We have two data centers, so we use HPE Zerto Software for site recovery. We fail over, run out of one data center, then we fail back and run out of the other, and we do failover testing.
Zerto DR (ZVM)
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Failover testing ensures seamless operation with swift recovery
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
We were using VMC on AWS with VMware replication. The challenge was it had a five-minute RTO and we wanted something faster. At the time, HPE Zerto Software didn't support VMC on AWS, which was actually our first choice. Then we had a mandate to build a new data center.
We wanted both physical locations, so we went that direction and decided to go with HPE Zerto Software. We wanted something that we could fail over quickly, have minimal recovery times, and make sure that we could come up quickly. We use the move feature in HPE Zerto Software probably the most, moving from data center to data center. It allows us to meet with our compliance regulations to test our DR site and run in our DR site with seamless operation.
We've proven a few times that we can fail over within a very short window, and it works very well. Our RTO with HPE Zerto Software is less than five seconds. It is extremely important. We work in the financial industry, and being able to fail over and know that we can bring that server up within a very short window and that the data is going to be accurate means we're not having to go back and rework a day's worth of data. That's what we wanted and that's what we got.
What is most valuable?
The failover test option in HPE Zerto Software is the most valuable at this point since we can validate that things are going to come up, that the data is valid, and then tear it back down without having to interrupt the users.
It's extremely easy to use HPE Zerto Software.
Our first failover test went flawlessly. We failed over our entire data center, approximately 200 VMs in half an hour - very fast. This last fast failover, we ran into a couple of hiccups. Working with support, we found we need to do more testing in between our main failovers since we've actually had an 11% failure rate of things not coming up. They advised us to test, validate, and then resync if needed, so we're learning from it.
We haven't experienced any ransomware yet with HPE Zerto Software. Regarding time savings, it has definitely been beneficial. Once we've got it set up and can manage it, it really is a time saver.
We haven't had a situation where we've had to use it to reduce downtime. Comparing it to our other failover solution, the speed is notable. We used to schedule an eight-hour day to do this, and now we're scheduling a half an hour, which saves us significant time on weekends.
Regarding RTOs and RPOs with HPE Zerto Software, we can look at it and know exactly where every VPG is regarding recovery time. The speed to move it over and bring it up is extremely efficient for us.
The solution has helped reduce our organization's DR testing. Previously, we would isolate our DR and test in a defined bubble just to validate the data was there and users could access it. Now we can fail it over to our backup data center and actively run there. We can fail it back and run both locations in an active-active mode with HPE Zerto Software, which we hadn't been able to do before.
It has allowed us to trim the team down and focus on other tasks without constantly worrying about disaster recovery. We know it's there and we can validate and test it through our monthly procedures.
What needs improvement?
When we did our test this year with HPE Zerto Software, we had some failures that we weren't expecting. The challenge was realizing there was data corruption, and fortunately we found it before we committed the failover, so we could fail back. We could resync it, and we weren't in an actual disaster. If there's any way to validate that data on the recovery site without having to manually go in and do failover testing and try to validate, that would be a feature that would be really nice. We're not sure why we had some corruption, however, we did the resync and it seemed to bring it back up and fix the problem. That's probably the biggest area I'd ask about - some way of validating the recovery sites in an automated fashion.
For how long have I used the solution?
We started using HPE Zerto Software in April last year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't had any crashes or performance issues with HPE Zerto Software, except trying to figure out why we had some data corruption. Overall, it seems to be functioning very well. Support's biggest recommendation was that we just need to do more failover testing and validate.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have not expanded our usage of HPE Zerto Software.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support I received from HPE Zerto Software has been very good. I haven't had any complaints about the support we receive. I would rate it a nine or ten. When I ask them a question, they give me a very quick response.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using SRM before selecting HPE Zerto Software. From attending different conferences, HPE Zerto Software was where I wanted to get to, however, at the time, our disaster recovery site wasn't allowing for it. Comparing SRM to HPE Zerto Software, I really prefer using HPE Zerto Software. It's easier to group, set up. I can see really quickly what things are doing and I feel a lot more comfortable that things are working.
