My main use case for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is related to a database shrinking and rebuilding activity that we recently performed.

The best features of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform include significant scalability in Edge Filer, especially where we use cloud object storage. It provides massive scalability. Another key feature is robust data protection that CTERA offers, and it provides us a unified global file system.

For robust data protection, CTERA provides continuous data protection and cloud-native backup. Regarding metadata, it provides a very converged solution for metadata and an immutable archive along with a cross-region converged solution for robust data protection. In the disaster recovery component, it provides a unique feature for metadata disaster recovery, allowing for fast retrieval of our critical files. Regarding scalability, CTERA offers unlimited capacity scaling at low-cost cloud storage, which reduces our storage costs and enables seamless tiering of our cold data to object storage.

Another advantage is that CTERA provides us a reduction in our IT cost and consolidation of our legacy infrastructure. CTERA has replaced multiple legacy hardware stacks including NAS, backup, and file servers. This is a very unique feature that eliminates our NAS branch for our client and provides a single platform for file storage where we can sync, share, and backup.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform has improved our operations tremendously by eliminating our NAS branch and providing a single platform for our file storage where we can sync, share, and backup our runtime data.

There needs to be improvements, particularly regarding real-time sync conflict resolution and cloud latency. Sometimes I face issues in real-time sync conflict as well as latency in the cloud.

If CTERA could automate its migration component and provide it in a utility way, that would be great. Additionally, there are a few other features that could improve my overall experience.

We were also facing performance issues in our CTERA environment, and after diagnosing various scenarios and use cases that users shared, we found that all of them were experiencing slowness in our Edge Filer. During diagnosis, we discovered that our database size had increased significantly. Although CTERA itself provides an automated service called CTERA vacuum, we found that a manual database vacuum activity needed to be performed on our Postgres database. We recently performed this manual CTERA database vacuum activity, and it helped tremendously. It resolved the intermittent slowness issue that we were experiencing for several customers and multiple CTERA Edge Filers.

We checked our audit logs and Edge Filer logs to identify the root cause. Initially, we observed that it appeared to be related to network issues, but after thoroughly checking our logs, we discovered that the issue was related to a delay in our services where our Edge Filers and application servers were reaching the database. We checked our database very thoroughly, reviewed all the logs, and identified the problem. During this process, we performed all CTERA vacuum activities, which helped significantly. I can provide more details if needed.

Regarding handling the issue on the Edge Filer side, the major issue recently has been the database component. On a day-to-day basis, we encounter performance issues in our Edge Filer where some of our Edge Filers experience network issues, resulting in higher response times. In one scenario, we moved our traffic from the physical Edge Filer to the local Edge Filer. We observed trouble with our local Edge Filer in that case, and we routed our traffic to the physical Edge Filer instead.

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

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is stable.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform's scalability is very good.

Regarding customer support, CTERA offers very good support. They assign a dedicated engineer for our account, and we can reach out to our account manager directly. In case of daily operational issues, we usually raise CTERA support tickets, and we receive exceptional support from them.

I previously used AWS file share services for another client, and now for my current client, I am using CTERA. When comparing it with my previous client, the best aspect of CTERA is that it supports a multi-cloud environment, unlike before where I was only concerned with one cloud.

I only evaluated AWS file share services.

CTERA has been a major improvement with a reduction in our storage and infrastructure cost, achieving up to eighty percent reduction in storage costs overall, which is significant.

For those considering using CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, I advise comparing it with NetApp, Nasuni, and Panzura, as CTERA stands out in terms of providing services and support. There are many use cases across various sectors where CTERA can be utilized, including banking, healthcare, and all remote sites. CTERA combines cloud-scale storage, edge performance, and intelligent data management with a unified platform.

In CTERA, we usually deal with application patching, new changes that need to be implemented, and overall maintenance of our application structure. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform has positively impacted our organization's security posture by effectively offering user endpoint deduplication, continuous data protection, and multi-cloud replication.

I use the CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform administration portal for monitoring the servers, and if the files are not working and corrupted, I restore them. I also use it for the backup of the files.

