

CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform and Dell PowerScale compete in the enterprise file storage and management category. CTERA stands out with flexible pricing and superior integration support in cloud environments, while Dell PowerScale excels in comprehensive features and high scalability, offering considerable infrastructure compatibility.
Features: CTERA delivers robust cloud integration, facilitating edge-to-core file sharing essential for distributed environments. It ensures data availability and seamless accessibility through a browser interface and edge filer with SMB or NFS access. In contrast, Dell PowerScale provides extensive scalability within IT frameworks, supporting high scalability with OneFS and integrated CloudIQ for performance monitoring. It features multi-protocol support, allowing simultaneous file access across different clients, enhancing data processing capabilities.
Room for Improvement: CTERA could enhance its scalability options for extensive data management and expand its integration capabilities with diverse IT infrastructure. Its real-time data processing could also be improved for better performance in high-demand environments. Dell PowerScale may focus on simplifying deployment and configuration processes, reducing complexity for users. Enhancing flexibility in data placement for evolving workloads and maintaining minimal downtime during upgrades would further benefit users.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: CTERA offers a streamlined deployment process with robust customer support, making configuration and integration efficient. Dell PowerScale, though requiring more intricate setup due to its expansive feature set, provides significant support that aids smooth deployment within larger systems, ensuring effective use of resources during rollouts.
Pricing and ROI: CTERA’s adaptable pricing model offers higher short-term ROI for smaller installations due to lower upfront costs, appealing to budget-sensitive enterprises. Dell PowerScale requires a more significant initial investment yet justifies it with long-term ROI attributed to its scalability and feature richness. Organizations seeking sustained investment returns will find Dell PowerScale’s comprehensive capabilities advantageous.
Adding SSD storage to Windows file servers is expensive, and we no longer need to back up those devices.
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.
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.
Despite being more expensive than Huawei, it is stable and most enterprises accept the price due to its stability.
In terms of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) specifically, we have seen a return on investment due to faster performance than our last few storage arrays, and the general usability is a lot better.
The second cluster of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) gives us flexibility for small things like code upgrades, all the way to scenarios where we have lost this data center or data, allowing us to check if data is still intact on the other side.
They swiftly address concerns and take ownership of the call, providing a very satisfactory support experience.
The quality and speed of support for CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform is some of the best in the industry.
For critical issues, we receive a call within 10 to 15 minutes of creating a request.
Support online is definitely a ten out of ten.
When we face issues, we raise a ticket through the valid portal, and they respond immediately and assign a local engineer to coordinate the support process.
Dell provides support within four hours, and they always fulfill their promises.
If we need to upgrade CPU and memory, we should be able to do that without a license upgrade.
The licensing supports various data sizes, such as EV16 supporting up to 16 terabytes, and if you exceed that, you move to EV32.
CTERA is a very scalable product, allowing us to grow.
We started on PowerScale with around about 300 terabytes and are now two and a half petabytes, still on the same file system.
That's really saved us in certain areas as we didn't have funding to expand Dell PowerScale (Isilon) until next year, which is why we utilized the cloud pools functionality to offload.
As an unstructured data storage solution, writing into it and accessing it from the other nodes is highly scalable with no issues.
It has been pretty stable since then.
We had things deployed for years, and we were suddenly getting cloud sync issues that were crashing our sites.
It is very stable and reliable.
Since we have good protection levels, the data is secured and replicated across the disks.
Even if a node goes down, other nodes can respond and provide data back to the user without issues.
I assess the stability and reliability of Dell PowerScale (Isilon) as perfect.
AI and automation features could enhance the platform, such as AI-powered search, predictive storage analytics, and intelligent alerts for proactive monitoring.
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.
It would help to have a global single-pane-of-glass view of all my CTERA devices.
Firmware or software updates become effortless with Pure, but with Dell PowerScale (Isilon), we must evaluate or conduct trial runs to ensure that these operations will not harm our customer's system; their software is not adequate.
Hardware failures under warranty should be addressed within the promised timeline.
I would want to see more AI features with Dell PowerScale (Isilon).
Unlike other solutions that require hardware purchases, CTERA offers software licensing with flexibility across multiple infrastructure providers.
CTERA’s pricing should be more proportional and accessible so that cost is not the factor preventing customers from purchasing.
From what I heard from my seniors, a 50 TB capacity license would be around 55 to 60 lakhs in Indian rupees.
It's quite expensive for the amount of storage we have.
Cheaper nodes will cost less, while higher performance nodes will be pricier.
Costs align well with what it delivers, making it a fair price for a powerful tool that meets all our needs.
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.
A vital advantage of this platform is its instantaneous recovery capability, allowing seamless access to a secondary gateway if the primary one fails.
When it comes to data protection in CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform, we have encryption methodologies and we also have ransomware protection, which is a wide variety of features offered along with the CTERA appliance and application.
Dell PowerScale offers high scalability and stability as well, making it a valuable solution for enterprises.
In our AI initiatives, Dell PowerScale (Isilon) plays a significant role in data analysis, data fusion; principally, it is involved in data analysis, data extraction, and statistical analysis.
Single files are limited to four terabytes in our configuration, however, the system can support up to 16 terabytes, so we can scale based on that too.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Dell PowerScale (Isilon) | 14.8% |
| CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform | 4.4% |
| Other | 80.8% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 2 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 2 |
| Large Enterprise | 18 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 19 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 20 |
| Large Enterprise | 45 |
The CTERA Enterprise File Services Platform provides a cloud-native global file system over public and private object storage, revolutionizing the world of hybrid cloud data solutions. Enhanced by a rich data services ecosystem, CTERA enables enterprises to gain full control of their data for optimal edge performance, data insight, and governance. The platform focuses on security, providing features like data encryption, access controls, and ransomware protection. Centralized management tools enable efficient data control and monitoring. The platform is being used to replace legacy NAS and file servers, especially at remote locations, and simplify backup and disaster recovery of file data while providing the flexibility of multi-cloud deployments with infinite scalability. CTERA is at the core of hybrid cloud transformations of some of the world’s largest banks, healthcare organizations, global media groups, and government agencies, in deployments that scale to tens of petabytes.
Dell PowerScale leads in unstructured data management with unified file and object storage, massive scalability, security, and cloud adaptability, enhancing AI, analytics, and enterprise applications with exceptional performance and resilience.
Dell PowerScale Isilon provides a comprehensive platform for unstructured data, excelling in scalability, management, and performance. With features like single-pane management, SyncIQ, and SmartQuotas, it handles large datasets with flexibility and robust security. Its multi-protocol support and seamless expansion improve operational efficiency. While it offers strong data protection, enhancements in cloud integration, cybersecurity, and performance are sought. Users note potential for cost reductions and streamlined configurations and mention desired improvements in object storage handling and NFS support.
What are the key features of Dell PowerScale Isilon?Organizations across industries utilize Dell PowerScale Isilon for large-scale unstructured storage, supporting applications like video archiving, genomic data storage, and high-resolution imaging. Educational institutions, research centers, and media enterprises rely on its scaled-out storage capabilities, providing centralized, secure storage for diverse applications in hybrid, cloud, and on-prem environments.
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