CTERA Hosted Data Services

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.