I assessed my employees' learning curve for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, and it took me around one month to understand how it works and what it does exactly. I can monitor the different servers in it, and I can easily access the files over the cloud platform. However, it is a bit difficult to find the files because I need to go through each and every folder step-by-step, and the search engine optimization is not that good, so I face some difficulties in finding the files.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform has helped my organization to reduce its total cost of ownership. I track CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for my project, and for my teammates, it is very helpful. If we encounter a problem, we directly log in to CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal to check whether any filer or machine is full, including RAM or storage. We can directly click on the machine, and a dashboard opens, allowing us to check if it is full, if it is synced or not, and if the backup is synced or not. This capability enables us to really manage our resources effectively.

I like the dashboard of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform. It is very convenient and user-friendly. I can easily monitor the filers where I can find the root cause, which is very helpful to detect any problem.

I have seen multiple benefits from using CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform. There are multiple servers on Linux-based machines over CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform. If any server machine goes offline, I directly get the alert over my email. It is very convenient for me to check my emails to see whether any filer or machine is offline, so I can log in to CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal and easily check what the problem is and what the root cause is, allowing me to work accordingly.

Overall, CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform has helped to free up IT resources for other projects or tasks. I find it a time-saving platform. I use CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal in my VDI, so it is kind of difficult for me to log in into my VDI through the VPN and then open the VDI server and then CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal. There are some lags in VDI, which I guess is due to the network issue, but overall, it is very convenient for me to work on CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform.

Apart from time-saving, CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform provides secure file access and centralized control, which are measurable benefits for me. I personally love the file access management from everywhere. I can access files from anywhere in the world, from any location or any device through the internet. It can also help with cost-saving infrastructure-wise, and the easy file sharing and collaboration features are superb, providing convenience in CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is scalable. I can extend storage using CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform easily, as it supports cloud object storage. Companies can increase storage for a few TBs or PBs without changing hardware, which is a plus point. It can support thousands of users in multiple offices at the same time, and if the company opens a new branch, they can simply deploy more Edge Filers and connect them to the same portal.

I feel the data protection offered by CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is solid. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform provides automatic backup of files and endpoints, and if data is lost and deleted or corrupted, it can be restored from backup, which is very valuable. It also has snapshot versioning features, allowing companies to restore files to previous versions. If the current file is attacked or corrupted, I can click on the three dots for version history and restore the latest version, ensuring that the data is still protected. The access control features for viewing, editing, or downloading files have a good interface.

Based on my experience, I would prefer to see improvements or enhancements in CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform. My friends who also work with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform say the portal interface is confusing for them. Improvements could include a simpler and easier-to-navigate UI, and the technical documentation can sometimes be complex for beginners. When I was a beginner, it was really difficult for me to locate what I was searching for. I use it in VDI, so I feel that it is a bit unresponsive.

I have been working with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for six months.

Regarding the stability aspect of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, I have been using it for six months, and I have not found any downtime with this portal. I have faced downtime with the VDI, the virtual machine, but not with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal.

Regarding the customer service team and technical support team from CTERA, I have escalated some questions to them. I have a ticket related to a user who is having issues on some filers. He created a ticket on the platform, ServiceNow, and I took that ticket. It has been one to two months since we contacted CTERA support team, and they are really listening to us. The ticket is ongoing, and they are supporting us with detecting the problem and identifying the exact root cause, which I can say is helpful.

On a scale of one to ten, I would really rate the tech support of CTERA at about an 8.5 because they are really good.

Before CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, I have not worked with any other solution of the same kind, as this is my first company. If I work with any other platform or software in the future, I can compare accordingly.

For the initial setup of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, senior people in my team took care of that part.

The deployment process of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform usually happens in a few steps such as planning and requirements, determining how much storage is needed, the number of users and offices, and deciding which cloud platforms will be used, such as AWS, Azure, and Google. After that, we install CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal management system, deploy it on a virtual machine or cloud server, configure network settings, and set up admin accounts and users. Then, we configure the storage backend including AWS S3 or Azure Blob, followed by deploying Edge Filers. After that, we create users, set up their permissions to access files, and enable backup and sync through CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal, including file backup and endpoint protection. Finally, we work with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal to detect any problems.

I do not know much about the pricing, setup cost, or licensing cost of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform. I believe it comes with a license. From what I heard from my seniors, a 50 TB capacity license would be around 55 to 60 lakhs in Indian rupees.

