CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform Reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have used CTERA File Services since 2020.

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

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

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

Positive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have been using this solution since 2017 or 2018.

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

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

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

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

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

Positive

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

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

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

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

It does not require any maintenance from our side.

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

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

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