How was the initial setup?
Setup was extremely fast, and we had the system up and running within a couple of days. Our biggest hold-up was getting the network configured correctly. For training, we were able to take some online courses that got us up to speed very quickly.
What about the implementation team?
During the setup for HPE Zerto Software, we were working with a technician who could walk us through it and that worked really well for us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Since we just got HPE Zerto Software, our pricing didn't seem too high. Our renewal is next year.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We used SRM before adopting HPE Zerto Software to address similar needs.
What other advice do I have?
My rating for HPE Zerto Software would be ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Efficiently manages data replication and reduces downtime in our corporate IT environment
What is our primary use case?
We started using HPE Zerto Software for the disaster recovery (DR) segment. For DR implementation, we are using the HPE Zerto Software tool.
How has it helped my organization?
HPE Zerto Software helped to reduce downtime in our corporate IT environment, and it was a very smooth dry run. In our corporate IT environment where we used HPE Zerto Software, it was a good experience regarding RTOs and RPOs.
HPE Zerto Software is very quick. It reduces our DR testing and takes less than 30 minutes.
What is most valuable?
To copy the data from one site to another site, HPE Zerto Software is a very powerful tool. We have two environments, Dell and HPE, so now it's very easy to move files from one place to another with HPE Zerto Software.
HPE Zerto Software is a very good tool with ease of access. We can easily move data from one place to another and replicate it. To manage two types of data centers, DC and DR, HPE Zerto Software is a very useful tool. Replication with the HPE Zerto Software is very smooth.
What needs improvement?
The migration part of the HPE Zerto Software is already there. In terms of improvement, we have VMware and Nutanix, and we are looking for solutions to perform migration between these two setups to save costs.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used HPE Zerto Software for more than a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues with HPE Zerto Software.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are expanding the usage of HPE Zerto Software currently from a two-node to more nodes.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support for the HPE Zerto Software is good and very quick. Whenever we raise tickets, we generally get the solution fast. I would rate the technical support of HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten because when we raise technical issues, they can take a little time but they do provide a solution.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Earlier we were not using any other solution for DR. We recently started using HPE Zerto Software for DR.
How was the initial setup?
We have two environments. There's a corporate IT environment and a smart city environment. We have done the implementation in the corporate IT, and it was very smooth. We had a good experience with the solution.
During the implementation, we encountered no major challenges. Everything is working smoothly, and the implementation process is very quick. The partner support has been excellent. Currently, we are using an on-premises setup with two data centers. One data center serves as our primary data center, while the other acts as a disaster recovery site.
What was our ROI?
It's still in the implementation stage, but we have seen an ROI.
We have not had any incidents of ransomware. The cost of any downtime for our organization would be approximately $10,000.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for the HPE Zerto Software was good.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We started the communication with HPE for HPE Zerto Software for DR, and did not look around at other solutions. HPE Zerto Software was already in place, so we started using it for DR.
What other advice do I have?
We are using Fortinet as a cyber vault solution, but in the future, we can explore other options. DDoS attacks and other aspects have to be covered in the next version of our cyber vault solution approach.
I would rate HPE Zerto Software a ten out of ten. It offers ease of access and fast implementation.
Impressive performance and peace of mind with robust connectivity capabilities
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for HPE Zerto Software include multiple applications. Fortunately, I haven't needed to use it for disaster recovery yet.
We use it to recover from badly developed software that we implement in production. We use it to clone machines to other hypervisors. Additionally, we have it replicated in case we need disaster recovery.
How has it helped my organization?
HPE Zerto Software's features have benefited my organization significantly. I can sleep peacefully now. If I encounter a problem in the future, I have a solution since I have two data centers connected to a WAN connection, and all my business-critical machines are replicated on that side. We are also making a plan to include this in a cloud vault to be more secure.
For instance, we had to use it once when a developer put some problematic code into production over a weekend. This broke the entire database and the sales software we had in production. It took us only 1.5 minutes to restore everything.
What is most valuable?