Currently, I do not think there are any specific features or functionalities missing in CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform that I would want to see included or enhanced in the future, as it has only been six months since I started using it.

I am not really familiar with file replication and versioning in CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform.

Regarding Ransom Protect, I do not know about it right now.

For organizations considering CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, I recommend that they first need to understand how CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform works. They should learn how it connects different cloud platforms and how CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform portal operates. Understanding all the options in CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, such as adding storage, finding files, restoring previous versions, and what to do if a file is corrupted will be really helpful for them.

I would rate this product an 8 out of 10.

I use CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for end-user sharing, for CIFS and for NFS sharing. We use it to store biomedical equipment output and for archiving users files for long retention.

My favourite feature about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is the cloud synchronisation and the way the filers work. For example, when we do an upgrade from the application and the database servers perspective, the filers, which are the nodes that share the information to the users, those can continue working without the synchronisation with the portal because they have their own reduced storage space. For a two hours upgrade, the users didn't notice the upgrades or we didn't need to open a maintenance window. We can continue providing services to the users, and that is my favourite solution for that tool.

The file replication in CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is good, and the same thing with the filers and the portal is good because you can have on the filers the more used files, similar to hot pinning. In the portal, you have all the complete directories. For me, that is good. The replication works fast, and they do a good job with that.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform has helped me to reduce my recovery point objectives, the RPOs, because with the solution we have a principal site and a disaster recovery site. In the disaster recovery site we have CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform components so in case of a problem in the principal site, we can migrate the sharing to the disaster recovery site. This is also implemented with a storage solution. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is our front-end platform for the users, but in the back end, we have Scality as the S3 bucket. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform connects to the Scality for storage, and we have Scality replicated too. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform uses the Scality bucket to store the data, and the RPOs work better with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform.

There are two things about CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform that I think they can improve. The first one is the reporting or maybe the monitoring solution because they lack reporting about the shares that we have, the used space, the total space, the permissions, or other relevant metrics. Because I have seen other tools that have it. The reporting and monitoring capabilities could be improved. The second one is that the filers are a good solution, but there is a problem because when you have multiple filers in three sites or in the same site with multiple filers, we have to replicate the configuration manually. It's not automatically syncing. For us, that is a problem because if I create a share in one filer, I have to go and create the share on the other filers. That means a lot of configuration time wasted in something that could potentially be done with a tool to replicate that automatically in the backend or in the background of the solution. Those two points would be the areas most needing improvement in the solution.

I have been working with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for two years, since 2024.

Yes, CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is a stable platform. There are not concerns from users perspective about latency, out of service or disruption of the service, but also in an upgrade maintenance window.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform can scale out and scale up with out problem. We can add more resources on the same servers and in case we need to create more servers it can be done without problem.

We had to contact CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform technical support several times on the first months because we were still understanding the platform and we required some help. After the implementation was done, we had a knowledge transference for two days where they explained the solution to the whole team. When we opened cases I a noticed a great technical support level. The people that work there are always trying to help us. As a recommendation, the access to the software downloads, firmware, and updates should be more opened and allowed without having to create a case. When we worked with others vendors, we can access the software downloads without a problem, but with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, we have to open a case. When you open the case, they send you the links for the download but also the support team help you to create a plan to upgrade the platform.

The support deserves a nine on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being the highest.

In my career, I have used NetApp solutions, HP solutions, Windows file server, and Scality. Scality had a Samba implementation, but I migrated from Scality because all the configuration and all the administration tasks were over CLI. Then I migrated to CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform to have a better administration platform for shares management, but I continued with Scality as the storage backend solution because of the replication and the ring platform. Those are the four solutions that I have worked with before CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform.

The initial deployment of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform was more or less difficult overall. As I mentioned, architecting the solution and seeing the components took a little more than we expected because it was difficult to understand the components and the way they work. After all the components were checked, all the networking was reviewed, and all the requirements were completed, the implementation took about two or three days, more or less. The architecting took about two weeks.

It was a team effort for the deployment of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform because in our company, we have the cyber security team, networking team, and infrastructure team. We had to work together to complete all the requirements for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform to be implemented. There was a team of about six to eight people internally and about two or three people from CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform.

