We use Zerto for data and disaster recovery replication.
Zerto DR (ZVM)
BYNETExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Always works, is good for our business use case, and is easy to set up
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
From time to time, we have to go look at the DR environment. Every time we go there, Zerto application always works. That's a benefit.
Zerto's near-synchronous replication works. The value for our business case is okay.
Zerto's near-synchronous replication is important for healthcare, but not as much because we have time to recover data.
Zerto helped protect VMs in our environment, just for the DR.
Our RPOs are not very aggressive. So, Zerto works just fine for us.
What is most valuable?
It's very easy to set up. Up until now, even with an old version, it always worked fine.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in the upgrades. We are planning an upgrade now, and it seems that it's not straightforward.
In future releases, I look forward to the security feature.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Zerto for more than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is very good. We have complaints about stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't had issues with scalability. When we add VMs, we just buy additional licenses.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support are very good. Every time we have problems, they're ready to help us.
They're always available and very knowledgeable.
They need to be on-site. That would make them a ten on ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have only used Zerto.
How was the initial setup?
It was very easy to deploy. There wasn't a lot of configuration needed to get the syncing working.
It is an on-premises deployment.
What about the implementation team?
We used HPE Services. Our experience with them was very good.
What was our ROI?
We have seen ROI. Several times, we needed to recover, and we were able to go to Zerto.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing, setup, cost, and licensing are comparable to other solutions. Zerto is not more cost-effective.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at Veeam. They're very similar. We already had the skills for Zerto, so we decided to stay with it.
We decided to stay because we have not had any problems with it, and moving to another solution doesn't make sense for us.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it an eight out of ten. The version we have doesn't have security yet, so maybe the next version will get a ten.
Has really good near-synchronous replication and protection, which is an advantage for customers
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for running demos for HPE partners and customers, regarding disaster recovery and backup.
How has it helped my organization?
Although our primary use case is to show demos to partners and customers, we think it's really valuable.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are disaster recovery and that the RTO takes less than ten seconds. It's a reallypotent tool.
The near-synchronous replication is really good and an advantage for customers. This feature is really important because we can show it to customers and partners, helping recovering from ransomware, and does provide huge value.
You can protect your VMs in the environment. It depends on the network and environment, but the RTO takes around 7-8 seconds. When you compare Zerto to other solutions in the market, it's very powerful.
Also, the ease of use and speed of recovery are wonderful.
What needs improvement?
I'm happy with the solution, but I would like Zerto to support other hypervisors too
And the price could be cheaper, but it is reasonable.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is really good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used SRM from VMware and RapidDR from Simplivity. In comparison to those products, Zerto is really simple to use and helpful.
We are constantly trying new products. Zerto has the lowest RTO, you can recover a lot more quickly than using other solutions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy.
What about the implementation team?
We did the implementation ourselves.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Our clients think it's quite expensive but I advise them to consider all of Zerto's features.
You need to start with 25 VMs, which sometimes is too much for SMB clients in some countries. It would be better if they had the option to start with a license for less VMs, like 5 or 10.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten because of the low RTOs, the ease of use, and how helpful it is for clients.
The ease of use and the ability to quickly recover our workloads is very simple and easy
What is our primary use case?
We've used it for disaster recovery. We also use it for file recovery. We extended our journal to more days, so we were able to back up a more detailed timeline. We recently did migrations.
How has it helped my organization?
One of the biggest benefits is the migration. We had to move out of a data center very quickly. We were able to failover to our disaster recovery site and run our full production there for almost two months. We then fail back over to the production site using Zerto.
What is most valuable?
The ease of use and the ability to quickly recover our workloads is very simple and easy.
The near-synchronous replication is great. It allows us to failover and run production.
Zerto helps protect VMs in our environment. Zerto's overall effect on our RPOs has been excellent.
The speed of recovery with Zerto versus the speed of recovery with other disaster recovery solutions is night and day. We use Veeam for backups and the amount of time that it takes to recover is so much quicker mounting with Zerto. That's why we extended the journal so that we could capture a few more days and make it easier for us to recover files.
What needs improvement?