The feature of HPE Zerto Software that I find most impressive is its ability to work with one connection. This is remarkable. Normally, you need a full fiber connection, such as a dark fiber, to go point-to-point to have low RPO. Currently, we are achieving an eight-second RPO with just a 100 megabit connection.
It's easy to use. We don't need formal training.
It performs its intended functions effectively. In my country, we often have discussions with people who believe it's a backup system. It isn't.
The near-synchronous replication is very good. It's amazing. It's important for us in the manufacturing industry, and we cannot lose our systems for more than a few minutes. Every minute means a lot of money wasted.
It's helped reduce downtime in certain situations. We now have a 1.5-minute recovery time. It's saving us tons of money. For every ten minutes down, we can lose thousands of dollars in production.
It's positively affected our RTOs and RPOs. I've never seen anything like this. It's almost like magic. It's very good. In the worst case, we might have 11 seconds of RPOs.
What needs improvement?
HPE Zerto Software could be improved by including everything in the same package. If I had to suggest an improvement, I would want everything in the same package, such as HPE Zerto Software and Veeam together. Currently, I have to administer them separately, which can be more complicated for the infrastructure team. That would be beneficial.
Regarding critical features, I don't see anything more than what HPE Zerto Software is already providing.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I assess the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software as good. I haven't experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues. Though it's not perfect, when HPE Zerto Software encounters problems, they provide a notice or email, and the system recovers automatically.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's easy to scale simply by buying more licenses.
How are customer service and support?
I evaluate customer service and technical support for HPE Zerto Software as very good. The service in my country has been excellent.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate customer service and technical support as ten because the HP team addresses all our problems and questions. They visit our plant and assist with installation and everything else.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, we are planning to implement Alletra. We need full flash for the next step in our infrastructure planning to make it more resilient and faster.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience deploying HPE Zerto Software as very easy and efficient. We implemented it into production in just two hours.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with HPE Zerto Software, though it's difficult to quantify as our business is not IT-based. The company will certainly see the value if we encounter issues with ransomware or similar problems.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with HPE Zerto Software regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been positive. The pricing is favorable, especially when compared to a metro cluster.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, I didn't see another comparable solution. It currently stands unique in the market.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for other organizations considering HPE Zerto Software is to try it and prepare to be surprised. You will lower your costs. That's the ultimate goal.
On a scale of one to ten, this solution deserves a rating of ten.
Efficient data recovery and robust file restoration streamline operations
What is our primary use case?
We use the HPE Zerto Software for multiple different things, including real-time monitoring and restoring and recovering of files, long-term retention of restoring long-term backups, and disaster recovery, where we store things into the vault and things of that nature. We also have the Zerto vault outside of that, so we use Zerto and the Zerto vault.
How has it helped my organization?
The challenges our organization has tried to solve by implementing the HPE Zerto Software revolve around protection, as it's a threat world now, so we're trying to mitigate as much risk as we can and trying to limit downtime. If we do get attacked and there is an infection, we can restore that data quickly and have it up.
What is most valuable?
The feature of the HPE Zerto Software I appreciate the most is the ease of use of single file restores, which is something we use frequently. Zerto features have benefited our organization significantly since we have many end users that delete files, and instead of taking the time to restore whole data stores and implement that, we can actually just click on Zerto and have that file restored from an hour ago in less than a few minutes.
My impressions of the HPE Zerto's near-synchronous replication are that it's hugely important, as that's what keeps me protected. The solution hasn't saved us any time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes yet, as fortunately, we've never had to use it for that instance.
The HPE Zerto Software has impacted our RTOs and RPOs by reducing our recoveries from days to a few hours, while previously we were using all VMware Nimble snapshots to back up all our data stores, which resulted in a three-day restore, while now we can recover in hours. The solution hasn't decreased our organization's DR testing time; in fact, it has increased it because we use it as a tool in our healthcare business, doing it every month to verify that everything is working correctly.
We actually use the Zerto Cyber Vault solution to ensure recovery from cyber threats. When considering a Cyber Vault solution, the capability of immutable backups is most important to us.
What needs improvement?
