We use it as a hosted cloud solution. We had initially tried Azure File Sync, but that did not work. Due to certain security concerns, I was tasked with researching alternatives. I evaluated several options, including Cohesity and Nasuni, before finding the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform to be the best fit for our needs. We performed a proof of concept with our applications director, and based on the positive results, I recommended the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform to senior management.

The CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform's replication and versioning capabilities are reliable, and we have not encountered any major complaints in these areas. We have built-in high availability and disaster recovery support through our architecture, which includes three CTERA filers. One is on-prem on Apollo 4200. The second filer is a VMware virtual machine, and the third one is in Azure. In terms of the application servers, we have three application servers sitting in the Azure cloud, and we also have two database servers. We have a replication server between Database 1 and Database 2, which also sits in Azure. That is the primary architecture as far as CTERA is concerned. The replication works pretty well, and I did not find any major complaints regarding the replication aspect. We do get notifications if something does not happen or if there are any error messages, but that is in a normal stride.

The product has significantly contributed to reducing our recovery time objectives (RTO) and recovery point objectives (RPO). That is what they promised. We have stub files on the filers that we use. It has been helpful in the reduction of storage, RTO, and RPO.

We were able to see its benefits immediately because that is how it has been structured. Once we migrate and upload the data to the cloud, we see all the magic happening almost immediately or within a couple of hours. Once we upload the data through the filer, it goes on the portal. From the portal, the metadata changes are made into the filer, and from the portal, it does a sync on all the other filers. It takes an hour to two to sync up all the devices within the infrastructure.

We never had any problems or any security concerns related to data protection. It has been good so far, so I believe they have something robust and secure out there. We do have a parent company that looks into any security concerns, and we have never received any complaint related to the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform.

The best feature is the migration tool within CTERA.

It is easy to learn. I work as an infrastructure engineer, so I manage the storage. I manage the VMware infrastructure. I manage a little bit of cloud. I manage the compute as well, so for me, it was pretty easy. Once I understood the architecture, it was pretty easy. Currently, I am the primary engineer who provides all necessary support for all our users, and for me, it was pretty easy to understand. Once I understood the architecture, it was pretty easy to put all the pieces together and go about it.

One area for improvement is the migration tool, which at times does not work as designed, necessitating the use of alternative solutions like Robocopy.

AI and automation features could enhance the platform, such as AI-powered search, predictive storage analytics, and intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring. Predictive storage analytics will help with better capacity planning. There can be some sort of intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring.

The reporting and analytics features could be improved for better customization and documentation capabilities. When we wanted to know the total amount of storage that we have put into Azure through CTERA during a specific period, we had to go about it in a roundabout way. It was not very easy. Customized reports and documentation will be helpful from a client's perspective.

Performance and scalability can be enhanced for faster operation. They could make it a little bit faster, but that probably requires fine-tuning from the infrastructure perspective.

We have been using the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for about two to three years.

It is very stable and reliable. We have not experienced any major problems from the platform side. Any issues were related to the hardware.

It offers good scalability options, including vertical and outward scalability. We can add resources as needed.

Their technical support is pretty good. They take ownership of the call, and I enjoy working with them. It is pretty easy.

They are excellent. They are available 24/7, and I have been able to contact them even at odd hours. They swiftly address concerns and take ownership of the call, providing a very satisfactory support experience.

Positive

We previously used Azure File Sync but encountered security concerns from Microsoft. We had to bring it down. 

It was not very easy or very complicated. We had an Azure engineer and CTERA  support to help us out, so it was pretty easy. Once we understood the concepts and defined what exactly we needed, such as how many filers and failover devices were required, it was very easy. After we had the image, we provisioned the servers in the cloud, and it was not very difficult. It was pretty easy.

It was implemented by my coworker, who has since left. It probably took a couple of weeks, but we were not working on it every day and all the time. It was done based on the availability of the engineers and the availability on the CTERA side as well. It was a big project because we have tons of application servers and file services. We also had a hardware issue. We had various phases, such as defining the architecture, migration, testing, etc. It was tested at every level, and then it was finally put up in production.

In terms of maintenance, for the CTERA filer that is on a physical server, I had to get in touch with CTERA engineers to upgrade the CTERA firmware. I also had to do the HPE hardware firmware upgrade. I had to upgrade the drivers on the NIC cards. Such maintenance has to be done. 

We worked with CTERA support as well as our own team including an Azure engineer. The implementation was facilitated by their guidance.

I am positive that CTERA has helped reduce the total cost of ownership by eliminating the need for manual storage management and reducing storage service processes. Previously, whenever we needed storage, I had to carve out a LUN presented through HPE OneView. It was a process. Now, I do not have to worry about storage. This has definitely saved a great deal for the organization.

I am not directly involved in the pricing aspects, but I understand that CTERA's pricing is competitive and within industry standards.

We tried Nasuni and Cohesity, but CTERA stood out due to its ease of use and superior security features.

Overall, I would rate the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform a nine out of ten. 

We use CTERA in almost every site we use. It is the platform for every commercial site that we have in the world. We have around 198 of their devices locally, and we also have CTERA devices in our central locations for each region.

Even though we have added additional devices throughout the four years, we have been able to do that and cover it 24/7 throughout the world with four resources. CTERA can make it easier on your staff in that respect. When it is deployed and connected with proper Active Directory and bandwidth, and things are moving properly, you do not need to touch it. You do not need to do a lot. That is the nice part of CTERA.

