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Cloud Storage Products Offered From CTERA

Cloud Storage Appliances with Online Backup
By Bill Roth
Article Rating:
October 7, 2009 10:24 AM EDT
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 347

CTERA announced a pair of products meant to make adding storage to “The Cloud” easy. They also announced a marketing and distribution agreement with RackSpace for their devices.

The first of the two devices is targeted at consumers. The Cloudplug is a device that makes anu USB or eSata hard drive into Network Attached Storage. CTERA is also offering an online backup service for $199 for 10Gb of space.

The second of the devices is targeted at small businesses. The C200 is a two-bay RAID-capable network storage appliance, with automatic online backup as well for $499. The storage limit for this bundle was not listed.

The devices seem to be well received by the analyst community. “CTERA’s incredibly easy to use platform represents the next generation of storage. Combining a NAS appliance with cloud services makes sense, and the small, easy-to-install plug-and-play form factor is ideal for small businesses lacking dedicated IT staff,” said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group, and a former top analyst with Gartner.

Unlike most cloud device announcements, CTERA also announced an important channel agreement as well. CTERA also announced an agreement with RackSpace. The hosting and cloud computing vendor has agreed to promote and market the CloudPlug via online and channel programs.

The CTERA devices also use technology from San Jose-based Marvell. The devices include Marvell’s SheevaPlug plug and play technology. This is notable in that Marvell, usually a component provider, is marketing itself and provide product to a broader audience.

In olden days, say 2005, this would have been a networked storage announcement. But Cloud Computing has become become the meme of the moment. For a general introduction to Cloud Computing, see Kevin Hartig’s article on the sys-con.com web site.

Published October 7, 2009 – Reads 347
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More Stories By Bill Roth

Despite his technical education, Bill Roth is Chief Marketing Officer at systems software company. He is formerly the Vice President of the BEA Workshop Business Unit. Prior to this he was Chief Technical Evangelist for Epiphany. With over 20 years in this industry, he has played numerous product marketing, product management and engineering roles at companies like Sun and Morgan Stanley, and GSI Commerce.