The HPE Zerto Software could be improved by including the ability to use FIDO keys or some kind of hard token for local accounts, not just a straight password or an external MFA, but a physical token. Additionally, I'd appreciate the ability for direct-attached storage, not just Nimble storage, VNF, both volumes. I would also prefer to have some way to scan inside the vault of datastores that are already there.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the HPE Zerto Software for a little over probably a good ten years or so.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I assess the stability and reliability of the HPE Zerto Software as very robust, with no real performance issues experienced; it just works and is easy to use.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and technical support are very good; we've never had any issues, and if we have, it's resolved very quickly. On a scale from one to ten, I rate the customer service or technical support an eight, as it's very quick to respond and get things fixed.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting the HPE Zerto Software, I wasn't using another solution to address familiar needs.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience with deploying the HPE Zerto Software as straightforward and simple.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting the HPE Zerto Software, we considered Veeam, Cohesity, and ExaGrid, and for us, it was a matter of cost and the ease of file-level restores that stood out during the evaluation process.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate the HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten and advise other organizations to consider it due to its ease of use, simple installation, and easy maintenance.
Enables fast restores and optimizes disaster recovery testing
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for HPE Zerto Software is the replication of data to a DR site.
How has it helped my organization?
HPE Zerto Software has helped tremendously with my organization's RTO and RPO, bringing it down to an hour rather than taking 12 hours to restore data the traditional way.
When we were trying to bring the disaster recovery side up, we had an issue with the VMs not coming up. We had to go back and restore. The solution has saved me time in data recovery situations. During DR tests, we were bringing the site up within the first couple of hours. With a different solution I previously used, it would have taken 24 hours to 4 hours to recover.
HPE Zerto Software has helped me reduce my organization's DR testing. Instead of three times, we do it once. Rather than spending time preparing for the test configuration to do a full restore, with HPE Zerto Software replication, it's automatically up within an hour, and then we can start our testing.
What is most valuable?
The feature of HPE Zerto Software that I appreciate the most is its ease of use. This feature has helped tremendously in getting our DR plan easy to implement.
My impressions of HPE Zerto's near-synchronous replication are very good. Near-synchronous replication is very important to my organization, and we are using it every day. It works consistently.
What needs improvement?
HPE Zerto Software could be improved in the future with easier upgrades. I am not aware of any additional features I would like to see included in the next release.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for a long time.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would assess the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software as very stable. I have experienced some issues sometimes during upgrades. Other than that, it runs smoothly.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have expanded usage, and the process was smooth.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate customer service and technical support as second-hand support since I am not the primary customer for HPE Zerto. I use them through my DR services. I would rate the customer service and technical support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, I was using regular recovery and backup restore systems to address similar needs.
How was the initial setup?
Deployment of HPE Zerto Software was streamlined. It worked quickly and sufficiently.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with HPE Zerto Software. Fast restores are a notable example. It saves us a lot of time and gives us the ability to perform other DR plans for other systems.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's provided by the DR replication vendor, so it's not a direct cost to us.
What other advice do I have?
We are considering a cyber vault solution as part of our infrastructure. When choosing a cyber vault solution, the capabilities that are most important to us are fast recovery against ransomware and the ability to do multiple checkpoints.
My advice to another organization considering HPE Zerto Software is to go for it.
I would rate HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten.
Ensured fast data recovery and minimized downtime with near-synchronous replication
What is our primary use case?
My current use cases for HPE Zerto Software include site-to-site and site-to-cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
HPE Zerto Software has saved me time in data recovery situations due to something like ransomware because we have protection against it. Due to the logging functions, we can go back in time and bring systems up a day before or a day after. We have been able to avoid ransomware issues with HPE Zerto Software.
HPE Zerto Software has helped to reduce our organization's DR testing.
What is most valuable?
The features of HPE Zerto Software that I have found most valuable are the copy capabilities, specifically being able to copy a VM over to another site and bring it back up if I have an outage. I used HPE Zerto Software recently to go from cluster to cluster, and I was able to move VMs seamlessly.
I find HPE Zerto Software very easy to use. Going in and being able to copy the VM makes it very efficient.