The amount of storage that it takes up for the journals could use improvement. Outside of that, it's been great.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
They're very stable. We had been with them for a while before HPE acquired them, and they're still going strong now. We haven't seen a lot of big changes in the way they operate, so that's always a good sign.
How are customer service and support?
Support is great. Every time we have an issue, which isn't very often, they're very responsive. We get in touch with somebody very quickly and they help us through it.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use Veeam and we've used Datto. We chose Zerto for its ease of use. It was simple, and then we found out once we got it in-house how valuable it was. We just extended it from there.
We used Veeam, and we switched because Zerto was a lot easier. From implementation to actually protecting our VMs, it was so much easier.
Zerto is on top. Zerto is the best out there.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy.
What about the implementation team?
We worked with Zerto on the deployment.
What was our ROI?
We have definitely seen ROI.
We had to move out of a data center very quickly. The data center we were in filed for bankruptcy, and we had two months to move out. The ability to flip over to our recovery site in one day, and then being able to ride that until the next time we came back up, then move all of our data back to the new data center was huge for us. That would have cost us a lot.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The initial pricing seemed a little high, but once we got into it and found out what it could do and how it benefited us, it proved itself. We didn't feel that it was too far out of the ordinary. We've increased our licensing to cover our entire environment whereas before we're only covering critical servers.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten. When we started using it, it was very easy to use. It was easy to implement. Throughout the years, it's continued to be that same way. They've proven themselves. We've had the data center move, we've had failures, we've had different issues that happened in our environment, and they were able to meet all of our needs.
Provides continuous data protection with live test failover and has an easy setup
What is our primary use case?
We use it for continuous data protection on our mission-critical clinical systems. I work for a hospital. We use it to prevent ransomware, malware, or basic recovery for things like our patient data and imaging system. At one point, we used to do recovery once a day. With Zerto, our recovery objective right now is in six seconds.
How has it helped my organization?
We had a database failure one night at around 11 o'clock, and it had probably been about 23 hours since it had a hard backup. With Zerto, we brought it up in my DR site within ten minutes, and it controlled all of the hospital's registration features. Without that system, we can't even ingest patients into our system. So we brought up that database within ten minutes, got it back in line, and continued operations.
What is most valuable?
The live test failover is the most valuable feature because it allows me to validate that my data is protected in the event of a failure.
The near-synchronous replication Zerto provides is awesome. This feature is very important, especially because in today's age of ransomware and everything is so data-centric in a hospital, I need to be able to identify the point in time of infection and recover to the most up-to-date available point in time that I can without having to lose patient data. At one point, we used to do a 24-hour recovery. but in today's day and age, you can't lose a day's worth of data.
We use Zerto to protect our VMs in our environment. It improved our RPOs because before we had 24-hour RPO, and now I'm within ten minutes.
Zerto's speed of recovery is fast compared to other solutions. We use Zerto and Veeam. Zerto already has the disks, which must be signed into and presented. There's a lot of rescanning involved, but Azure builds the VM, attaches the disks, and powers it up. We're leveraging RTO in under ten minutes.
What needs improvement?
The price could be improved. It's pretty expensive per server, but in the long run, it's well worth the level of protection it provides.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto since 2023.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is excellent.
How are customer service and support?
Support is very good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Veeam, which didn't offer any CDP. We use Zerto primarily for continuous protection.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy. We had a professional services engagement when we bought our first pack of licenses. They came in and worked with us. We had monthly and weekly meetings for three months to set up everything.
What other advice do I have?
We do not use disaster recovery in the cloud. We have an actual on-prem DR site. We have a multisite Zerto environment that I can bring up in multiple locations, but we do primarily on-prem recovery.
Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten for its ease of use, functionality, and multi-tenant support with ransomware detection.
Fast RPO and RTO, ease of use, easy interface, and is always available
What is our primary use case?
I use it for yearly disaster recovery testing.
How has it helped my organization?
The main benefit we see from Zerto is that it helps to meet our disaster recovery objectives.
Zerto's near-synchronous replication is important and impressive.
Zerto helps protect VMs in our environment and has improved all over RPO.
The speed of recovery with Zerto is extremely fast. We're able to perform disaster recovery testing on dozens of VMs within an hour or even half an hour.
What is most valuable?