The features I find most valuable are in the gateways themselves. They have done a great job over the years of providing insight into what is happening with our products, with the batches that come through that are scanned. I enjoy that part of it, and it is fairly easy to use from our standpoint once we get to know the product. 

For the technical side, they have done a very good job over the last couple of years. Joe, Mukesh, and Shannon have done a great job teaching our staff. Joe Scott comes across as almost like a professor when he is teaching. He is very good at it. Once you learn how the system works, it is fairly easy, but there are a lot of little things that can go wrong. There are a lot of moving parts within it, so a lot of things can happen. You can do all the right steps and follow the runbook that is provided by CTERA, but you still need CTERA to help you dig down deep when you find an issue because new ones happen all the time.

One of the bigger things that I would like to see is additional logging. There are logs in there. They provide us with the initial logs on what is happening on our CTERA device. I appreciate that, but they do not give us any further information. I would like to have more information on the logs themselves. For example, if we do identify an issue, where could we use those logs? We have to download a specific log that only goes to them for them to review. We have no insight into it even if it is something that is on our side or our issue. I would like to have more visibility into that.

File replication-wise, they do a good job, but I would like to see a little bit more on folders. If somebody has touched a folder and moved it, I would like a little bit more details on that. We have certain folders for specific sites. Some people have access to them, and suddenly, a folder disappears. It could be because operations deleted it or moved it, maybe accidentally within another folder. There should be logs that we could go back to and see when those file folders were moved or touched and have an idea. Right now, we do not have this information. It is a big search if we lose a file or the operations team deletes a folder with scanned images in it. We do not get a log that says that so and so in operations touched this and hit the delete button. Such information is essential for doing RCAs when we have issues like that.

It does a very good job with data protection, but I would like some additional logs. I would like some additional ability to see who touched the folders. We have to let operations be able to touch certain folders because of the way our system is developed. Unfortunately, within CTERA, we do not have those logs. I would love to have those logs. If we turned on additional logging, it would fill it up so quickly that we would not be able to maintain and have enough storage. That is our issue. I would like to see additional logging available that did not occupy so much of our storage space so that we could see when somebody touched a folder and moved it. That would give us the last little piece to ensure that our data security is optimal.

It would be nice if there was an intermediary between HC400s and going bigger, something that would allow additional storage or even add storage to the HC400s, which recurrently cannot do. We have smaller scanning sites that use a physical device. These physical devices have very limited storage, so we end up running out of storage at times. There is no real alternative without going to a larger scale in three-node Nutanix and blowing up the site, and it may not be ready for it. It would be nice if there was an intermediary between the HC400s and going bigger. We should be able to have additional storage or even add storage to the HC400s when we get to that point where we are low and we do not have much storage on that HC400. It is not a large device. There are only three and a half terabytes. Once that storage is gone, you cannot add any more unless you club another HC400 with it or go to a bigger device. Clubbing an HC400 is a lot more hassle than it is worth.

I have been using the solution for over four years.

Stability-wise, we just went through one issue that they addressed. We were having cloud sync issues. We had things deployed for years, and we were suddenly getting cloud sync issues that were crashing our sites. When it took the site down, we had to physically rebuild the actual disk and then download the data. It caused us a lot of pain from the standpoint of working through it. It required a lot of copying of images. It was a lot of work for us on our end. They worked through it. Shannon did a good job of keeping us abreast of what was going on and the steps they were taking to resolve. It took a little bit longer than what we wanted, and we had several more cloud sync issues, but, eventually, they came out with a new version to deploy. That seems to have taken care of the issue.

They do a very good job with scalability. CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow. The smaller HC400 devices do not scale well if placed in a site on the cusp of needing a larger setup, but everything else that CTERA has product-wise does very well.

We use the ticketing system regularly, and it works well. It has gotten better over time. When I first started, we would contact them a lot by phone for P1s or severity ones. I found that to be very cumbersome and less reliable, but since then, we have been able to work through those issues. By having Joe, Mukesh, and Shannon, we have been able to resolve some of those issues. If we supply a ticket, they are able to find a way to help us. We sometimes do call. We can now also get on the calendar and schedule time. That is a nice feature. When we first started out, everything was on call, and those people we were calling did not have a clue of what they were doing. That has changed a lot over the last four years.

They have also done a good job recently from the training aspect. Joe, Mukesh, and Shannon have done a good job with the relationship and the relationship building. They have been able to work with us even when we look at licensing and the amount of licenses that we have to purchase for all these devices. They have worked with us even on that.

Positive

This is my first opportunity to use and work in this environment. I came from a different technology before, so this is my first introduction.

It is easy to deploy. We have a team that helps set up the system before it goes live, and they have really got it down to an art at this point.

For one site, we can probably get it stood up with servers and other things that are needed within about two weeks. It is fairly simple. It also depends on the download it takes and how much data that you want to use. There are a lot of variables in there, but it would take about two weeks.

They are always looking to upgrade their versions, which is great. Most recently, they upgraded their version to help with an issue that we were having in CTERA. That was good. However, when I first got here, we were on so many different versions of CTERA that we committed ourselves to only upgrading once a year. They may have several versions or two other versions coming out throughout the year, but we only upgrade once. We have so many sites and so many places that we have to touch. We can only do it during downtime, which makes it very difficult for us, so we deploy the version at the beginning of the year and do not touch it for the rest of the year.

We did not use any third-party integrator or consultant. We worked directly with Joe and the team.

