HPE Zerto In-Cloud Software for AWS

My main use case for HPE Zerto Software  is data center migration, as I primarily use it for data center migration from site to site and for disaster recovery purposes.

A specific example of using HPE Zerto Software  for data center migration is a recent project wherein Zerto was installed in the remote data center. VPGs were configured, and using those VPGs, the workloads from the remote data center were brought to my own data centers. I have multiple data centers in my workspace and I use Zerto there for disaster recovery purposes, such as setting up bidirectional protection.

I am adding automation into my day-to-day HPE Zerto Software tasks.

The best features HPE Zerto Software offers include quick failover, such as failover from the remote data center to my own data center, which works great without any issues.

The failover feature stands out for me mainly because of its reliability. It is highly reliable, easy to configure, not too complex, and easy to manage.

HPE Zerto Software has positively impacted my organization as I basically take over small organizations, and while taking over those organizations, when the workloads are moved into my environment, Zerto plays a crucial part in moving those workloads from one data center to another.

The reduction in downtime is a very important concept, and it is an instantaneous process. VPGs are configured before the actual failover and the failover time is very low from one data center to another, especially when the VPGs are configured properly. The process is seamless.

Adding more features would be great, such as hardware version upgrades upon failover to the data centers and VM tools upgrades.

Automation can also be improved and made as easy as HPE Zerto Software is to manage. If that automation becomes as easy as that, then it becomes easier to manage.

I have been using HPE Zerto Software for more than three years.

HPE Zerto Software is stable, quite cost-effective, and easy to manage, making the work easier.

HPE Zerto Software's scalability is good. Based on my requirements, I can install it wherever required with proper credentials and permissions. It is quite scalable, easily installable, and manageable.

Customer support is quite easy to reach out to. They are very approachable, which makes the work easier.

In my previous organization, I used VMware. In this organization, I also have VMware, but I am using it in combination with HPE Zerto Software. In my previous organization, I used VMware-based disaster recovery techniques.

I have seen a return on investment as fewer employees are needed. Since HPE Zerto Software makes the failover easier, a smaller number of people can do the same job for a maximum number of workloads, and I do not need high expertise candidates to do the work. Hence, the amount of money required for investment decreases.

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is easy to manage and install. Licensing is quite cost-effective, and for enterprise-based management, it is great.

Before choosing HPE Zerto Software, I evaluated other options, primarily VMware Site Recovery Manager in my previous organization. Similarly, in this present organization, I compared Site Recovery Manager with HPE Zerto Software, and after all the comparisons, I decided to go ahead with HPE Zerto Software.

My advice to others looking into using HPE Zerto Software is that if you are looking for a solution for disaster recovery or failover, especially from a workload perspective while managing multiple data centers, HPE Zerto Software is probably one of the best solutions to consider. Before going ahead with any other products, HPE Zerto Software should be kept in mind when doing comparisons.

HPE Zerto Software is one of the best software solutions that I have used to date. I have experience with multiple disaster recovery solutions such as VMware, Site Recovery Manager, and others, and based on that, HPE Zerto Software stands out among all as one of the best software solutions I have used. I would rate this product a 9 out of 10.

My main use case for HPE Zerto Software  is disaster recovery. For disaster recovery, I use HPE Zerto Software  with set and forget options to protect critical production databases.

HPE Zerto Software offers the best features in that it works reliably, has set and forget functionality, and does exactly what it is said to do.

The particular features that make HPE Zerto Software so reliable for me are replication and failover. HPE Zerto Software has impacted my organization positively because it does what it is supposed to do.

HPE Zerto Software is fine the way it is and does not need improvement. I do not have any additional thoughts about needed improvements.

I have been using HPE Zerto Software for six years.

I do not have anything else to add about how I use HPE Zerto Software in my environment. I do not have anything else to add about the features. I would rate HPE Zerto Software an eight on a scale of one to ten because there are some quirks and issues with deployment that keep it from being a ten. My advice to others looking into using HPE Zerto Software is to conduct your research and make sure the product is right for you. My overall rating for HPE Zerto Software is an eight.

The near-synchronous replication does replicate in real-time. That's another great feature of HPE Zerto Software . The asynchronous replication is valuable because I tried to understand the journaling behind it, and that's one of the wonderful features about it.

Regarding the impact on RTOs and RPOs, definitely, all because of the backend technology, it has really saved my RTOs and RPOs for any kind of recovery. Otherwise, we would have to be very specific about RTOs and RPOs for each and every application. Journaling is one thing which is a good feature about it.

HPE Zerto Software has reduced our organization's DR testing, saving around thirty to forty percent time for us.

The areas that have room for improvement include the GUI. The other thing is the VRA portion which is required to be installed on each and every ESXi. A better integration might help us for the VRA monitoring. That might be one of the useful features.

In terms of maintenance, that's fairly fine.

From one to ten, I rate their technical support ten out of ten. I have had a very nice experience working with HPE Zerto Software.