I like its fast recovery, fast RPO and RTO, ease of use, easy interface, ease of deployment, and that it's always available.
What needs improvement?
I would like for Zerto to improve reporting, provide more data on individual VMs and their performance, and maybe expand into backup with the ability to scan for malware or offline scanning.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for over seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability a nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support are excellent.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used Commvault. It used a lot of scripting and configuration to make disaster recovery happen, and it was slow, with a low RPO.
How was the initial setup?
We haven't tried disaster recovery in the cloud rather than in a physical data center. We only use on-premises recovery.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing was straightforward.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We previously used or evaluated other backup and disaster recovery solutions.
We compared Veeam and Commvault against Zerto.
We chose Zerto because of its performance and ease of use.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten because there's always room for improvement.
Used to move servers and VMs between data centers
What is our primary use case?
We're using Zerto to move services between our on-premises data centers and Azure environment.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto has really helped us streamline migrations to new hardware or other data centers.
What is most valuable?
We use the solution to move servers and VMs between data centers. Thankfully, we don't have to use it a lot for DR.
I love Zerto's near-synchronous replication. It's better than other applications that we tried. This near-synchronous replication is super important to our organization because we don't want to lose any data.
We're now trying to do disaster recovery (DR) in the cloud with Zerto. We haven't had any real use cases, but we're piloting it. It's pretty important to our organization to have DR in the cloud because we're in a very rural area where we don't have a lot of redundancy. So, it's important to have the scalability of Azure where we don't have it.
We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment, which is our primary use case. Our RPOs are pretty short. We can roll over a data center in 30 to 60 minutes if we have to. It's pretty quick, and we could turn everything around.
We looked at VMware's SRM but decided not to go with it.
We chose to use Zerto because the RTOs and RPOs were a lot faster with it.
Compared to other solutions, Zerto is really easy to use, and its interface is really nice. It's really easy to set up the replication groups in Zerto.
What needs improvement?
We're struggling a little bit now with the appliance migration with version ten.
Zerto could make some small improvements with some of the newer features. You can back up VMs but can't back up individual objects, like email objects, which could be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for about seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution's stability is very good. We haven't had any stability issues with Zerto.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto can go bigger than our environment, so I think it has good enough scalability.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's technical support is pretty good. Since we haven't had a lot of issues with the tool, we don't really use the support much. The cases we've opened have been resolved quickly by the support team. The support team seems knowledgeable and quick.
I rate the solution's technical support an eight or nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What about the implementation team?
We have Zerto deployed in our on-premises data centers and for Azure VMware and Azure native so that we can switch between them. The solution's deployment is really easy. You just deploy the main tool and then tie it into your virtual environments.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Zerto's pricing was not that bad. I think it's gone up since we went live and added the cloud options now that we are an enterprise. The solution is expensive, but it's worth the price.
What other advice do I have?
We use both public and private clouds to deploy the solution.
Overall, I rate the solution an eight or nine out of ten.
Integrates well with our environment and is very adaptable to our changing requirements
What is our primary use case?
It's used for general replication services and recovery. We're actually looking at its more integral use in DR in a business continuity role.
How has it helped my organization?
It integrates well with our environment, is very adaptable to our changing requirements, and is fairly easy for our team to use.
Zerto's near-synchronous replication is very efficient, very powerful, and very productive for us. It has helped us organize our recovery process a lot more, so it's led to process improvements.
Zerto is preparing us to do disaster recovery in the cloud rather than in a physical data center. But we are not there yet.
We use it to support disaster recovery on Microsoft, but we are also considering AWS.
We use Zerto to protect our VMs. We're still redefining our RPOs due to Zerto's performance. We're going back and replacing our baseline.
When it comes to speed of recovery, we believe Zerto is above the rest that we know of.
What is most valuable?
I just learned about Zerto's vault capability, which we're going to learn more about. That will be very valuable to us. We get almost real-time replication services.
Those features are so valuable because we're always prepared to restore if we need to.
What needs improvement?
The vault feature will be very valuable to us, so that's one feature we'd like to see implemented.
We're always looking for additional features and value from Zerto. Immutable replication services is one. I heard the vault will be totally protected from any outside influences, so that's another thing we're looking forward to.