Near-synchronous replication makes it pretty easy for me to move things on the fly, so I can be up within about 10 minutes. Being up in 10 minutes is important for me because if we're not up in that timeframe, we have users complaining and calling.
What needs improvement?
HPE Zerto Software could evolve to where, instead of me having to push a button, it can detect disasters on the fly and automate disaster detection.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for about a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software is really stable. I haven't had an experience where I've had downtime.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software scales just fine with the growing needs of my organization; it's gone from a small test group to a larger test group with no problems.
How are customer service and support?
I'd give their support a ten out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The support team was really great. Everything was configured, and out-of-the-box configurations were seamless.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment from HPE Zerto Software, already just moving from data center to data center. Just moving the things over from one spot to another with no outage time, or very little outage, reflects how I've gotten the return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing and setup costs have been reasonable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I didn't consider any other solutions before selecting HPE Zerto Software. It was given to me.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Ensured compliance and effective failover with seamless disaster recovery testing
What is our primary use case?
Our main use cases for HPE Zerto Software are primarily to provide our customers with their DR solutions and to facilitate migrations, either from on-prem to the cloud or data center to data center migrations.
What is most valuable?
The feature of HPE Zerto Software I prefer the most is the test feature, which allows you to test an environment in a bubble without having to affect production.
It allows you to test your DR strategy without having to actually do a full DR test. These features have benefited our organization by allowing the customers to really be able to write out their runbook, test it, and make sure that they're meeting compliance, whether that's every six months or a year test.
My impressions of HPE Zerto's near-synchronous replication are that it's an amazing feature that customers love. Even though it's set at five minutes, it's actually typically lower than that for most environments, and customers love the ability to have failover capabilities within seconds.
The ease of use for the solution is pretty straightforward.
What made us stick with HPE Zerto is that it is just a fantastic product and was a great product to add to HPE's portfolio. The solution has helped to reduce downtime in situations; it gave us the ability to roll back a bad change that was made. It was days' worth of changes that had been made. That amount of downtime would probably have cost the organization tens of thousands of dollars.
HPE Zerto Software has impacted our RTOs and RPOs effectively in a positive way where other solutions take longer; the board is happy with the speed for us to be back online.
The solution has definitely helped reduce our DR testing and automate it, although I do not know those numbers off the top of my head.
What needs improvement?
With the current updates primarily on the Azure side of it, documentation could be improved. That's not necessarily Zerto's problem since Azure is constantly changing things; Zerto will put something out, but Azure then will change it, and sometimes it's hard to follow that documentation.
HPE Zerto Software can be improved by keeping up on top of the Azure changes happening there, trying to smooth that process out, because there are many steps that you have to take in Azure, and that's not necessarily HPE's fault, it's just how Azure functions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been working with Zerto for more than ten years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of HPE Zerto have been great; I haven't really faced any major challenges, and when we have, support has been really great at helping.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software scales with the growing needs of our organization as a great scalable solution; the only concern I have for really large organizations would be the cost. However, you have to start looking at the soft metrics that CFOs don't necessarily take into account.
How are customer service and support?
Every time I've had to talk to support, whether it's been pre-HPE or during HPE's acquisition, the technical and customer support has been pretty good at resolving any issues that have come up. I really appreciate the stateside support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting HPE Zerto, we were using different solutions. Looking at recovery solutions for the capabilities, RecoverPoint was there, which is what Zerto was based on. We considered the capabilities they offered versus solutions such as Veeam.
How was the initial setup?
In an on-prem environment, when it was the Windows deployment, it was pretty easy to deploy. Now, once it went over to Linux, it's still been pretty easy on the on-prem side. Once you start getting involved with the public clouds, it gets a little clunky. Again, I don't fall down totally on the HPE side. It's the public cloud that may be at issue.
What was our ROI?
Customers have definitely seen a return on investment from HPE Zerto Software. They can automate their DR testing, test it more often, and in a worst-case scenario, they could have a help desk person literally hit a button to help them come back over or come up in the cloud or in another site if they need to.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, licensing cost, or setup cost has been such that I don't have to deal with the pricing side of it. The setup, primarily in the Azure space, has been a little clunky, and I don't necessarily fault HPE for that.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto, we considered other solutions such as RecoverPoint. They would look at Veeam, even though Veeam's not in the same category, but it was something that people would use as a recovery solution.