The pricing of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is not a concern because we have CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform with more components packaged with HP GreenLake. They sell us the whole solution: the servers, the networking, and everything else.

However, I have a point of view about the licensing. Currently, we have a license for 150 terabytes, but the consumption in the licensing is not just the user current data, but also the deleted data and the snapshots. That means that we have about 70 terabytes of current data for the user, but from CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform's consumption point of view, we have consumed about 120 terabytes. For me, it's a little confusing because from the point of view of the user, we have one value, but from CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform we have another value. It would be better for us to consolidate or have the same information because I have to ask them about that, and they explain it to me. At first, it was a little confusing to figure that out.

Qumulo, IBM, Dell and Scality solutions.

When we started with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform and architecting the solution, there was something difficult to understand because of the different components they have: the database, the application or the portal, and the filers, and how they sync the information. After we finished the implementation, after about six months or so of using it, it's good because all the administration tasks are done via a graphical user interface. Before, we used another solution that was all done via CLI and was harder to use. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is all about the graphical user interface, and after several months, I can use it without a problem.

I use the Ransom Protect feature in CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, and we have it in a monitoring state. They have found some behavioral analysis and reported it to us in cases where users deleted a lot of files or moved the files, and sent us an email about ransomware behavior. I have activated it right now, but that's in monitoring, not in active status, because in active status, they will disconnect the user.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform does not require any maintenance on my end. I would rate this solution an 8 on a scale from 1 to 10.

I primarily use CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform to replicate our marketing content to our regional offices. Marketing uses the Adobe application suite for creating and managing file content, and they replicate that content out to our regional locations where our regional graphical marketing people tailor that content to those regions.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is used not only for replication to regional branches, but also for the sharing features that we use to share content externally with clients and customers.

Our organization utilizes the most replication, file sharing, and sharing content using CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform as well as the security features within the platform.

The best features of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform include replication, which has offered the biggest advantage for using the solution.

The replication workflows have replicated content to our branch offices and cached that content, which makes that content accessible to our regional offices around the globe and makes accessing that data much easier and much faster. In turn, turning around the changes to marketing files is much quicker.

The file services, SMB sharing, and replication have all positively contributed to CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, so much so that we are looking at moving our global file share services over to it.

Global file locking prompted our team to consider moving global shared services over to CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform. Once CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform announced that they now support global file locking, that was the missing component that was keeping us from going to CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform. Now that that feature is offered, the solution is whole.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform has complemented our security posture at the company. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform has complemented my company's security posture with virus scanning, ransomware protection, and ACLs. My impressions of the enterprise class solutions being offered by CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform include ransomware protection, versioning, and virus scanning, all of which contribute to the security.

I cannot think of any areas at this time that could be improved. CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is a well-rounded platform.

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

We have approximately 80 nodes around the world and we're using CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform mostly for unstructured file storage.

I appreciate the recoverability of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, the fact that we have cloud sync working and we're able to use versioning as well as recovery of deleted files. It really makes life easy because people tend to change things and delete things when they don't mean to.

That's probably one of my favorite features of CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, but I also appreciate the fact that it's very flexible. It seems to be fairly bandwidth compliant, so we're always looking at ensuring we don't overload our circuits, especially when we're doing our cloud syncs.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform has helped free up our IT resources for other projects and tasks. It's been very easy. When we do see issues, their support is top-notch and very responsive when we need help. It has really made it easier for us to be able to globally assign storage. We're putting local nodes rather than trying to put them in data centers and really having problems with overall timing. We always want our data close to our applications and our people. In this case, it helps a lot to maintain that.

We use CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform a lot because typically end users are not very good stewards of their own data, and CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform helps us when they break something or lose things. We had an incident in Illinois where we had to recover an entire directory because somebody deleted all the files, and we were able to do that. Someone also came to us saying they changed a huge spreadsheet they had been working on for months and needed to go back a version. That makes us look really good because we're able to quickly respond to those types of requests. It makes people think I have my superhero cape on because they're thinking it's all lost, they're doomed, and we're able to quickly and effectively go back and say, "Here you go," and it's not hours, it's minutes.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is extremely scalable. For us it's probably about a 15-minute process when, especially in the cloud sync, somebody drops a large volume of data. I'm easily able to add on. They come in 50-terabyte chunks, so that's pretty scalable in my mind. It's not a huge oversell, so it's a pretty sweet spot for us when we're adding in new sites or new data, especially when it comes to doing desktop image backups and things of that nature. Someone might come to me saying, "Hey, I need a 10-terabyte node," and I'm easily able to spin that up within hours, not days.