We're always looking to integrate better with our environment.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for roughly six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
So far, it has been stable. No issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't tested scalability yet, but we are sure that scalability shouldn't be an issue. We'll find out.
How are customer service and support?
Good. Excellent. Now that Zerto is part of HP, we get greater support from HP's executive team.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used a variety of solutions in the past. Zerto does the job of two or three of those previous solutions, so we were able to consolidate.
How was the initial setup?
Zerto's team helped a lot. It was fairly straightforward and painless.
What was our ROI?
We have not come up with the metrics to determine the ROI yet, but we're working on it.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing, licensing, and setup costs are fair at best. It's not the cheapest, but it works for us.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did evaluate other solutions. Cohesity, Commvault Cloud and Rubrik were the two others we considered.
We liked the resiliency, usability, and use cases of Zerto more.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate it around a seven out of ten. Once we understand the scalability, it could reach eight.
It's easy to install. Make sure your business requirements align with Zerto's capabilities. Others should study some of the use cases first before making a decision.
Ensures stability and protection against cyber-attacks
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for a couple of functions. One is cyber recovery, and the other is backing up all our infrastructure with the server.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the recovery. For example, in our financial operations, we eliminated two other vendors and reduced our costs.
Having DR in the cloud is crucial for us. We use it as a third copy to ensure stability and protection against cyber-attacks, giving us a clean copy in the cloud. This helps protect our VMs, and our RPOs are close to zero.
The recovery speed is much faster and less complicated than it was.
What needs improvement?
The knowledge base could be improved. Sometimes, it's finicky, especially when moving storage around. We've had to redo entire processes, which was time-consuming and resulted in data loss. This has happened multiple times, and despite following support steps and contacting support, we often had to resolve issues on our own.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the product for a year.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution can scale well if you have the needed storage.
How are customer service and support?
We received conflicting answers and resolutions to the same question depending on who we spoke to. Despite this, Zerto is stable. One of the key challenges we faced was during infrastructure moves, such as moving data or personnel. In these cases, we often had to rebuild our VPGs.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Site Recovery Manager for VM replication and Veeam for backups. Zerto outperformed these products.
How was the initial setup?
Deploying the solution involved a learning curve. The knowledge base had conflicting data compared to other vendors.
What about the implementation team?
HPE helped us with the deployment. Our overall experience with them was good. They answered our questions during virtual sessions. However, we encountered some customer service issues, as the resolution could vary depending on who we spoke to.
What was our ROI?
We have seen ROI by eliminating vendors and thereby saving costs.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Zerto's pricing is comparable. Each product has its ups and downs.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.
Enables disaster recovery in the cloud and has good migration features
What is our primary use case?
One of our biggest use cases has been migrations. We migrated the virtual machines in one of our data centers using Zerto.
How has it helped my organization?
We're in the middle of a migration that Zerto has made much easier. We also use it for many standard disaster recovery cases. It constantly keeps our services running.
Zerto's near-synchronous replication is a key component. It's essential.
Zerto enables disaster recovery in the cloud, which is very important. It creates another level of protection to have an alternate location outside of on-premises.
It helps protect VMs in our environment. It's certainly better than a traditional nightly backup.
What is most valuable?
I've found the migration feature very valuable. It starts like a disaster recovery scenario where you're just replicating the VMs. Then it all gets synced up, and you decide when to make the cutover.
This is instead of having to do a more traditional conversion of the VMs or shutting them down and migrating the data, which is less efficient.
The seamlessness of a cutover is very helpful.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for around five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It offers good stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't scaled it too much, but in our experience, we haven't had any issues with it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We still use a different disaster recovery solution but for different use cases.
Zerto didn't completely replace our other backup solutions.
What was our ROI?
There are cost savings for the migration in particular.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
From the migration standpoint, they're flexible with the licensing. You own the license and can apply it to a machine and then pull it back, apply it to another machine, and so on.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
For the migration piece, we evaluated different solutions but not for the disaster recovery replication. We knew from the migration piece that it would work well.
What other advice do I have?
For me, it's a ten. I haven't had any issues with it so far.
Fast RPO and RTOs, gives us the flexibility and offers disaster recovery as a service
What is our primary use case?
