach they have with Veritas NetBackup . It's easy to add additional nodes to a current existing cluster, making it quite easy to expand.

They are quite responsive. Their knowledge has improved in the past year. If I compare it to August last year, it was more difficult than it is now. They probably upstaffed and made sure their knowledge was more up-to-date. I'm quite happy nowadays.

I was somewhat involved in the implementation of three new clusters in the past year, together with two other colleagues.

This solution receives a rating of 7 out of 10.

We have been using Cohesity Data Cloud  on the cloud part as well as on premises for several customers. We are an MSP, managed service provider supporting multiple customers. It is mostly for BCDR, backup continuity, and disaster recovery. While Cohesity  provides many full-fledged features, we primarily use it for backing up to offsite, S3 , along with local backup retentions and security encryption.

The most common use cases of Cohesity Data Cloud  that we work with are SaaS protection, such as Microsoft 365. This includes mailboxes, SharePoint , Teams, and OneDrive backups. We ensure we get the compliance report and show that all the backups are completed, checking for any throttling issues. We occasionally perform recovery and restoration of mail items, files, Teams channels, or virtual machines across AWS , Azure , and GCP.

There was a recent change from BETB to FETB in Cohesity Data Cloud, transitioning from back end terabyte to front end terabyte. They merged both metrics to become a single front end terabyte. Since I am not from the account side, I cannot comment extensively, but we had a customer who left Cohesity  because it became expensive for them. One of the worst situations occurred when the sizing team did not get the correct subscription, usage, and capacity from Cohesity. The customer nearly had to pay a penalty because they were not going to purchase it. Cohesity has been accommodating by providing grace periods on multiple instances, which is beneficial for customers who might not have budget availability at the end of the year or last quarter.

One of the most outstanding features is forever incremental. Many backup platforms are implementing this feature, which provides immutable backups.

We utilize Cohesity Helios. We were using two solutions from Cohesity Data Cloud: one with six nodes set up on the premises, and for another customer, we use Cohesity DataProtect Cloud, which is Helios  itself. It is completely hosted at Cohesity in their region where we back up Microsoft 365 and AWS  virtual machines. Reporting  is another valuable feature. We can give the CSM team viewer accounts for reporting to access job status, protection status, unprotected, failed, and SLA breach backups at any time.

All backups in Cohesity Data Cloud perform compression and deduplication. Global deduplication is particularly beneficial when purchasing FETB. The deduplication ensures optimal data processing and storage consumption, which is advantageous for customers who want to minimize costs.

Automated tiering in Cohesity Data Cloud is something I have not extensively worked with. It involves lifecycle policies where local backups go to the hot tier, then to the cool tier, and then to archive. While I have used this feature with another platform, we have not utilized this capability provided by Cohesity.

Cohesity Data Cloud scans backups by default for ransomware and malware, sending notifications if there are any security concerns or compromised systems. This is beneficial if you do not have a paid subscribed endpoint solution such as CrowdStrike.

The AI chatbot in Cohesity Data Cloud could be more useful for backup failures. When there is a critical error or warning on the dashboard, it would be beneficial if Cohesity could provide analysis assistance. For instance, identifying latency issues that might be slowing down backups and breaching SLAs. Having insights or a helping assistant for health status would be valuable, showing patterns over specific time periods and identifying changes in bandwidth or backup interruptions.

Currently, there are limitations to what a backup engineer can do independently. More autonomy in maneuvering through logs and troubleshooting would be beneficial. While the diagnostics have numerous attributes, they are not easily accessible or user-friendly for engineers who handle multiple responsibilities beyond backup management.

For how long have I used the solution?

Cohesity Data Cloud is quite reliable. I have never experienced issues with Cohesity Helios or end services going down. We encountered some initial throttling issues when setting up Microsoft 365 tenant backups, but these were related to Microsoft and Azure  API communications. The only downside has been occasional subpar support experiences.

The scalability of Cohesity Data Cloud hosted environments is managed entirely by Cohesity and the cloud provider. Scaling depends on subscription levels - when customers exceed their subscribed storage capacity, they can pay Cohesity to scale the resources. For compute and memory in the cloud environment, Cohesity Cloud handles this completely. For on-premises deployments, scaling is achieved by adding another node to the cluster.

I would rate the technical support of Cohesity Data Cloud at seven out of ten. I have encountered some less experienced engineers who seemed uncertain about troubleshooting steps when they should have been the experts.

I participate in the initial setup and deployment of Cohesity Data Cloud. The process is straightforward, especially with professional services assistance from Cohesity for initial setup. Once everything is signed, including capacity and subscription details, the implementation becomes simple. Users receive login credentials and can register sources, whether for Microsoft Azure, tenant accounts, or subscriptions.