Its benefits can be seen immediately. It is an edge filer that does well when it is operating at its most efficient. You can see its benefits immediately when the storage is correct, the latency is lower, and there is proper bandwidth and a good connection with Active Directory. You can go from a site that has no CTERA device and that was just sending over the wire because it was a smaller scanning site to begin with. After deploying a CTERA device, you can immediately get benefits from it.

There are so many moving parts of CTERA because you are connected not only to Active Directory; you have the network connections, routers, switches, etc. There are many things that it goes through to get to your central environment, including your overall bandwidth from the ISP. If everything is working and operating as it should, it is a good service. You do not need to touch it a lot. You need to have everything working, and that is no fault of CTERA. There are a lot of moving parts when you look at everything that goes into it.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. We have many third-party products that are not edge filers like CTERA. From a product standpoint, they compare well, but the support really lifts CTERA higher. The support aspect is very significant.

I primarily use the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for SMB shares and object storage. To accommodate my growing needs, I plan to migrate the Hitachi Content Platform for archival purposes and expand to a broader platform.

CTERA's instantaneous and redundant file replication, available across multiple geographical locations, ensures easy and user-friendly recovery. Even end users can effortlessly restore files to previous versions.

Our disaster recovery solution utilizes the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform in an active-active configuration with a primary gateway at one location and a secondary gateway at another, working as a potentially remote site and our primary data center, respectively. This setup ensures continuous access to data, as users can seamlessly connect to the secondary gateway if the primary location experiences an outage. The active-active configuration provides instantaneous failover, eliminating the need for manual intervention.

Our Recovery Time Objective has been improved compared to previous solutions, eliminating the need for multiple configuration changes. By updating the Domain Name System to include both the primary and secondary systems in the Failover System, we ensure continuous service even if the primary system fails, eliminating the need for manual intervention or Disaster Recovery procedures.

Our Recovery Point Objective, compared to previous solutions, is optimal with minimal outages or impacts.

The CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform offers immediate benefits due to its unique approach, distinguishing it from legacy solutions.

It helps free up some IT resources for other projects or tasks.

CTERA enhances data protection with ransom protection, which tags unusual activity and restricts unauthorized access. This helps identify malicious activity within the environment. Additionally, CTERA offers basic protections, including database server-level replication, ideally restricted in a DMZ-like scenario.

The CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is a hybrid solution that supports both on-premises and cloud environments. This means we can use cloud storage, such as GCP or Azure buckets, as the backend while deploying services on-premises or in the cloud. Additionally, caching gateways can be placed at different remote locations to improve performance. A vital advantage of this platform is its instantaneous recovery capability, allowing seamless access to a secondary gateway if the primary one fails, a feature lacking in the previous solution.

One suggested improvement for the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is the ability to distribute data across multiple active backend storage nodes rather than the current limitation of a single active node. This enhancement would allow for data segregation, enabling administrators to define which data is stored on specific nodes and optimize allocation across geographically diverse gateways.

I have been using the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for four-plus years.

I haven't encountered major issues with stability. There are minor issues now and then, but nothing major.

Scalability is straightforward and simple. It's easy to upgrade, increase capacity, and add multiple gateways as needed.

Initially, I sought support often, but in recent years, I've been managing on my own. I have not needed to contact technical support as frequently as before.

Positive

I previously used Hitachi Content Platform and NetApp for my data storage needs, but I have since transitioned to CTERA as it better aligns with my requirements. Due to its superior suitability, I am migrating my other platforms to the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform.

The initial deployment was straightforward. CTERA assisted with deployment initially, but now I handle it by taking the latest image for new installations. Installation in the cloud only takes a couple of minutes.

Initially, CTERA was involved in the deployment, but now it's completely done by me.

So far, pricing seems to be fine. Unlike other solutions that require hardware purchases, CTERA offers software licensing with flexibility across multiple infrastructure providers. I can use their software licensing with my own infrastructure setup.

I would rate the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform nine out of ten.

The latest version of the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform offers enhanced NFS support and object archival capabilities, including more flexible retention settings. Previous limitations have been addressed, resulting in significant improvements.

The stop file did not apply to on-prem NetApp or the other solutions. Users might need to adjust how they interact with data.

We use the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform as a file share. 

We are using it as a backup. They have versions for users to recover on their own. We have done a lot of restores, so versioning included with CTERA helps a lot.

We have less staff for doing restores because users can do it on their own. This reduces our IT requirements.

It is a three-in-one solution for us. It is a file-sharing platform, an archiving solution, and also a backup solution. 

It was pretty quick to learn for our employees. It was seamless. They did not see any difference.

They fixed all the requirements that we had in the beginning. The beginning was a little bit rough, but we tuned it nicely. However, in some cases, they could improve performance.

I have been using the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for five years.

We had some issues in the beginning, but we were undersized. It has been pretty stable since then. Once a year we might have had some unexplained behavior, which was likely related to the way we set it up initially. We put too much on it.

It is scalable for sure. You can add multiple devices if you want to solve your problems.

The support is awesome. It is top-notch. I would rate their support a ten out of ten.

Positive

We tried Azure File Sync, but CTERA is more robust and offers more.

We have a hybrid deployment model. The initial setup was easy. It took us about eight months, but we had a lot of data. About 24 different facilities were migrated to one solution, so it was not CTERA. It was more related to our scheduling and doing it step-by-step rather than CTERA itself.

We were able to realize its benefits after a year of implementing it.

Its maintenance is done by CTERA. We schedule a time when to do an upgrade, and it is done by the technician.

The deployment was carried out internally by me with initial configuration help from CTERA. The configuration was done with their help, but the migration itself was handled internally.

