One of IT’s primary jobs is providing services to support employee productivity, things like data access, file sharing and collaboration, which now includes smartphone and tablet support to enable a mobile workforce. These are services that employees need and will often implement on their own if not adequately addressed by the company, a process called “Shadow IT”. But data mobility creates some challenges for the company around data protection, security, and regulatory compliance – collectively known as “data governance”.
For mid-market companies and larger organizations with multiple branch offices, satisfying both the employees’ and the company’s needs is difficult, often requiring multiple products. For these situations CTERA offers a complete solution, a platform that can address their needs today – with end-to-end data governance – and provide a foundation on which to implement the services needed tomorrow.
CTERA Enterprise Data Services Platform
The Platform Solution
CTERA Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.0 is a complete, on-site and cloud-based solution for SMB and mid-market companies, as well as distributed enterprise IT environments. The CTERA Platform combines comprehensive data protection and enterprise file sync and share (EFSS) capabilities with cloud gateways for the remote office to address the IT needs of the organization around online and offline file storage, collaboration and other services, while ensuring data privacy, data protection and data security.
There are three primary components to the CTERA Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.0; the CTERA Portal software, CTERA Cloud Storage Gateways and End-point Agents.
CTERA Portal
The CTERA Portal is the storage management, security and orchestration middleware that controls the infrastructure of storage (local and cloud-based), cloud gateways and agents. It’s deployed as an on-site physical or virtual appliance or as a SaaS solution hosted by one of CTERA’s cloud service providers. In the corporate data center companies can connect the CTERA Portal appliance to NAS and object storage platforms, including EMC Isilon, EMC ECS, NetApp OnTAP, Hitachi HCP, IBM GPFS, Scality and others, or to local SAN or DAS storage assets. The CTERA Portal can also be connected to public or private cloud storage platforms such as Amazon S3, IBM SoftLayer, OpenStack clouds and others.
Cloud Gateways
CTERA Cloud Storage Gateways are on-site physical or virtual appliances that provide up to 32TB (raw) of encrypted, RAID-protected capacity for local storage, file collaboration and data protection. They provide full file server (NAS) functionality via NFS, CIFS, AFP, rsync, WebDAV and FTP protocols, with thin-provisioned snapshots, advanced storage administration features and Active Directory support.
The CTERA Gateways also provide local backup, while managing the connection with the CTERA Portal on the back end. As an ‘on ramp’ to cloud storage the gateway allows selective replication of data to the cloud and enables users to access, share and restore files directly from the cloud. Security features include support for AD, SAML, user and group policies, source-based encryption (for data at rest and in-flight), plus two factor authentication, with secure remote management and email alerts.
Data Protection
On the backup side, the CTERA Enterprise Data Services Platform supports laptop, desktop and server backup for Windows, Linux and Mac platforms, both at the file level and as an image or ‘bare metal’ backup. With CTERA End-point Agents companies can also enable server backup and recovery directly to the cloud, or the local gateway appliance, for Microsoft SQL Server, Active Directory Server, SharePoint and Exchange (with mailbox recovery option). Backup and restore for Microsoft Hyper-V is also supported with hypervisor-level recovery of VMs. CTERA Agents enable global, block-level deduplication for cloud backups and file synchronization as well.
Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS) and more
The CTERA Portal also offers an EFSS solution to manage file storage, file synchronization and collaboration across mobile devices, desktops and remote computers using the CTERA infrastructure described above. Users can access files via a web browser, a desktop/laptop agent or with the CTERA Mobile Device App for smartphones and tablets. But in addition to EFSS and backup, CTERA’s Enterprise Cloud Data Services Platform 5.0 enables EFSS users to host nearline data to CTERA Gateways, providing remote office – branch office (ROBO) environments with high-speed and persistent file services, plus a host of new features.
New with Version 5.0
For companies trying to combat the “Shadow IT” problem, version 5.0 has the anywhere, anytime, any device access required to enable productivity and drive the adoption of private and virtual private cloud services. CTERA has now added Windows Phone to the Mac, Linux and Windows computers and iOS and Android systems already supported. But there’s another platform that employees use as well; virtual desktops.
The CTERA Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.0 now provides file services for VDI environments. This means users working on virtual desktops can store their home directories in the CTERA cloud, adding data mobility and sync to their data store. And for IT, this is data not stored on the traditional VDI infrastructure, saving that high-cost, high-performance storage for VDI.
This new version includes a newly-designed user interface and rich productivity tools that provide the ‘consumer grade’ experience needed to encourage employees to adopt IT-sanctioned cloud solutions. Version 5.0 also has Microsoft Outlook integration plus in-place document editing and online viewing for nearly 50 new document formats, including office files, CAD documents, medical images, graphics, etc.
In addition to replacing multiple point solutions, like file sync and share or backup, the CTERA Enterprise Data Services Platform is the ideal foundation for enterprise data security and enterprise mobility services as well. Version 5.0 features the addition of antivirus software integrations with Intel and Symantec and Data Loss/Leakage Prevention (DLP) software from Symantec. The CTERA platform also now supports Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) tool integrations with Good, MobileIron, XenMobile and AirWatch.
Completeness
This notion of completeness encompasses more than just features and functionality, there’s an architectural aspect as well. While other cloud-based solutions depend on network connectivity and adequate bandwidth to deliver these essential services, CTERA’s Cloud Storage Gateways can assure that local offices are able to store, access and collaborate on data, even when the internet is down or connectivity is intermittent.
Governance
Data governance is another term that’s been used widely, with very different kinds of solutions. For most users, governance implies comprehensive control over all corporate data across the enterprise. Like insurance, it must cover everything in order to be valuable. This ties into the notion of “anywhere, anytime, any device” that’s central to EFSS users. If a solution can’t cover all data (not just sync, not just backup, etc…), all the time, it’s not providing comprehensive data governance.
StorageSwiss Take
IT organizations are being pushed to find file sync and share solutions that employees like and will use in place of the consumer-based products that are driving the Shadow IT problem. But anything IT implements must also support the data protection, data security and regulatory compliance that the company needs.
This is where the platform approach is so valuable. Instead of a loose collection of point products, CTERA’s Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.0 establishes an ‘airtight’ foundation to assure control over the company’s data for the EFSS, backup and other cloud-based file services currently provided. This platform integrity extends that level of control to new services as well, maintaining data governance when they’re added down the road.
Sponsored by CTERA
Eric is an Analyst with Storage Switzerland and has over 25 years experience in high-technology industries. He’s held technical, management and marketing positions in the computer storage, instrumentation, digital imaging and test equipment fields. He has spent the past 15 years in the data storage field, with storage hardware manufacturers and as a national storage integrator, designing and implementing open systems storage solutions for companies in the Western United States. Eric earned degrees in electrical/computer engineering from the University of Colorado and marketing from California State University, Humboldt. He and his wife live in Colorado and have twins in college.
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