HPE Zerto Software has helped with RTOs and RPOs maybe around thirty percent.

We have not come across the issue of data recovery due to ransomware or any other causes, but if that kind of situation comes up in the POC, we have seen it's been a remarkably nice set of solution for the recovery.

I prefer HPE Zerto Software.

I would recommend HPE Zerto Software to other users. In the POC, that's one thing that I can recommend. It also gives you a kind of hybrid model. That's also another reason why I will be recommending the solution. It's a one-stop solution for doing your disaster recovery, irrespective of what cloud you are running.

We do use a Cyber Vault solution or immutable data copies to recover from attacks.

My thoughts on the integration capabilities overall is that it's awesome. This is one of the best features about HPE Zerto Software as for the integration part.

I rate this review nine out of ten.

The primary use case for HPE Zerto Software  is disaster recovery. I use HPE Zerto Software  to help protect VMs in my environment.

One of the most important features of HPE Zerto Software is the ability to easily recover systems based on the required point in time. The possibility to recover systems to the desired point in time while containing consistency within the whole application is significant.

My impression of its near-synchronous replication is that it covers the majority of all use cases. It cannot cover all scenarios and very sophisticated requirements, such as near-zero replication. However, in most cases, these capabilities are fully sufficient to have the system fully operational because I am aware that in case of a real issue or real disaster, there is always the loss of data. This is acceptable functionality in my opinion.

HPE Zerto Software is not reducing our DR testing because we have DR tests based on our policies and they are conducted periodically. However, the amount of time needed to perform DR exercises itself and the engagement of teams required to be present during the recovery test helps much and lowers the costs for the company. This software allows for almost fully automatic recovery, which means that the teams are required only for the verification phase, not during the entire recovery process. This also impacts the costs for DR exercise execution, meaning the costs are lower compared to the scenario when the team responsible for the application needs to recover the system from a backup solution.

In my opinion, it is hard to predict how HPE Zerto Software can be improved in the future because this software is used for a very specific purpose which it works fine for. This purpose is quite limited, so there are all required functionalities now provided by HPE Zerto Software within the application. It is possible to recover the virtual machines and recover pods from Docker  solutions, for example. The application itself cannot recover physical servers, so I would point that out as a feature request that could be discussed by the HPE Zerto Software team as a new functionality, if possible.

Regarding specific security examples that made me decide to switch to HPE Zerto Software, I did not have security concerns. Before using HPE Zerto Software, we did not have the specific requirement from the security perspective to use such software. Probably now as there is DORA requirement, NIST, and NIS requirement. However, we were using this software before this law started, so we already used this software.

I have been using HPE Zerto Software for almost 10 years.

I am generally very pleased with the technical support provided by HPE, so I would rate it a 10.

Unfortunately, I do not use any other software in this approach because we have only HPE Zerto Software. Therefore, I do not have experience with any competitors, such as Veeam, Rubrik , and others. I did not have the chance to use them in a normal production manner.

The initial setup of HPE Zerto Software is not complicated; it is very simple. You have everything from an infrastructure perspective prepared, so you have the privileges configured on the hypervisor solution, along with all components such as network, storage, capacity, and CPU prepared. The installation itself lasts one to two hours at most. After the initial installation, it is only the configuration for the production workload, depending on needs and scenarios and how many systems you have in protection. From my understanding, the initial configuration and installation are very easy and smooth based on my experience. However, some preparation is required, but this is normal for any solution, not just for HPE Zerto Software.

I am not able to estimate the cost of downtime. However, let me imagine that a typical application recovery process lasts two to three hours and it takes two to three persons to be involved in this process. Let me assume that such engagement is not for one application but for 100 applications. Then let me compare it to the situation when you have all these systems protected with HPE Zerto Software and one person is able to recover their systems in minutes and only asks the application teams to verify if it is working fine after recovery. This causes huge numbers of FTE engaged in the DR process, whether in simulations or the real disaster recovery process, measured in many hours compared to minutes that can even be done in parallel. I think the return of value is huge. This is based on not only one action but comparing activities performed four times a year because of the policies requiring such exercises, which many teams are involved in.

I can confirm that HPE Zerto Software has reduced downtime in various situations, and it has reduced, as I mentioned previously, the engagement of the teams required to recover their systems.

Comparing HPE Zerto Software's recovery speed to competitors, I cannot compare what is the time required to recover the systems. However, compared to backups, as this is the initial way to recover systems after failures, it is much faster because it is measured in minutes to recover systems. Compared to traditional backup solutions, it is much faster.

I assess HPE Zerto Software's overall effect on my RPOs by stating that we use it both in simulations, meaning the DR exercises, which we perform periodically in our production environment. As it is, the DR exercise is controlled, which means that we have no loss of data in that case. However, we also had examples of using the software during a real disaster that happened in our infrastructure, and it also worked fine. The RPO requirements were met during the recovery actions, so for us, it proved that it worked fine.

Regarding the pricing of HPE Zerto Software, I find it reasonable. I rate this review a 10.