When we implemented CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform early on, and we've been on the platform for three years, we have three different cloud portals. We have an EU portal, we have an Americas portal, and we have an APAC portal. It would be nice if we could combine that into one portal just for that global single pane of glass look. We've talked with them about that and they say it's challenging just because of some of the structure, but that would be something nice if we could get that. I integrated with Varonis, and because CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform didn't have initially a working relationship with that vendor, it would have been nice had that pre-existed us saying we need this. But that wasn't totally CTERA's fault. There was a lot of challenge working with the vendor to build out that interface.

A single pane of glass for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform would be beneficial. Everything else works fairly well. We've never had a point where we couldn't get to something that caused us to have a serious outage, and that to me is the mark of a good software package. It's never really caused us serious issues. We have our issues, that's true, and every software package does. However, we've always been able to meet the needs of the business, and we drive hard on security, stability, and scalability. From the scalability standpoint, that's one of the most important things to us. We're on their capacity-based licensing, so if I need to ramp up another CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform NAS, if we have an M&A, I can easily and quickly spin up another NAS and start doing that data transition fairly quickly.

The biggest maintenance issue with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is firmware upgrades. We've done a lot of transition from hardware solution to virtualized infrastructure in order to minimize that hardware lifecycle portion of it. We have to upgrade the firmware and sometimes that can be challenging in the nature of business of our size with 80 CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform nodes around the globe.

The issue we've had with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform happened recently in a firmware upgrade where there was a major database back-end upgrade and that took some time. For our smaller sites, it would be an hour or two, and I can build that into a fairly easy change window. But in our larger sites where we may have hundreds of terabytes of data, that database update process took maybe a day or a day and a half. That becomes more challenging, especially in a manufacturing environment where people are wanting to access configuration files. We had to pin the data locally because the data would be available on the local edge filer, but the cloud sync, while it was updating the database, the cloud files weren't available. That would be the other thing I'd like to see an improvement on: some way to do those database upgrades either in a more segmented fashion or in some type of offline environment. I understand the logistics behind that sounds easy, but I'm sure it's not.

We've been using CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for approximately seven years.

We haven't had stability issues from CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform side. I've seen some challenges where users tried to use a NAS device in what I'll call an inappropriate method. We just had a recent instance where some of our users were storing Access databases out on a NAS, which the documentation clearly states is a bad idea. They bent over backwards to try and help us make it work, and we were able to do some things there. More often than not, we've never had any other types of issues from the CTERA side.

The learning curve for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform for our employees is not bad. When we have questions, support's been very responsive for us.

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform has helped free up our IT resources for other projects and tasks. It's been very easy. When we do see issues, their support is top-notch and very responsive when we need help. It has really made it easier for us to be able to globally assign storage by putting local nodes rather than trying to put them in data centers and having problems with overall timing. We always want our data close to our applications and our people, and in this case, it helps a lot to maintain that.

The quality and speed of support for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is some of the best in the industry. I've worked with a lot of different companies through the years, and even from simple questions to complex ones, they've been very responsive. To the point where sometimes I wonder when our dedicated support engineer sleeps.

Several of our people have taken their admin training class for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, which obviously helps a lot because it gives an in-depth look at the operational factors involved.

I was not around when CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform was fully onboarded. However, I'm sure it was not a short process just because of our volume of data. We're storing currently right around 2.2 petabytes.

From an application standpoint concerning the Ransom Protect feature, it's not really that pertinent, but from a global support team perspective, we have a follow-the-support model. It helps that we're able to quickly respond globally to incidents, whether that be in APAC, EU, or the US. They're very good about making sure that we have the ability to do that.

I'd like to see a Varonis integration natively with CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform.

Database upgrades in a segmented fashion or offline for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform would be beneficial. This review has been given a rating of 8 out of 10.

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.