Israeli New Start-Up Ctera in Cloud Attached Storage

CTERA Networks Ltd. introduced its Cloud Attached Storage technology in advance of this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, NV. By bundling Network Attached Storage (NAS) and cloud storage services into a single appliance, the new technology marries the performance and simplicity of a local NAS device with the scalability and reliability of cloud storage to enable service providers to launch new consumer and small business services.

CTERA is unveiling its smallest form factor appliance, the CloudPlug: a tiny form-factor, plug-top computing device that instantly transforms any external USB hard drive into a NAS device with automatic backup. The contents of any attached USB drive are automatically backed up online without the need for any user intervention or PC client software, thus ridding users of the tedious and expensive task of setting up a dedicated file server and managing the backup process.

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CloudPlug

"The transparency of an appliance-based service makes it especially appealing to service providers looking to efficiently deploy large-scale managed storage services," said Liran Eshel, founder and chief executive officer at CTERA Networks. "We are actively working with ISPs and MSPs seeking to integrate new managed storage services as part of their next-generation broadband offerings."

"The emergence of cloud storage, coupled with innovations in the established Network Attached Storage market, presents new and exciting opportunities. The challenge is to make storage more reliable and at the same time keep it cost-effective," said Arad Naveh, general partner at Benchmark Capital. "We look forward to working with the CTERA team to introduce this new technology to the market."

Comments

That's really an innovative technology from CTERA Networks, founded in May 2008 by Liran Eshel, CEO, and Zohar Kaufman, who previously led SofaWare Technologies, a Check Point company, from early incubation to a prime position in the small business network security appliance market. Prior to joining SofaWare, Eshel served as an officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) managing various R&D teams. The start-up is located in Petach Tikva, Israel and Palo Alto, CA, and has also announced to have secured first-round venture financing from Benchmark Capital.

Liran Eshel, CEO of CTERA and former CEO of SofaWare

These two diagrams from the company explain quite well what the inventors mean by the new concept of clouded attached storage for SMBs, offering infinite storage and accessible from anywhere.

To connect to the cloud, CTERA offers either the tiny CloudPlug or its C200 NAS that supports two internal hot-swap SATA drives as well as the option of connecting additional external drives via two USB interfaces. C200 also allows RAID configurations for local data redundancy, as well as built-in online backup services.

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C200 NAS