I find the pricing reasonable. They offered us deals that helped us. Especially with the upgrade to a bigger unit last year, they were helpful with the deal.

The biggest thing is to plan properly. Configure your shares properly and not put all your eggs into one basket. Separate your shares as much as possible. Careful planning is crucial initially. 

We never had a situation for disaster recovery, but we have a disaster recovery plan by using a secondary gateway. We tested it but never used it because we never had to. We have two CTERA gateways, one in production and one in DR, and we can fail over anytime.

I would rate the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform a ten out of ten.

We use CTERA as a global file share for several divisions within our organization.

We immediately realized the benefits of the CTERA platform. When we rolled this out, we had around five sites and noticed a significant drop in requests for restoration or storage space increases. On the backup side, we no longer had to back up Windows Servers. 

Using CTERA has freed up our IT resources from monitoring the old Windows file servers, adding space, cleaning up stuff, etc. 

Having backups has reduced the tasks administrators used to do, and now they can concentrate on other things.

We use CTERA for disaster recovery at sites in hurricane zones. Our DR nodes are located in the central US, and it has worked well for those disasters. We've also had appliances crash and recovered them faster than using a regular Windows file server. 

We've reduced our recovery point objectives to varying degrees. It depends on the site. We can typically have a system back up and serving users for small to medium sites in eight hours.

I like that the glass is always half full with CTERA file services. It keeps the data hot for users on location and then tiers off older data. If you need it, the stub is still there. You can click on it, and it's back on the device. 

The replication and versioning work great. Users can self-serve basic restorations of one or two gigabytes, but administrators need to handle bigger restores of several gigabytes. CTERA has out-of-the-box data protection capabilities. It sends the data to the cloud. 

As soon as something is written to the device, CTERA copies it to the cloud, where it's versioned with snapshots so we can recover it. We haven't used Ransom Protect, but we'll roll that out with the next firmware upgrade.

It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices. We have different regions, and we must log in to each portal to see what's happening with those. It would be nice to have a single portal to see the health of the devices, versions, and firmware upgrades. Sometimes, we want to dive into something more complex, like investigating why CTERA storage usage grew from 2 terabytes to 4  terabytes in a week. That's a little challenging. It's something we would like to see on the road map.

It has a learning curve. They could make it easier for administrators to troubleshoot problems. We get alerts, and sometimes, those are false positives. Compared to where we started, they've made significant improvements in the last five years.

I have been using CTERA for five years.

I rate CTERA nine out of 10 for stability. It has been reliable for our needs.

I rate CTERA eight out of 10 for scalability with a qualification. It's scalable, but their licensing model is different on their devices. If we're running the system on our on-premise kit, the licensing should be per terabyte and not a limitation on CPU and memory. 

If we need to upgrade CPU and memory, we should be able to do that without a license upgrade. I get that we need to upgrade our storage space if we run out, but we should be able to scale up processing and memory based on the system's needs. 

I rate CTERA support eight out of 10. High-priority issues are handled promptly, while lower-priority concerns take longer to address. 

Positive

When we implemented the solution, CTERA didn't have any training, so we had to work with their engineers to learn the solution and get the portal set up. It was a little challenging, but they were there to answer questions and show us best practices for deployment.

It took us around a month to set up the portal and work through the pieces to deploy the edge services. Once you deploy the edge device, you need to copy the old systems' data. That takes a little bit longer. It took about two months to get it to a place where we were comfortable. The deployment team consisted of one CTERA engineer, me, and another system administrator.

After deployment, CTERA requires some maintenance, primarily firmware upgrades. CTERA coordinates with us when new versions come out, and we work with their engineers to deploy them. A technical account manager manages those software versions to ensure we're not on the bleeding edge and causing more problems in our environment. 

They do ESS upgrades on the hardware they deploy from and other care and feeding underneath the hood that we can't access. They have access to their gateways, which are locked down only for their admin use. We open tickets and work with them hand in hand to get things upgraded, tweaked, or troubleshooted.

We did not use any third parties; the deployment was handled by one CTERA engineer, myself, and another administrator.

We reduced our total ownership cost using CTERA. Adding SSD storage to Windows file servers is expensive, and we no longer need to back up those devices. The ability to store things in a back-end S3 bucket significantly reduces the cost. It's much cheaper per gig. 

CTERA's pricing seems to be on par with some of the other players, such as Nasuni and Azure. They all have benefits, but CTERA is competitive for its features.

I rate CTERA Enterprise File Services nine out of 10. 

Before implementing CTERA, you must analyze the workload you're trying to put on the platform and test it. We're a big manufacturer doing a lot of automated testing where we're writing thousands of files. At a point, it doesn't stop you from writing files, but the directory lookups become a little slower. It's critical to understand your workload before you put it there. The regular stuff works great, like Excel, Word, etc., but you want to check if it will be appropriate for your purposes if you are doing automated manufacturing or engineering.

The primary use case is production data storage. Our live projects get stored on the filers.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform was implemented to replace legacy on-prem file servers that were constantly running out of space. We were constantly adding racks and racks of disks or changing the servers in their entirety when they went into black or they failed, so this solution was drafted in. It is still a physical device, but the device is covered. Its maintenance, hardware, or any replacements are taken care of by CTERA.

The main selling point was the data eviction where if data is not accessed after a certain period of time, it is evicted from the local filer, which frees up the space. Also, if the filer reaches a certain threshold, data is evicted as a namespace is required, but it is available and rehydrated from the cloud when a user needs to access that data.

