CTERA Intelligent Data Platform

CTERA connected us with Bezeq, which is a communications company in Israel that also sells similar solutions, and we also set up a portal. We were then Bezeq's integrator, until Bezeq decided to stop the activity with this product, from the beginning of 2025. Bezeq customers who want to continue working on the product go to us, we have our own portal as well.

Over the years, CTERA has shifted its focus away from local and cloud backup, concentrating instead on the file server with smart storage, HFILER, and caching mode, which we are aligned with. We have continued to deploy backup, archiving, and other complementary solutions on top of CTERA’s platform.

Since we have a big cloud environment, we back it up to CTERA’S portal and we use its archive.

CTERA first took that direction 4-5 years ago. My relationship with CTERA is around 17 years old and every time a new version comes out or additional features are released, they update me. You could say we are their BETA SITE here in Israel. It’s been rewarding to expand our capabilities together throughout the years. I look at it that way because a lot of times they send me information and ask for my thoughts.

We are CTERA’s main exclusive partner integrator in Israel, in the world of SMB. There are other companies with which we are also in contact, but they are more interested in the enterprise market, like Binat, which works with CTERA but with Enterprise customers. We also have a channel with them for business, where we are the executive arm.

Over the years, we have acquired a great deal of knowledge with CTERA, whether it’s with the portal, if it’s on the side of end customers, or with migration.

In regards to our main use cases would be migration from legacy storage such as Dell EMC, NetApp, IBM CALLSTORAGE. It’s a traditional file storage that we use with CTERA’s tools and our tools. A migration to CTERA’s environment happens when a client has a small file server in his office and has a big portal behind him. So we connect him, if he has different branches, or work-from-home scenarios or international users.

CTERA is a company that continually evolves with the latest modernization and technology. Its solution is built to handle ransomware and is strongly security-oriented, which is what I appreciate most about it. The fact that the U.S. Department of Defense and major enterprises in the U.S. have adopted this product speaks volumes. The company’s roots trace back to Check Point, giving it a strong foundation in security-first thinking. In recent years, ransomware attacks have become increasingly common, and CTERA has integrated anti-ransomware capabilities directly into its product, well before you even need additional defenses like EDR or XDR. To me, this makes it a fantastic solution that ensures the files you’re working on remain safe and protected.

Even in cases where companies have suffered ransomware attacks and turned to us for help, CTERA has proven to make the recovery process significantly faster than any other solution I’ve seen. There’s no need for elaborate reconstructions, files are safeguarded in the portal, ensuring business continuity from day zero. Once the issue is identified, operations can resume immediately. Our experience shows that CTERA is constantly advancing its solutions, and now, with the growing trend of AI integration, they are adopting it in an optimal way.

Another important advantage is volume reduction. CTERA allows us to maintain consistent pricing for our customers by optimizing storage. In the past, when storage was full, we felt compelled to purchase more. Today, with the ability to archive workloads securely in the cloud, where they remain accessible at all times, there’s no need to worry about constantly expanding on-premises server capacity.

In the cloud-based world, CTERA provides a significant advantage. For example, at RealTime, we deliver cloud services to our customers, and when a customer requires a file server, we deploy a small one in the cloud. Since cloud storage disks are expensive, CTERA’s smart archiving allows us to keep only what’s necessary on the live server while moving the bulk of the data into efficient archive storage, cutting costs substantially.

Instead of storing an entire 10-terabyte dataset on costly SSD disks, we only need to store about 500 gigabytes. The full 10 terabytes remain accessible in CTERA’s portal, at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional cloud servers.

One of the biggest advantages of CTERA is the ability to reduce a customer’s storage costs while eliminating the need to worry about backups or infrastructure after migration. This directly lowers IT expenses, and because the cloud enables limitless scalability, customers can continue to grow without concern for infrastructure limitations.

Ransomware protection is another key benefit. With CTERA’s security tools, I can confidently assure customers that their data is safe from ransomware threats. And even in the rare event of an attack, recovery is far faster compared to other solutions. These capabilities set CTERA apart from competitors in the market.

