Secure enterprise file services provider CTERA Networks has expanded its appliance portfolio with the new CTERA HC Series Edge Filers, designed to provide much higher levels of capacity and performance for the expanding requirements of ROBO [Remote Office/Branch Office] environments.

CTERA edge filers provide file storage, collaboration, and backup in an all-in-one solution, which gives users local access to an infinite amount of cloud-based files, while continuously synchronizing file changes to a global file system.

“CTERA provides secure enterprise file services from edge to cloud with a two-tier architecture,” said Sabo Taylor Diab, Vice President Global Marketing at CTERA Networks. “We use a CTERA Edge Filer that sits in the branch office, and a CTERA Drive App that sites on the endpoint devices and provides full access to the data. It’s a fully cloud-agnostic platform that gives full ability to store and access the data. It addresses multiple use cases, with remote office filers, multi-site collaboration, and content distribution being the top three, with others including workspaces, VDI file services, endpoint backup and tiering and archiving. These are licenses for each use case.” Security is also a selling feature, with a 100 per cent in-firewall, source-based encryption, private key management, two factor authentication, remote data shredding capability, and full regulatory compliance, including FIPS 140, GDPR and HIPAA.

CTERA emerged in 2008, founded by cybersecurity experts from the Israeli defense industry who had founded an earlier company, which they sold to Check Point. Their corporate headquarters are in New York City, and their R&D is in Israel. Their customers include well known enterprise brands like McDonalds and Unilever, large financials like the Carlyle Group, as well as multiple agencies within the U.S. Department of Defense, including the Air Force.

“We are an enterprise player, but we have customers from the midmarket and SMB as well,” Taylor Diab said. “We now have more than two million endpoint users, and over 45,000 gateways in production. The platform is highly scalable, and can support hundreds of thousands of users.”

“Everything we sell goes through partners,” said Oded Nagel, CTERA’s Chief Strategy Officer. “We have important strategic alliances with HPE and IBM, who resell us. We work with Dell EMC as well, but that relationship is not on the same level as IBM and HPE. We also have a set of integrator and solution provider partners like SHI and WWT, with whom we work very closely. We have between 10 and 20 of these partners in the US, and around the same number in Europe.”

The purpose of the new HC Series is to provide considerably more capability to meet stronger demands at the edge. This includes being 3x faster, with 500 MB speed, 2x larger, extending to 96 TB raw storage, and 4x stronger, supporting up to 5000 users. The series has three models: the HC400E, the HC400 and the HC1200.

“All have the same software, with the difference being in the capacity and the number of users connected,” Taylor Diab said. The HC 4000E is a 4 bay 1U unit that supports 500 users with 16 TB of raw local capacity. The HC400 is another 4 bay 1U unit, but doubles the size and strength, to 32 TB of raw capacity and up to 1000 user support. It also supports 10GbE networks, while the 400E is 1GbE. The HC 1200 is much larger, a 12 bay 2U appliances that has 96 TB raw capacity and supports up to 5,000 users on 10GbE.

“We have also upgraded the logistics support we provide for the hardware, adding four hours onsite arrival to our 24/7 capability,” Taylor Diab said. “If there is a problem, we will have someone there in four hours.”

The HC Series appliances are based on HPE or Dell servers, offer all flash option configurations, and can run multiple virtual machines on the same appliance. Taylor Diab said that their upgraded power makes them suitable as well as a NAS replacement.

“The ability to serve as a NAS replacement before had been capped by their ability to provide bigger capacity, which now allows 3x to 4x users at the same time, allowing them to fully replace traditional NAS,” Taylor Diab said.  CTERA has reference customers like WPP who have purchased HC Series appliances during the soft launch phase specifically for this use case.

CTERA HC Series Edge Filers are available now.