We do not use versioning much, but it has proved useful on a handful of occasions when somebody accidentally deleted a file and they could go to the cloud to restore it. It is very useful.

It is a set-it-and-forget-it type of solution. Once you set it up, it just runs. From a user education standpoint, nothing was required. They do not need to know that there is no server attached to the other end and everything is in the cloud. At the end of the day, they just see it as a place to store their files. Nothing changed for them. That was a big plus point. There were no major user education pieces to be able to adopt the solution.

It handles data protection pretty well. We have data loss prevention strategies in there, and there are logs. It triggers an alert if it sees anything weird or any anomalies. We can configure and define what we want to be notified about. It is very good.

The solution provides data eviction, where unused data is evicted from the local file, freeing up space. It also allows data to be rehydrated from the cloud when needed.

The scalability is good because the eviction policy can be changed easily to manage space.

We have one of the early systems because we were early adopters. The new Edge filer that they have comes with a lot more features than what we purchased. It would be better if we are able to add those extra features without having to swap out the hardware. A clear upgrade path for legacy customers would be beneficial. Adding features through firmware updates or third-party software would improve it.

CTERA is primarily a virtual appliance. One of the things that the Edge filers can do, but ours cannot, is that you can give certain tasks to the Edge filer. For example, if you want it to render out some bits and pieces, you could reserve some system resources for specific rendering tasks or production tasks, as well as being a filer. You can harness the full potential of the hardware and have all that available at your disposal. I know this is something that the new Edge drivers can do, but it is not something we can do because the hardware is old as compared to what is available now. A clear upgrade path would be good. If you are a legacy customer, it would be good if there was an upgrade path or some sort of discounted rate to go from the old one to the new one, but I do not think there is an easy way of doing that.

I have been using this solution since 2017 or 2018.

Its stability is excellent, with no complaints. There is never any lagging, crashing, or downtime. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.

The solution is very scalable, and scalability can be managed by changing the eviction policy. Space can be freed up immediately if needed.

All you do is change the eviction policy if you need to keep data hydrated on the device locally. You can change the policy quite easily. If no files have been modified within the last two years, you can evict them. If you need to free up space, you can change the policy and say, "If the file has not been modified in the last three to six months, then evict that." Instantly, within a couple of hours, you have space available if it is already in the cloud. If it is not in the cloud, you need to wait, but it is pretty instantaneous.

We were early adopters of this solution. It was relatively new at the time. Within the first three to six months, there were some problems, but their support team was very helpful. They were a phone call away. Anytime we had a problem, we could make a call. They were very good. With the help from support, they all got resolved relatively quickly.

If I have any issues, I normally call our account manager. We should go through the service desk, but being an early adopter, we have a good relationship with CTERA, so they do not mind. They do have a route where you can go onto their portal and log a ticket, which we do if it is not an urgent issue. If something is mission-critical and needs a quick fix, we just pick up the phone and get someone on the phone pretty quickly.

Positive

It is not really an alternative, but we have used AFS, which is very good for production data that uses your file services. We have used things like OneDrive and SharePoint for production data. They are also not very practical.

We have a physical box on-premises, which then gets fed up to the central coast bucket or the Cloud Object Storage bucket.

The initial setup was easy. We had world-class support. Itay, our account director at the time, was excellent. He has been promoted since then, but he helped us at the time. We had a few others from the technical support team to make sure that it was a clean and smooth transition from our legacy hardware to the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform.

It took us about four months to get to a fully working condition. We had adopted a brand new product. It was operational within two weeks, but we had a few problems. They helped us to resolve them. All in all, it was a good experience, and it took about four months to get to the sweet spot where there were no problems.

It does not require any maintenance from our side.

The implementation was supported by CTERA's technical support team.

To new users, I would advise leaning on the support team in case of any issues. They are very responsive and ensure customer success. They are not going to leave you behind. They would not say that they will get back to you and then do nothing for five or six days. They have got their fingers on the pulse when it comes to customer support and customer success. That is one of the key things that drives their business.

I would rate CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform a ten out of ten. Their support is fantastic.

Our use case varies because the product has a few modules. We use it as a backup agent for our endpoints and a centralized storage solution, providing an on-premise caching server that some organizations might call an edge filer. The master file copy lives in cloud storage. It's a complete hybrid storage solution for file management.

We saw the benefits of CTERA almost immediately. The timing was perfect. We were deploying it around the time the global pandemic struck. It put us in a position to provide off-site access to our employees that we couldn't do before. It had a dramatic impact on how we do work. CTERA was exceptionally valuable in the first three to four months

The platform contributes to our organization's success and our employees' ability to work remotely. It makes us more attractive to future employees because we can have them operate off-site without needing them to come to the office and be in the same building as the central storage solution.

CTERA's disaster recovery features have reduced our recovery time. I used it last week for some missing files that we hadn't noticed for a while. We could go back into our snapshots for 14 months and track down the needed files. Once we found them, we could bring them back online within minutes. That was terrific. We've increased efficiency on RPOs and RTOs by 20 percent. We could increase that to 50 percent if we had search access to those archives.

CTERA has been particularly capable of keeping all of our workstations backed up. That became a critical feature for us during the pandemic when computers were rarely in the office. Everybody went off-site with their computers, and we were accustomed to working with a centralized storage infrastructure where people would come to the office and connect to the server to use, create, and modify files. Everything was done directly to that server. 