What other advice do I have?
For the capabilities and what it does today, I rate HPE Zerto Software a ten out of ten, and it's a market leader in that category.
Unparalleled support and rapid response enable quick issue resolution and downtime reduction
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
Zerto's product and support are unparalleled. Their responsiveness sets them apart from other vendors, as they swiftly engage with customers and manage to sort issues out quickly during calls, without needless delays for log submissions. Their replication service also boasts a sub-10-second RPO and I often see servers synced as quickly as 6 to 7 seconds.
What needs improvement?
I think Zerto should make the product less expensive, as that's the only reason many people are not registering the product with their companies. We are not using Zerto everywhere across the board, probably due to licensing costs; it could be excessive to manage it. That's why we are only maintaining our tier one applications with Zerto while using different tools for our tier two, tier three, and tier four applications. I definitely think it's expensive, and that's why we are not using that product for the other applications for tier four and beyond.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for more than 5 years; I would say almost 7-8 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We do see some impact sometimes on our RPOs due to various reasons; it could be because the cluster on the source side may not be stable, or we might have migrated the host to a different cluster where Zerto was not configured.
How are customer service and support?
I am very familiar with Zerto, which is a very good service provider. We had very good feedback. Every time when I work with them, I always receive a really positive response from them and a good solution. Whenever we come across any problem, they try to jump on the call right away. They have very little waiting time. When I open a ticket, within an hour or so, or less than an hour, someone will get connected to me. The good part is that normally, when I work with other vendors, they always look for various logs; they tell us to upload it and try to buy time for almost 3-4 hours by asking questions and wasting time to provide logs when I really need it. Zerto is not like that; they try to jump on a call with you. Another good aspect is that they provide guidance to upgrade our product to be under the supported version if the product is not a supported version. Unlike other companies, they don't just say, 'We don't support the product; follow this document and upgrade.' Instead, Zerto actually makes sure that you have a successful upgrade on your product so that they can support it.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I used Storix in the past to recover apart from Zerto; we use Storix as well. The biggest difference is the faster recovery with Zerto compared to Storix. As I mentioned, Zerto's product and support are good, too. I was not complaining about the Storix product; they were good but not better than Zerto.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment for the first time definitely requires knowing about the product and how it works, so you need training. Any new person will not be able to manage or do it unless they know how to get things to work. You need proper documentation. Installing the product for the first time is definitely not easy if someone is not aware of the product, but we need to know about the product and how it works to install it for the first time.
What other advice do I have?
The product really provides good support. I'm not aware of the pricing as I'm not from management, but the product is really good. I love the product and their support. If they need any logs, they will try to get them during the call. In that way, the customer can understand that they are really responsible for the product they are providing and they try to help us out. We feel comfortable while comparing them with other vendors because I have worked with many vendors, and I can say that only Microsoft vendors are as good as Zerto in terms of jumping on calls right away to help you out. By using their product, we reduce the downtime of our outage, so if anything goes wrong, I use the Zerto product to reduce downtime. My team has used that one to ensure that we don't experience much downtime. On a scale of 1-10, I rate Zerto a 9.
Simplicity and fast replication enhance disaster recovery confidence
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate the most about Zerto is the simplicity of it all. It has allowed me to rely on Zerto to do file-level backups which, as a normal DR solution, you usually don't get. I've used other platforms for disaster recovery, and Zerto by far has been the simplest to implement and maintain.
The near-synchronous replication feature is incredible; I haven't used another solution that does it as fast and as seamlessly as Zerto.
I have not seen any effect on my RPOs. Prior to Zerto, we were not able to publish our RPOs, but now we're confident in them.
What needs improvement?
For improvement points, because Zerto is not a backup company, if they could implement some kind of backup solutions, it would help us out significantly. They can do file-level backups, but if in the future they could achieve application-aware recovery, that would be an incredible help for us.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto since 2016 in my career.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not seen any instability, such as lagging or crashing, in Zerto.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto is very scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I have contacted Zerto's technical support and customer support.