A lot of use cases involve how we effectively manage our DR and make sure there's not a lot of manual effort. On the business side, we proved the solution worked and showed the analytics on the DR report afterward. Those are the requirements.
How has it helped my organization?
At one of the banks I worked for, we used it for our merger and acquisition to replicate a legacy application that was no longer supported. Rather than try to rebuild it, which would have taken days or weeks, we could use Zerto to replicate it to our data center and join it to our domain. That was one of the biggest use cases we have had.
Another use case is for disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) and to migrate service to a public cloud.
Zerto's near-synchronous replication is great. Not a lot of solutions can do that, and most organizations don't know that Zerto can do it. Once you have that near-sync capability, you can see how much more you can recover and be more resilient.
At the end of the day, we're trying to protect our data and not put the company at risk, whether it's from a cyber attack or just any sort of DLP data loss.
In financial services, data is paramount: protecting it, making sure you don't lose it, and integrating it. Having that near-sync ability is useful to any organization.
Zerto helps protect VMs in our environment. It really increased how many points in time we can recover, and not only the time to do it but where we want to do it too.
Generally, we choose a point in time because they're simulated tests and controlled. In the event of a true disaster, I'm sure I'd utilize one of the closer points to have more recent data, but it's good to have that option. Luckily, I haven't had to use that option.
It's night and day. With other solutions, you're locked into specific RPOs and RTOs based on how that solution works. Zerto gives us the flexibility to choose which we want to use and recover effectively.
What is most valuable?
The main valuable features are the fast RPO and RTOs we could achieve and the analytics behind that.
In my role these days, I have to make sure I can prove to the executive team as well as the business lines why we chose this solution and how it can help us.
One of the projects we're working on is DRaaS service. Once that's implemented, we'll test that solution. The whole premise of using Zerto is to replicate one-to-many and then test that scenario.
What needs improvement?
Zerto should continue adding new features. When I used it at the other bank, it wasn't good with replicating VDIs and automation. They've made a little more advancements in automation and scripting since then.
At one point, it was custom, requiring professional services. Now, Zerto has more built into its engine that will help with the failover of virtual desktops.
For how long have I used the solution?
I was an early adopter. I worked for a managed service provider in New York City back in 2009 and was introduced to Zerto near the end of 2010, early 2011. That's when we started implementing it for our clients. I've been bringing Zerto wherever I go ever since.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability is great. Sometimes you have network blips, and you can be out of sync, but it'll catch up eventually. There are very minor issues, if any.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. For example, there's a tertiary site that we're building for the DRaaS service.
We just go to initiate the one-to-many and replicate up there. It's easy.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support are responsive initially, and then they help you solve your problem. There was only one time with the custom scripting for the VDI that they wouldn't help because it was custom, and they wanted more money for that. They incorporated that into their solution a few years later.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
In the past, I have used a different solution. I've worked with SRM, Double-Take (which is terrible), and BMC Recovery Point. Ever since I got hooked on Zerto around 2011, it's been pretty much Zerto.
How was the initial setup?
The installation itself is very easy. Any problems I've run into, either when I was managing it or doing the installation myself, support has helped every step of the way and has been very easy to work with.
It's on Expedient's cloud, which might be AWS. I'm not sure. I just know we're doing it through a third party.
What was our ROI?
A lot of the ROI is with engineering hours. If it took eight hours of overtime to pay one or two engineers to do a DR test, now we can do it in one hour.
We can factor in how many DR tests you do and calculate the cost savings. That alone is a good ROI.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is pretty fair. It increases with the number of VMs you have. When we had about 600 VMs at my last bank, we did an enterprise licensing agreement that helped cut down the cost. It required signing on long-term, but it was the most effective.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it a ten out of ten. I've used this solution for so long and have seen it mature. It's just easy. In IT, especially in a managerial role, we want things to work. We don't want it to be complex. If it serves the business goals of data resiliency, then that's all I need.
Definitely do a proof of concept (POC) and make sure it fits your use cases. On paper, it will, but every company is different. Sometimes, for some reason, it won't work. Or not that it won't work, it just doesn't fit what the business is trying to achieve. So do the POC and see for yourself if it works.