When our staff was no longer coming to the office, some of the file creation was in jeopardy because they were no longer working directly off the file server.  Those backups became crucial to keeping the data safe on their local drives. The ability to access our centralized data through a browser interface and an edge filer with SMB or NFS access has made it an excellent solution for us.

The web portal that our users access to view data and backups could be optimized. CTERA could apply some of the improvements made to their administrative interface on the user side. The administrators are a much smaller group of people than the users, so it would be helpful if they targeted user experience resources to them.  

They have a product called Drive Connect, a synchronization technology that allows files to be with endpoint workstations. That is a work in progress, and I would love to see some stability on that side of the product because we would love to use Drive Connect throughout our business. It feels like the user experience isn't rich or stable enough for our users' needs.

The versioning and file replication are great. However, the solution is missing one thing: making those snapshots searchable. It can reliably take snapshots and keep versions of our data safe so we can peel back to a previous version, but the feature isn't robust if you need to search for something. 

CTERA's onboarding teams are excellent, so it's easy to get it online. Still, it was challenging to understand some of its nuances, so the learning curve was somewhat steep.

We have used CTERA File Services since 2020.

CTERA's stability has been excellent. Some components may have gone offline in a couple of instances, but we've always had access to our data. So from that perspective, we've never been completely offline over the almost five years that we've had the product in play.

CTERA is highly scalable. From our perspective, it appears to be infinitely scalable, but I'm sure some organizations could create more data than us and find a limit.

I rate CTERA support nine out of 10. Their support team is terrific, and their agent is highly available. He's enthusiastic about helping us solve any problem, large or small. 

Positive

We haven't used anything that would be a direct competitor because CTERA  opened our minds to what could be done with hybrid cloud and on-prem storage. Previously, we used only separate on-prem or backup solutions. It's hard to say that I've worked with any product that offers the complete solution that CTERA does. 

I've used Windows File-Sharing Service and Extreme ZIP, which bolts onto that. I've used some UNIX-based technologies a long time ago, but probably too long to be relevant.

We have a hybrid deployment. It's running within our server infrastructure. The database, gateway, preview, and portal servers are in-house. We also leverage cloud storage with Wasabi. 

The support team is terrific, so they made the initial installation as easy as possible. They came on-site and interviewed us about how we wanted to use it and our objectives, then helped build a system to meet those objectives before turning over the keys. If we exclude the data migration time and look only at the time needed to connect and train users, we were online in four or five days. We had two people from CTERA and two from our team managing the deployment process.

Since then, we've been mostly self-serve for our users. They've been extremely proactive with updates and keeping us on the latest versions. They manage all that for us as well. We don't have to run our own updates. They notify us when there's a stable build and it's time for us to do the install. They booked the time with us. It's as hands-off as you want it to be.

We brought on a new technology we hadn't used before, so we spent more money to get the features. If we compare it to using Nasuni instead, I would say we have reduced the total cost of ownership. However, we're spending more than we were before. 

CTERA's pricing model is competitive compared to other companies that achieve the same thing. Their closest rival is Nasuni, and CTERA is significantly more affordable than Nasuni.

I rate CTERA Enterprise File Services eight out of 10. My best advice is to trust the process. CTERA's support team will be by your side and help you figure out how to best use the tools. They're there to make sure you have a successful outcome.

We are using the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform in two areas. The first is as a platform for our customers, providing a modern infrastructure. The second, more sophisticated use case is for internal usage as our internal file server. We have a huge file system. Currently, it is used internally, but in the future, we might prepare the infrastructure or create applications that will be accessible via the Internet, beyond just internal use.

The most significant benefit is caching. I am providing high-performance NVMe devices for all file systems. Most of the data is stored on an internal S3 cloud, rather than an external one. This internal S3 infrastructure stores all copies of the data, with snapshots for versioning and disaster recovery. The Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is excellent because we use high-performance storage for mission-critical data, while other data (including voice records and PDFs for customer billing) is stored on more cost-effective infrastructure.

Thanks to caching, after implementation, performance—especially for Citrix VDI access and profiles—improved by 20 to 30 seconds.

Another financial and technical benefit is that we no longer need to rely on external software for backup. We now use the CTERA portal for this. All the snapshots are stored on different S3 storage platform, eliminating the need to pay high licensing fees for tools like Rubrik or Commvault. These tools are also harder to implement and don't offer the convenience of versioning with a simple right-click. Versioning is a great feature, allowing me to restore files from the latest update, bypassing daily backups. Using S3 storage makes it economical and efficient.

Vault is another useful feature. For regulatory compliance, we must retain certain files for seven years, and Vault allows us to store these files without the need for incremental backups. Once a backup is placed in the vault, it is untouchable and cannot be deleted.

CTERA file sync (compressed and deduplicated) is excellent. Additionally, we have two disaster recovery methods: restoring the entire file system through the portal or using storage replication. We test the replication once a year, and we can establish a disaster recovery site in two to three minutes.

Both versioning and replication are critical for meeting our SLAs. Our CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is fully prepared for disaster recovery. As per our regulations, we must test disaster recovery at least once a year and demonstrate to management that we can establish new sites. The last test showed an RTO of two to three minutes. We haven’t experienced any actual disasters, but regular testing ensures readiness.

Prior to 2018, our infrastructure was unable to even test disaster recovery due to file limitations. For the last five years, we’ve maintained near-zero RTO or even RPO, operating almost asynchronously. Having a very low RTO is critical, and we can reestablish the infrastructure on the new filer in just a few minutes, which represents a substantial improvement.

