Cloud Attached Storage 5.0

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Release Notes

Cloud Attached Storage 5.0

March 2015

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2 Cloud Attached Storage 5.0 Release Notes

Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on part of CTERA Networks Ltd.

CTERA, C200, C400, C800, P1200, CloudPlug, NEXT3, Cloud Attached Storage, and Virtual Cloud Drive are trademarks, service marks, or registered trademarks of CTERA Networks Ltd.

All other product names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

The products described in this document are protected by U.S. patents, foreign patents, or pending applications.

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About This Release

CTERA Cloud Attached Storage 5.0 (CTERA Cloud Gateways and CTERA Agents) includes the following highlights:

 VDI Mode

 Sync Gateway Mode

 Outlook Plug-in

 Single Sign On from CTERA Agent to a Portal Account

 Mac OS X Shell Extension

 Browse Previous File Versions Shell Extension

 CTERA Edit

 Cloud Gateway Network Troubleshooting Tools

 Email Notification on Predicted Drive Failure

 Email Notification If a Volume Selected for Cloud Backup is Offline

 SMART Disk Health Check

VDI Mode

CTERA Agent 5.0 includes VDI mode, which enables using the CTERA Agent with a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) in a Microsoft Windows environment and works with Active Directory.

Enterprises and service providers who launch a virtual desktop as a service can leverage VDI mode in order to:

 Enable users to access data on their Cloud Drive from their virtual desktop.

 Decouple the user data storage and the actual system storage, as user data will be stored on the Cloud Drive rather than the VDI host. This enables one to:

 Maximize the number of VDI instances that can be hosted on a single host.

 Save on expensive, high-IOPS VDI host storage.

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In order to enjoy these benefits, the enterprise or service provider must incorporate a CTERA Agent in VDI mode into the VDI desktop image.

VDI mode works as follows:

1. VDI mode is enabled by applying a registry key to the target machine. For instructions, refer to the document "Using CTERA Agent in VDI Mode".

2. When a user accesses their virtual desktop, the CTERA Agent performs Single Sign On (SSO) and automatically signs on to the CTERA Portal with the user’s credentials as listed in Active Directory.

3. Upon completing SSO, the user’s Cloud Drive is mounted as a network drive called “Cloud (Z:)”. If the drive is unavailable, the previous drive letter (for example, Y, X, etc) will be used.

4. The user can then access their personal and shared folders through the network drive.

Tip

It is possible to apply the registry key via Active Directory GPO, by upoloading the ctera-vdi.adm file to the group policy on Active Directory. This file is

available from CTERA Support.

Tip

Single Sign On (SSO) works only in a portal environment configured with Active Directory. If these conditions are not met, the user will need to input their username and password.

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Sync Gateway Mode

CTERA Cloud Storage Gateways now include Sync Gateway mode. This feature allows

accessing the user’s home and shared folders from other CTERA Cloud Gateways, for example a gateway at a branch office, while enforcing the permissions set in CTERA Portal.

Here is how it works:

1. Enable Sync Gateway mode on the CTERA Cloud Gateway.

Tip

The CTERA Cloud Gateway must be connected to a virtual portal using an administrator account.

2. The CTERA Cloud Gateway’s data synchronizes all the data in the team portal onto local storage, including all the user's home folders and shared folders, and exposes them to local users while preserving file permissions and the directory structure seen by each user.

3. The users access the cloud data from the following network destination:

\\<MyCloudGateway>\cloud

using standard network access over NAS protocols, such as: CIFS, NFS, and so on.

Tip

It is highly recommended to use Active Directory. Otherwise, using Sync Gateway requires the manual creation of local users with the same names as the cloud users.

Sync Gateway mode offers many benefits in an office environment:

 Users can enjoy full LAN speed access to their data when they are in the branch office, using standard file sharing protocols. Furthermore, users retain full offline access to their data during Internet or cloud service outages.

 Users retain data access (using the same credentials) outside the office, via browser, mobile device, WebDAV network drive, and so on.

 Sync Gateway mode allows content distribution, so that files and folders can be uploaded to a centralized location (CTERA Portal) and then automatically synchronized to remote gateways that reside at the branch.

 Sync Gateway mode allows collaboration between users in different branch offices.

 Sync Gateway mode also accommodates user migration procedures, so that if users are migrated from one branch to another, or if they frequently travel between branches, their files and folders will follow them to the target branch.

