It’s no secret that Cohesity is known to be a pioneer in recognizing the issue of mass data fragmentation in enterprises and also providing a solution to this pervasive problem. The issue is further exacerbated by the fact that data is being created faster than ever and will only continue to grow exponentially across the data center, public cloud, and the edge. In fact, the massive rise of the enterprise edge data is another proofpoint of this trend. A recent study conducted by Gartner found that around 10 percent of enterprise-generated data is created and processed outside a traditional centralized data center or cloud. By 2025, Gartner predicts this figure will reach 75 percent of all data, highlighting the importance of data management at the enterprise edge.
Now let’s talk about a specific subset of enterprise edge data–remote and branch offices or ROBO. A recent ESG survey of enterprises found that a whopping 80 percent of ROBO locations have no dedicated/qualified IT resources. It also found that over 30 percent of the enterprises surveyed mentioned local data backup as a significant ROBO challenge. Backup is just one of the data management concerns at ROBO locations. Mobility of this data, security, visibility, and ease of managing this data are some of the other issues that keep IT management up at night. ROBO locations are even more vulnerable to external cybersecurity threats as they may not have the same level of data security and defense measures that are deployed at the core data center.
All of these issues underscore the importance of data management at ROBO locations and the need for an enterprise-class solution optimized for ROBO. Existing point solutions available today are not without their shortcomings and limitations. Firstly, point solutions being used today at ROBO locations are either too limited in functionality and more suited for small-to-medium business (SMB) environments or are over-configured and too high-maintenance for ROBO locations which already have few or no skilled IT resources. Secondly, given these are point solutions, they add to the problem of mass data fragmentation. And finally, they are complex to manage and require dedicated skilled resources, which also adds to the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Granted there are virtual appliances that mitigate some of these issues, but the higher data resiliency and ‘low-touch’ solution that customers need, are not fulfilled by a virtual appliance.
We at Cohesity believe that enterprises should not have to be forced to choose between good-enough and over-kill approaches to protecting and managing their ROBO data. This is why we are excited to announce that we are extending and enhancing our current data management offerings for the enterprise edge with a new plug-and-play physical appliance optimized for enterprise ROBO locations. The new solution combines Cohesity software with certified 1U1N servers from our key technology partners, Cisco and Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) and is available exclusively through their go-to-market channels. The joint solution is designed for quick and easy installation and offers enterprises the same functionality at ROBO locations that they rely upon in the data center. This is the industry’s first solution to combine backup and recovery, file and object services, and data migration for archival, replication, and tiering in a single platform that is optimized for ROBO locations and continues to extend the power of modern data management to more customers.
With the new Cohesity ROBO appliance, large enterprises with numerous branch locations, such as retailers, chain restaurants, gas stations, and rental car agencies can seamlessly manage data within their ROBO locations with a single software-defined platform — the same web-scale platform that many organizations use today to manage data across existing data center and cloud environments. Available in 4TB and 8TB usable capacity, the ROBO appliance will include Cohesity DataPlatform Standard Edition and Cohesity DataProtect preloaded on Cisco UCS C220 M5L or HPE ProLiant DL 360 Gen 10 rack server. Below are the detailed software and hardware specifications for both these options:
| Preloaded Software |
Cohesity DataPlatform Standard Edition The software is available in 1/2/3/4/5-year and 1-month subscription options. |
|
| Hardware | HPE DL360 Gen 10 | Cisco UCS C220 M5L |
| Form Factor |
1U1N |
1U1N |
| Capacity | 4TB/8TB Useable | 4TB/8TB Useable |
| Hardware Specifications |
|
|
The new Cisco or HPE ROBO appliance powered by Cohesity gives customers an added choice of deployment option of Cohesity DataPlatform for Edge. Customers can choose the new appliance-based option when they want a dedicated, plug-and-play device or go for the existing software-only option of Cohesity DataPlatform Virtual Edition running on an existing hypervisor environment. Every customer has unique requirements but the below guidance might help you select the right option:
| Decision Criteria | Cohesity Data Platform for Edge | |
| Virtual Edition (existing) | Appliance-Based (new) | |
| Deployment mode | Software-only running within VMware vSphere, Microsoft Hyper-V, KVM, Nutanix AHV, RHEL environments | 1U1N hardware appliance-based solution running on certified Cisco and HPE servers |
| Software included | Cohesity DataPlatform only. DataProtect is an add-on license. | Comes preloaded with Cohesity DataPlatform and DataProtect |
| Ease of deployment | Require technical resources to deploy and manage a virtual environment | Simple, plug-and-play, no dedicated IT resource needed |
| Time to deploy | Fast as no new hardware is needed | Need to start up physical infrastructure at the ROBO site |
| Flexibility | High – Start from 1TB and scale up to 16TB in 1TB increments | Low – Comes in fixed 4TB and 8TB form factor |
| Data resiliency | Lower due to shared resources with a virtualized environment | Higher due to dedicated hardware appliance with built-in data resiliency |
| Cost | Optimized for lower CapEx as no upfront hardware is required. Due to dedicated technical resources and hypervisor license, the Virtual Edition can be OPEX intensive | Optimized for lower OPEX due to ease of deployment, simplified management, no dependence on hypervisor license or specialized technical resources |
No matter which deployment option you choose, Cohesity DataPlatform for Edge dramatically simplifies data management and protection at remote and branch office locations by consolidating backup, recovery, file services and object storage on a single software-defined solution. It allows easy, policy-based data mobility to the core and leading public cloud providers for long term archival, replication and tiering. Cohesity DataPlatform for Edge allows flexible granular recovery, to any point in time, significantly reduced data footprint and WAN bandwidth utilization from remote sites with global variable-length, sliding-window dedupe, and compression. Enjoy peace of mind with Cohesity’s integrated cybersecurity against ransomware with an immutable file system, DataLock (WORM), data encryption, early anomaly detection with Cohesity Helios machine learning and instant mass restore. And last but not least, easily manage all your non-latency sensitive data and applications with a single, easy-to-navigate user interface across core, cloud, and edge. We are excited to continue our journey of redefining data management, one ROBO location at a time, and look forward to making our customers a part of this journey.
To learn more, visit the Cohesity DataPlatform for Edge product page on Cohesity.com
Other Useful Resources:
The new ROBO appliance will be Generally Available in Spring 2020 and can be procured exclusively through Cisco and HPE channel partners.