We’ve also implemented and tested a new feature to prevent ransomware attacks. This is a significant advancement in the NAS world. We recently installed a new version and demonstrated to our CISO how a real ransomware attack could be stopped within seconds, showing that the affected client’s access to the file server was blocked. Fortunately, we haven't faced a real attack, but being able to showcase our protection to management is a significant benefit.

We started seeing benefits immediately after we migrated our Citrix profiles. We had about 2,000 users on our Citrix infrastructure and terminal servers. All login profiles were placed on CTERA. With the previous infrastructure, the login process took 45 seconds, including application startups. After moving the profiles to CTERA, we observed an improvement of at least 20 to 25 seconds.

Another benefit is storage reclamation. We use Dell NVMe PowerMax, which is extremely costly for a small portion of our data. With the CTERA platform, we gain excellent performance for files in the cache, while archived files on S3 are still easily accessible. This combination allowed us to observe improvements from day one. Additional benefits include ransomware protection, versioning, and reduced software costs for backups. We started with 30 to 50 terabytes, and now we manage nearly 300 terabytes.

Choosing CTERA in 2018 was risky, as it was just a startup at the time. However, from my perspective, it has proven to be an excellent decision.

First and foremost, flexibility is highly valuable. I can separate different workloads across various hardware platforms depending on the implementation, without being locked into a particular vendor’s hardware. For example, if I need a special filer for home directories to optimize performance or accessibility, we can create separate virtual machines. We also maintain a large archive because we need to store call recordings from our call center for seven years due to regulatory requirements. By using different virtual machines, we can separate data according to implementation needs and SLAs.

Managing the data is simple since the platform operates on a virtual machine. The interfaces are user-friendly, and after two to three hours of training, our support staff is capable of using the interface to assist customers with file restoration. Adding new infrastructure, servers, and virtual machines is straightforward.

The platform is releasing new features at a fast pace, which sometimes leads to version updates every three to six months. Although updates are generally not complex, it is challenging to stop the production environment during these updates, even if the downtime is just a few minutes. This is a common challenge across all NAS providers.
From my perspective, the most important area for improvement is developing a method to perform updates without affecting customer production environments. Additionally, there are some cache size limitations that might become problematic for future use cases, though they don’t impact current applications.

Collaboration for NFS and SMB protocols could also be enhanced. Although this issue isn't specific to CTERA, it is something we are working on together to improve.

The quality of the versions has improved, but occasional issues still arise. All solutions face this challenge, but we hope to see a continued reduction in the number of bugs. That said, we haven't had any major production problems in the last four years, and we appreciate how responsive CTERA is to our issues. We engage in brainstorming sessions together, and we value this relationship.

We started using CTERA for internal use in 2018. This is now our sixth year in full production. Over that time, we have accumulated about 260 terabytes of S3 storage, 10 virtual machines, and billions of files.

We have experienced no downtime over the last four years where customers couldn’t access data. Occasionally, we’ve encountered synchronization issues, but they have not impacted production.

We hold weekly sessions to review new features and discuss open tickets. I sometimes work directly with CTERA's engineering team when we need new developments. They value our input, and customers like us can provide different perspectives.

Their support team is highly accessible, and they can connect directly to our system. When we need immediate assistance, they provide it promptly.
I would rate them nine out of ten. One of CTERA’s best features is its support and engineering teams.

Positive

Our previous infrastructure was based on EMC’s VNX system. After six years with CTERA, we have no plans to replace it.

The transition project was handled by me and one other member of my team. We migrated approximately 100 million files and 50 terabytes of storage from VNX to CTERA.

CTERA is different from other systems. It is a global file system, whereas solutions like NetApp and Dell are more focused on the enterprise without being global. From my experience, many of the features and flexibility I have with CTERA cannot be achieved with NetApp or Dell, largely because CTERA is a software solution and not tied to specific hardware.

This flexibility allows me to separate storage across different network segments. Since we are a telecommunications company with sensitive external customer segments, centralizing everything would be inefficient. With CTERA, I can deploy small virtual machines in each segment and occasionally replicate changes to S3 for backup without additional costs. It’s more efficient, and I can use various types of storage.

Other reasons for the switch were improvements in DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan), financial savings, and performance enhancements.

Initially, the migration was manual. When we started using CTERA, the migration tools they now provide weren’t available. With the current version, customers can migrate from other solutions like NetApp or Dell using these new tools. However, in 2018, we had to follow a traditional manual process, without external assistance, relying solely on my team.

Setting up CTERA and handling the logical integration was challenging because it was a new solution. It took about six months. The concept was new to us, and we decided to proceed slowly, starting with certain folders and Citrix profiles, which were critical to the organization. After one year, we reached stability and began moving the rest of the infrastructure without disrupting the system. Our careful planning was the right approach.

The CTERA support team helped us create the first virtual machine and configure it. Today, they provide various tools, but at the time, everything was done manually. After setting up the first virtual machine and connecting to the portal, we handled the migration and access configurations. We also discovered some protection issues, such as instances where even administrators were unable to move certain files, which required critical manual intervention. That was the most difficult part of the process. The biggest obstacle to the project was copying files, not establishing the system. The interfaces were easy to understand, and today, the migration tools are available and much improved. You can now understand what’s happening with your old infrastructure and plan the best path forward for a smooth cutover.

I manage the storage team. Two team members handle all high-end storage, NAS storage, and object storage, while two others focus on Linux and Unix systems. Overall, three of us, including myself, work with a vast number of platforms.

