Cohesity Essentials

Ransomware attackers don't just target production data - they go after backup infrastructure first, eliminating your ability to recover. 82% of midsize organizations that suffered an attack paid ransom averaging $1.3M. 40% were reinfected because they recovered already-compromised data². Ransomware is not a problem exclusive to enterprise organizations.

Tool sprawl makes protection and recovery from ransomware worse. The average organization uses 7.3 backup tools¹—each designed for a specific need, each a separate place to verify backups, and each a potential gap in your defenses. Different tools mean fragmented visibility, complex and slow recovery, and more attack surface for adversaries to exploit.

And then there’s an additional challenge: many midsize organizations lack the dedicated infrastructure to host additional backup tooling. Whether it's supporting a blend of on-premises virtualized workloads, databases, file services, cloud, and SaaS platforms like M365 at remote sites or limited infrastructure at the main office, budget and capacity constraints mean ransomware-resilient backup can't require net-new hardware.

What these organizations need is enterprise-grade protection that's simple to manage, provides ransomware resilience, can be centrally managed, and deploys on infrastructure they already own.

Cohesity Essentials: Ransomware resilience. Centralized control. Deploy anywhere.

Maximize ROI with enterprise-grade ransomware resilience on your existing infrastructure

Cohesity Essentials is virtual machine-based software that can run on your existing infrastructure to deliver ransomware-resilient backup and recovery for on-prem and cloud workloads. Based on on a virtual machine-based version of Cohesity DataProtect, Cohesity Essentials provides enterprise-grade cyber resilience across your entire data estate — VMs, databases, NAS, cloud, and M365 —while eliminating tool sprawl and the increased vulnerabilities and costs associated with it. Deploy as software on your existing VMware, Hyper-V, AWS, or Azure infrastructure and protect everything from a single, easy-to-use management interface. No new hardware required. No additional backup tools needed.

Why Cohesity Essentials

1. Built-in ransomware resilience

Always-on zero trust architecture, anomaly detection, and immutable backups by design, helping ensure clean recovery points even after an attack

Built-in access and security controls including RBAC and MFA to strengthen operational security.

Optional services include:

FortKnox cyber vaulting for logically air-gapped copies in the cloud provide data isolation and recovery options

Threat protection and Google Threat Intelligence integration to identify suspicious patterns in existing backups or before recovery

Identity Resilience powered by Semperis protects and restores identity systems such as Active Directory and Entra ID

2. Unified protection and simplified operations across on-prem and cloudfor lean IT teams

Reduce operational overhead without adding headcount by consolidating multiple backup tools into one platform, reducing sprawl and administrative burden.

Cohesity Helios provides a single point of control and visibility to apply consistent SLA-based policies for backup frequency, retention, and replication across hybrid and multicloud environments

Protect VMware and other virtualized workloads, databases, NAS shares, and cloud-native workloads from a single platform

AI-assisted automation streamlines administration, troubleshooting, reporting, job creation, policy assignment, and compliance tasks

3. Efficient, scalable software deployment

Start with as little as 10 TB minimum capacity, sized for typical midsize estates

Leverage global deduplication and compression to reduce storage consumption and total cost of ownership

Scale out as your data grows by adding capacity, not complexity into one platform, reducing sprawl and administrative burden.

Run it your way, cut your costs and vulnerabilities

✓ No new hardware to purchase — deploy on VMs you already own

✓ Global deduplication and compression cuts storage requirements by up to 50%

✓ Recover 2x quicker and confidently from ransomware events

✓ Helios Copilot AI management assistant — single console for your entire estate

How Cohesity Essentials stacks up

	Cohesity Essentials VE
Deployment Options	On-premises, Public Cloud, or Both
Protection breadth	VMs, DBs, NAS, K8s, cloud, SaaS
Ransomware defense	Core to platform
Air-gapped cyber vault	Cohesity FortKnox (optional)
Hardware required	No — runs on your existing VMs
M365 protection	Yes
AI management assistant	Yes – Helios Copilot
Anomaly detection	Included
Identity resilience	Optional
Recovery agent	Optional
Advanced threat hunting and protection	Optional

Business outcomes

With Cohesity Essentials Virtual Edition, you can:

Lower TCO by up to 40% through platform consolidation, dedupe/compression, and efficient use of existing infrastructure
Recover faster, including instant or near-instant recovery for critical VMs and applications
Strengthen cyber resilience without adding headcount or operational complexity
Future-proof strategy, with a platform that can extend to additional workloads and services over time

^{2. https://www.sophos.com/en-us/press/press-releases/2024/04/ransomware-payments-increase-500-last-year-finds-sophos-state}