CTERA AI agents see dead data and cart it off to an archive

CTERA launched its Data Archiving Solution, which pairs agentic AI recommendations from its InsightAI Data Service with CTERA Archive to identify cold enterprise file data and move it to a lower-cost archival tier. CTERA CEO Oded Nagel said the challenge has been knowing what data can safely move and providing a practical path to execute that migration. The product competes with offerings from Datadobi, Diskover, Komprise, Quantum, Arcitecta, Data Dynamics and Hammerspace, and is part of CTERA's Intelligent Data Platform.

DATA MANAGEMENT CTERA AI agents see dead data and cart it off to an archive After having found out most enterprise file data is unused https://www.blocksandfiles.com/file/2026/09/15/ctera-finds-95-of-enterprise-file-data-rarely-used/5296552 CTERA has a way to automatically archive it. CTERA’s Data Archiving Solution combines AI recommendations from InsightAI Data Service with CTERA Archive archival capabilities to help organizations identify cold data and move it to lower-cost storage, while keeping it accessible to AI and analytics. CEO Oded Nagel said: “Enterprise data volumes are going to continue to grow, but not all data needs to remain on primary storage or be immediately accessible. The challenge has always been knowing what data can safely move and then providing a practical path to execute that migration.” InsightAI uses agentic AI to infer what each file contains from its metadata - filename, path, extension, and directory context - and assess its value to the business, combining that understanding with age, type, size, and usage patterns to recommend which data can be archived. CTERA Archive is then used to move these files off primary storage to a dedicated, isolated and lower cost archival tier within the organisation’s same CTERA on-prem or public cloud environment, thus maintaining control over retention and access. CTERA says that, because archived files stay within its Intelligent Data Platform environment, they remain governed and accessible to AI and analytics without a separate retrieval or rehydration step, so cold data can be moved off primary storage without being taken out of reach. CTERA and data management This kind of file storage mapping and moving service has long been offered by alternative vendors such as Datadobi with its Storage Map https://www.blocksandfiles.com/file/2026/05/07/storagemap-scanning-35-billion-files-at-the-university-of-manchester/5234748 product. Diskover https://www.blocksandfiles.com/data-management/2026/07/08/diskover-finds-and-eliminates-rot-data/5268363 can also discover and process ROT redundant, obsolete, and trivial data as can Komprise with its Transparent File Tables https://www.blocksandfiles.com/data-management/2026/06/23/komprise-provides-lakehouse-access-to-petabytes-of-unstructured-data/5260267 TFT software. Quantum’s recently announced Autonomous Data Management https://www.blocksandfiles.com/data-management/2026/09/08/a-quantum-of-data-assessment-and-autonomous-management/5294972 ADM can assess data placement across an unstructured storage estate and suggest optimizations to improve data storage cost, safety, and performance. The ever-expanding unstructured data estate, combined with the rise of expensive SSD storage for hot data, particularly data for AI inferencing and agent access, means data storage costs are growing and growing. Discovering and moving dead data off flash is becoming an imperative. CTERA is moving into the unstructured data management space and thus competing with these suppliers and also Arcitecta, Data Dynamics and Hammerspace. CTERA Data Archiving Solution is part of the company’s CTERA Intelligent Data Platform product.