CTERA management is incredibly smooth, and the experience is markedly different from other NAS infrastructures. Despite having a small team, we have managed to expand our CTERA use cases by at least 100% year over year. Starting with just two file servers, we have grown to ten servers in six years, without increasing headcount. This demonstrates how easy it is to expand and add new features using this solution.

We are planning to implement Vault due to regulatory requirements and are also introducing AI-based antivirus and other features. One of the new capabilities is the ability to create a new filer using the disaster recovery infrastructure in just one minute. This allows us to move all customers to the new filer and restore their files as needed. Last week, we created a new version of our public folder, which contains 50 million files and 35 terabytes.

It’s hard to compare CTERA to others. If, for any reason, my organization decided to replace it with a solution like NetApp, the project would be extremely expensive due to the hardware requirements and the sheer volume of data involved in the migration.

It’s also difficult to compare costs directly since replicating the same model with high-performance storage or other custom features would be extremely costly. However, in terms of Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), CTERA is one of the best solutions available in Israel.

I recommend starting with a solid disaster recovery plan. For customers like us, who share two or three sites internally and not over the Internet, this is essential. Also, focus on ransomware protection early on. Test your recovery plan to ensure it works.

If you need an archive system for long-term data retention due to regulations (e.g., seven to ten years), build a separate vault feature rather than mixing it with mission-critical tasks like Citrix profiles, which require higher performance. Office files, by contrast, have different performance needs. CTERA is a great software solution, but ensure you plan your hardware solution accordingly.

For migration, take a step-by-step approach. While there are migration tools available, be prepared to deal with potential permission issues.

Overall, I would rate the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform a nine out of ten due to the benefits we’ve achieved. We’ve reduced hardware and external software costs, and the solution has provided great value to the company. While there’s always room for improvement, it remains one of the best solutions on the market.

It is our main production file share. Our main reason for going for this solution was the uncontrollable growth of file data. It was unsustainable on our previous platform or technology. We needed something scalable like CTERA, so it was the scalability that we required.

File replication and versioning seem to work very well. We did have some challenges at the beginning, but all of that has been resolved now. It works very well. It does what our users require. Replication is excellent. We needed that, and the versioning is also pretty important.

One of the reasons we chose CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform was the requirements we had to have ransomware protection. Our existing solution at the time would not have met those requirements of being able to restore from a ransomware incident. What we wanted from a platform was the ability to restore a snapshot or restore a file system or data back to a previous point in time, and CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform offered us that. Availability was a very key feature of why we liked the solution. It is effectively like the disaster recovery feature, and that also lends itself to replication. It works very well for our ransomware recovery objectives.

There is business growth due to being able to offer greater storage capacity for them. Before, we were running into storage limitations, and now that we have enabled CTERA, we can accommodate more data and users.

When it comes to reduction in recovery time objectives, we have not used it in that way. However, we are anticipating that our recovery time objectives will come down from over a month to hours or days. Recovery point objectives will also effectively be down to hours.

It is hard to say how much it has freed up IT resources for other projects or tasks. Now that it is fully implemented and fully working, we are spending a lot less time looking after it.

It has drastically reduced the amount of time we used to spend on backups. It is hard to provide the metrics, but six hours a month or something like that would be fair.

The ransomware recoverability feature has definitely helped with our data protection mandates. It has reassured our security teams that we are in a good place with regard to securing the data and being able to recover the data.

A few features are valuable. The first one would be scalability. It is effectively unlimited in scale. The pricing is very fair. 

The availability of it is also valuable, and by that, I mean resilience. The architecture of how it is designed means that it is very easy to scale out and we can make it available to users wherever we need it.

More monitoring from the platform would be good. There is some monitoring, but it is paid. It is a chargeable service. It would be good for that to be included in the base. Monitoring would be a good one.

We have been using this solution for at least two years.

We initially ran into a number of bugs. However, as of the last three months, they have largely been ironed out. We did run into some problems in the early days, but its stability is good now. I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability.

I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability. It is used by the entire business, and it is a global organization. It is used globally. We have around 850 users on it.

It is very good. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

Positive

We came from EMC. We switched because of scalability and recoverability. We wanted ransomware data recovery and data protection. 

There was also a lack of innovation from EMC. We like the modern features of CTERA. EMC was not innovating, and it was sort of a dying product.

It is deployed on-prem. Its deployment was fairly straightforward. It was simple to deploy CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform into our organization’s firewall.

It took us weeks to deploy it initially. It took us about three months to get to grips with it. We are kind of learning every day, but it was not particularly difficult. We were able to make good use of it after a few months.

Its maintenance requires usual system upgrades every three months. It is a one-man job, and we work with CTERA support on that.

We had two people working on it.

We have not measured it, but there is probably a 10% to 15% time-saving. That will grow because we have been spending a lot of time migrating and setting things up, but that has put us in a better position to take advantage of the platform.

I would rate it a six out of ten for pricing. It is fairly priced.

I am not too involved in the pricing of what we used to pay, but it would have reduced the cost of ownership. I cannot give a figure, but the EMC solution was very expensive compared to CTERA. It has definitely saved us money based on our previous EMC system, but I am not responsible for billing.

I would recommend CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for ease of use, scalability, and price.

We do have disaster recovery enabled, and it is our plan to use it when needed. We have tested it, and it works well.

We are not using CTERA’s Ransom Protect feature. I know there is a new feature for that, but I do not believe we are using a specific feature yet. It is something that we are probably looking to implement, so I cannot say if it has reduced downtime. Even if we had it, it would be hard to say because luckily, we have not been compromised.

I would rate CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform an eight out of ten.