Their support is very knowledgeable about the product. I was concerned because I had reached out to Zerto support directly before they became an HPE company, and although I had never had a problem, I found that after reaching out to support following the HPE acquisition, they did not skip a beat. The support has not dropped off whatsoever.
I would give them a nine out of ten for support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment of Zerto was easy for me.
I was up and running within an hour to fully set it up.
What about the implementation team?
It was just me who handled the deployment—no team was needed.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Regarding the pricing for Zerto, it's right on target. I was pleasantly surprised once I was introduced to Zerto. I was very impressed with the product but had that in my back pocket because I figured it was going to be overpriced. It was surprisingly affordable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have used VMware's SRM tool as an alternative to Zerto in my career.
The biggest difference between Zerto and SRM in my opinion is simplicity. SRM was clunky; you almost had to have an engineer maintain it, and it seemed it was a daily project. We just don't have the manpower, as we don't have an extra engineer or staff member to manage it, and it was way too clunky for us.
What other advice do I have?
Fortunately, Zerto has not needed to help us reduce downtime in any situations, as we have not had a situation where we would have had to use it. We do bi-annual failover testing within Zerto, and they've always been successful.
My advice for new users on how to start with Zerto is to start with a demonstration and watch the product in action; don't just review slides by sales.
On a scale of 1-10, I rate Zerto a 10.
Offers one-click remediation for ransomware, but their incorrect sizing of our target hardware has caused many problems
What is our primary use case?
My use cases with Zerto are primarily focused on backup and ransomware protection.
There has never been a situation where we've had to use Zerto for DR.
How has it helped my organization?
We have improved RPOs and RTOs. Immutability is a huge factor.
The near-synchronous replication is a great feature. It does work, and it's nice to have that. We're backing up all the time.
We couldn’t see its benefits immediately. A lot of time had to pass, and honestly, we're still working on it.
What is most valuable?
There is one one-click remediation for ransomware.
What needs improvement?
We have had some technical difficulties getting a full restore at a file level. One of the problems we were having was to do a full VM recovery to get one file, because we were encountering errors within Zerto. I don't think we have that one fixed yet. However, we do see a huge improvement in our RTO with a full VM recovery.
Zerto is pretty robust. My input would be to have their sales engineers not overpromise and then have the product underdeliver because we were scoped not-appropriately sized target hardware. That hit us hard. We went with Exagrid as our target. Because of incorrect sizing, we didn't get the expected compression, and we ran out of space. We didn't have enough capacity for all of our backups the way we wanted them tiered. It crippled Zerto as well.
I still don't know how I feel about the purchase by HPE. Their support has been top-notch. They've been trying to work with us to get this fixed. However, I didn't like some of the proposals that they made. At one point, they proposed that we pull out Zerto and put in the HPE backup solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto in my career for several years now, and it has played a crucial role in my work.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's stable.
How are customer service and support?
They're pretty responsive. The quality is there. It looks like we need to go back to the drawing board, which is very unfortunate. I would rate them a nine out of ten. Their support is very good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We've used Veeam in conjunction with Dell's Data Domain. We also used the other VDI solution. They're a direct competitor of Veeam.
I prefer Rubrik over Zerto because of scalability, but the drawback is the cost. Rubrik costs considerably more.
How was the initial setup?
Initial deployment seemed easy. It was a little time-consuming and took a little bit of my sysadmin's time to create all the tiers and do all the configuration, but it was pretty easy. It was smooth.
After the deployment, it does require some maintenance. Because of all the problems that we've had, the maintenance has been fixing or trying to fix what wasn't correct with scoping. We keep running out of space, so our maintenance is that we go in and reconfigure our tiers, and we don't get a 100% backup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's fair. My biggest gripe with Zerto is the initial scoping. What we were promised didn't work with what we ended up with. At one point, our Exagrid representative told us that he doesn't know why they scoped it this way, but that's impossible. We can't do what we're expecting to do with just these two Exagrids.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto a seven out of ten. Their product is solid, but the implementation left a sour taste in my mouth.