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Outlook Plug-in

The Outlook Plug-in is a Microsoft Outlook plug-in that replaces standard e-mail attachments with public links. When a user attempts to attach one or more files to an email thread, a download link can be embedded in the message body, and the attachments synchronized to the CTERA Portal. The email recipient can then use the download link to view or download the files from CTERA Portal.

The conditions for embedding a download link and synchronizing the attachments are configurable, as follows:

 Outlook Plug-in can always perform these actions, never perform these actions, or only perform these actions when the size of the attached files exceeds a certain threshold (in MB).

 The Outlook Plug-in can ask the user before performing these actions.

 The download link to the sent attachments automatically expires after a certain number of days, and shortly after, the files are removed from the portal’s sent attachments folder.

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The main advantages of this feature are:

 Users can send large files as email attachments. Commonly, exchange servers limit the size of an email attachment.

 Less exchange server storage is required. Exchange server storage is commonly high-IOPS, and storing the attachments elsewhere (on the CTERA Portal) helps reduce the amount of storage required.

 You can define a threshold determining when a public link will be used and when a standard email attachment will be sent.

 Unlike email, your files are never sent in a non-encrypted format. If needed, you can delete or update files after they have been sent.

Single Sign On from CTERA Agent to a Portal Account

In CTERA Agent, when a user is redirected to the cloud to perform actions (for example, View Online, Restore, Invite Team Members, and so on), the user will not be prompted to enter their credentials. Instead, the user will be automatically authenticated and presented with the relevant page for the selected action.

This feature is supported in multi-user mode and single-user mode. In single-user mode, SSO will be performed only for users with agent administration privileges.

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Mac OS X Shell Extension

The new CTERA Agent 5.0 provides shell extension support for Mac OS X, providing Mac users with:

 File and folder synchronization feedback via overlay icons in the finder

 Right-click options to quickly generate public links, invite team members to collaboration folders, browse previous file versions, browse or view files online, and more.

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Browse Previous File Versions Shell Extension

In CTERA Cloud Agent 5.0, you can view the previous revisions of a file synchronized from your Cloud Drive, with just two clicks:

1. Right-click on the desired file, and then click CTERA Agent > Version History.

2. You are redirected to CTERA Portal and presented with a page displaying the file revisions.

You can use this feature to quickly view, download, or restore previous file versions as needed. You can also stay up to date on who performed changes to the file, in the event that you are working in collaboration with your colleagues.

CTERA Edit

CTERA Cloud Agent 5.0 automatically installs a browser plugin that enables users to easily edit files downloaded from the portal, and have the updated files uploaded automatically to the portal when they are saved. The flow is as follows:

1. The user accesses the CTERA Portal Web interface, select a file, and clicks Edit.

2. The file is downloaded from the portal and opened by the relevant local PC program.

3. The user makes changes to the file and saves it.

4. The updated copy is automatically uploaded to CTERA Portal.

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This feature requires a Cloud Agent to be installed on the user’s PC and logged in to the user’s CTERA Portal account.

Currently, it is supported only on Google Chrome for Windows.

Cloud Gateway Network Troubleshooting Tools

The following network troubleshooting tools were added to the CTERA Cloud Gateway, to diagnose potential network-related issues:

 ping – For testing the reachability of a host on the network

 nslookup – For querying the DNS

 traceroute – For displaying the route packets across the network

• TCP Connect – For testing whether a specific TCP port is open

The network troubleshooting tools are available through the gateway’s administrator Web interface, under System > Network > Diagnostics.

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Email Notification on Predicted Drive Failure

In a case of a drive failure, or if the drive has indicated that it will likely fail in the near future, an e- mail notification is sent to the CTERA Cloud Gateway administrator, so that the administrator can quickly address the problem.

Email Notification If a Volume Selected for Cloud Backup Is

Offline

As a CTERA Agent owner, you will now receive warning messages if you chose to back up files and folders from a volume/partition that is currently offline. Warnings are displayed in the CTERA Agent tray, including the offline drive names.

SMART Disk Health Check

You can check the health of the disks attached to the CTERA Cloud Gateway, by running a disk health check through the gateway’s administrator Web interface. You can run short or long SMART tests.

You can perform SMART tests on drives as follows:

1. Access the gateway’s management interface using the gateway administrator account.

2. In the navigation pane, click Dashboard.

3. Select the requested drive.

4. Click on the Self Test tab.