For on-premises deployments, physical setup involves racking and stacking nodes, creating clusters, and establishing protection and retention policies. Any experienced engineer should be able to handle operations, ensuring proper credentials for Microsoft tenant, AWS, or GCP access with appropriate permissions. The SaaS protector needs proper network connectivity to communicate with VPCs or VNETs. While a skilled engineer might not need professional services, Cohesity's setup assistance is available for those who require it.

I have not used Cohesity Data Cloud's application-consistent data protection. I rate this solution 9 out of 10.

I have 15 years of experience in all the backup and storage tools. Cohesity Data Cloud  is one of the good tools. It is user-friendly, and anyone can use this tool. The support is really good. In TSM and other tools we used long back, we didn't get that much support from the vendor. Cohesity  is good support-wise, and the dashboard and everything is good.

Cohesity Data Cloud  is user-friendly, and anyone can use this tool. The support is really good, especially the web support. Additionally, the dashboard and everything are good.

The initial deployment of Cohesity Data Cloud, from my experience, is easy. Cohesity  is easy to integrate. Implementation is very easy compared to other backup tools.

Scalability is good with Cohesity Data Cloud, and I am happy with that.

The downside of Cohesity Data Cloud is that it is not supporting a legacy environment. If you compare it to Commvault, Commvault supports the entire legacy environment. We have still 2000 and 2003 servers, Windows, and old legacy Oracle servers, and old AX machines. There is also a Skytap environment, a third-party cloud supported by Commvault, but not with Cohesity. Initially, we thought of taking the Cohesity tool only, but unfortunately, the management decided to go with Commvault.

There should be some enhancements with the cloud platforms and integration with the cloud. I feel some dissatisfaction with integrating with the cloud, such as Azure  and AWS . When I tried with the Cohesity tool initially, I didn't have much feasibility to work on it.

For stability, since we have been using Cohesity Data Cloud for only three months, the server went down once. But I don't complain about the tool because of Cohesity. I couldn't find anything negative about Cohesity Data Cloud specifically. The downtime was due to server patches on the OS side.

Cohesity Data Cloud does require maintenance on my end. One more thing is that Cohesity has to develop more on vulnerabilities. Maintenance releases should come as soon as possible. Issues such as ransomware protection and fixing vulnerabilities should be prioritized.

I have used Cohesity Data Cloud in my career for one year from 2020 to 2021, and then recently started again three months back.

The initial deployment of Cohesity Data Cloud, from my experience, is easy. Cohesity is easy to integrate. Implementation is very easy compared to other backup tools.

Since we have been using Cohesity Data Cloud for only three months, the server went down once. But I don't complain about the tool because of Cohesity. I couldn't find anything negative about Cohesity Data Cloud specifically. The downtime was due to server patches on the OS side. Other than that, I haven't found any negative aspects of Cohesity Data Cloud.

Scalability is good with Cohesity Data Cloud, and I am happy with that.

So far, I haven't contacted technical support for Cohesity Data Cloud. We have some third-party vendors for support, so we haven't needed to contact anyone thus far.

Initially, we thought of taking the Cohesity tool only, but unfortunately, the management decided to go with Commvault. However, I proposed that we at least use Cohesity for at least one of the environments. My decision led to them taking the Cohesity licenses. I'm implementing now, but there should be some enhancements with the cloud platforms and integration with the cloud.

The initial deployment of Cohesity Data Cloud, from my experience, is easy. Cohesity is easy to integrate. Implementation is very easy compared to other backup tools.

The last time I set it up, it took hardly two days to implement the configuration of Cohesity Data Cloud. Initially, we were in the testing phase only. Just after two days, the Cohesity server was ready. I started slowly creating policies and schedules per my environment and doing retention policies. After that, I migrated a few clients, around 50 to 60 servers.

I'm the only person here implementing everything. There are three other support people who are using Cohesity Data Cloud. I am handing over to the L1 and L2 people to monitor it. I haven't received any complaints from these people. 80% of the stuff is still with Commvault, so it's only 20%. Slowly, maybe a few months later, I can suggest to the management to move.

The pricing of Cohesity Data Cloud is good. Comparatively, compared to IBM and Commvault, Cohesity Data Cloud offers the best deal for my environment.

I haven't used any alternatives to Cohesity Data Cloud yet.

Right now, because we are in the migration phase and not into the production environment, I cannot give all the suggestions from my experience. Maybe after one or two months later, I'll give the complete picture of Cohesity Data Cloud.

We are customers of Cohesity Data Cloud, not partners.

I can give Cohesity Data Cloud an eight out of ten. It's good but not very good because of a few things, particularly the cloud integrations, ransomware issues, and vulnerabilities. If these areas are fixed as soon as possible, then Cohesity will beat the market soon.