CTERA also offers a unique on-site solution that is especially valuable for companies with multiple branches. It is far superior to platforms like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive, because it simplifies user access management and provides localized support. Unlike large vendors such as Microsoft, where customers are often routed to remote support engineers who may not fully understand the issue. CTERA delivers VIP-level support in the customer’s own language. This combination of business continuity, simplicity, and personal support is every company’s dream.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform helped free up IT resources for other projects or tasks. In the past we deployed and maintained our own systems, and I did not realize how much time and resources that took until Oded advised me to migrate to Azure. That's when I realized how much time it freed me up to develop the business and introduce other solutions.

This was a great solution and part of RealTime’s philosophy, we looked for a “set-and-forget” solution instead of continuously chasing support. Today, things have become simpler. The solution works and executes much better, and it frees up time to deal with other things and introduce additional activities.

Overall, there has been a time saving of between 30% and 40%, which is a lot, since RealTime doesn’t only deal with CTERA but also with cloud services, interterminal customers, Microsoft 365, integrations, and upgrade

Ransom Protect has helped us reduce downtime by 90%. In trials, we saw that it was able to prevent data intrusion and encryption. Even before implementing this feature, recovery time was fast, users were back to work in less than two hours.

We hear from other companies not working with us that recovery can take one to two weeks. With CTERA, we have seen a 90% reduction in time for file storage recovery.

I have a really good impression of CTERA’s Enterprise File Services Platform for file replication and versioning. It works properly both locally and in the cloud portal. Any customer who requests their retention policy according to their requirements is able to receive the data, and we can deliver the results they want in just a matter of minutes.

We used CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for disaster recovery. This saved us about 90% of time because, as soon as a customer experiences a file server crash while using CTERA, we can bring them a new machine, synchronize it to the cloud, and within an hour or two, the metadata is delivered correctly. The customer can see their files and get back to work.

There was one case with a large accounting company that had close to four million small files, totaling 3–4 terabytes. I told my employees to pay special attention to it. Our technician brought a machine to their office, accessed the data, started the synchronization, and within three hours everything was back.

If this were an old traditional Windows file server, this would’ve taken us at least 24 hours until the systems would be back up and running.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform helped reduce our recovery point objectives.

There’s an issue with permissions, they aren’t always as transparent for customers as Microsoft’s, for example. Integrations with AI could also be improved, and error messages should be clearer, more detailed, and less general.

Another area for improvement is simultaneous file editing. I understand a fix is in progress, but it hasn’t been released yet. The main problem is that if two people are working on the same file, for example, one in the U.S. and one in Israel, they can overwrite each other’s work without any notification. I would like to see functionality similar to Microsoft OneDrive, where you can immediately see if someone else is editing the same file.

It’s a very stable platform.

It’s very easy to scale, there weren’t any complaints from our customers.

They have improved a lot. I would rate them an 8 out of ten.

Deploying CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform into your organization’s firewall was not complicated at all.

After my company does the implementation and trains the employees, it’s very smooth, we don’t get any complaints. There are always questions and casual glitches but not anything that’s out of the ordinary.

We ourselves are CTERA’s main integrator in Israel. We acquired the knowledge ourselves. We did it in-house.

The investment I made on CTERA through Azure was returned within two years.

I believe CTERA could improve their pricing experience by customizing price lists per region. For example, there is a difference between what is sold to customers in Israel versus U.S. customers. I often explain that the market here is different and requires more creativity. In some cases, prices need to be adjusted downward. I understand the business side, of course, CTERA needs to make a profit but this is still an area for improvement.

When you sell a solution with all the benefits we’ve discussed, but the cost is high, some customers compare it to free or bundled alternatives. For example, companies that purchase a Microsoft 365 license automatically receive OneDrive without paying anything extra. In my opinion, CTERA’s pricing should be more proportional and accessible so that cost is not the factor preventing customers from purchasing.

If there was an improvement in the price, at least in our region, it would be easier for us to sell it and it would be easier to develop it and increase revenue. It is worth the price. The benefits I receive, the defense I receive, the fact that my data is there make it worth it, but not everyone sees it that way, which is the difficulty.

At first, the learning curve was much more complicated. I was the one who learned the technology and pushed it forward. It was not easy. But over the years, the solution has evolved, and implementation has become simpler. Whenever we need to implement something or run into difficulties, we get all the support we need from CTERA, their team is always there to accompany us. Today, everything is much easier than it was a few years ago.

I would rate CTERA a nine out of ten.

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.

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.