I use Zerto for backup and restore.
Zerto DR (ZVM)
BYNETExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
An enterprise-grade solution for restoring VMs in minutes
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
With both Veeam and vCenter, the restoration process took a considerable amount of time. Zerto bragged about how their restoration was much faster, and it was true. It seemed unrealistically faster when they described and said that they could restore a VM within minutes. With vCenter and Veeam, when we restore a VM, depending on the size of the VM, it can take hours. Zerto proved true, and we have tested it numerous times now. We have done restorations via Zerto, and it truly does a full restoration of a VM within minutes. That was the problem we needed to solve, and they provided the solution. We are very pleased.
We are able to do a restoration so quickly because it backs up in near real-time. Of course, nothing is going to be in real-time, but it is as near real-time as possible. Instead of copying a larger amount of data, it is able to copy just delta data which is in a compressed form so that replication is more frequent. If we need to do a restoration, we will be missing less data.
Its interface is like any enterprise-grade utility. It is complex and not easy to use, but it is learnable.
We were able to see its benefits after some time. That was mostly because we did not have a good opportunity to test it in production. The initial onboarding came with an opportunity for us to do a test backup and restoration, but that was test data. You find the true value of this platform when you use it in a production environment where a stakeholder is involved and there is data that if you do not restore will lead to problems.
We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. The restoration time is in minutes versus hours. That goes a long way towards our RPO. With our previous platform, it took two hours, and with this platform, it takes five minutes. It has also had a positive effect on our RTOs.
Zerto has helped us to reduce downtime with a restoration time of five minutes versus two hours.
We have not had to use it for restoration because of ransomware. We were using a couple of VMs to test migration to a new database. While testing that migration, we caused damage to the VMs. We then used Zerto to restore them prior to that damage, and it was fantastic. The restoration was quick and effective, and we were back in production in minutes versus hours.
Zerto has reduced the time spent on DR testing but we still do the same number of DR tests throughout the year to make sure. It just takes a lot less time.
Zerto has improved our confidence tremendously, and it has reduced the RPO of any potential restoration needs.
What is most valuable?
I find Zerto's ability to restore a virtual VM much more quickly than Veeam or vCenter's restoration capabilities to be incredibly valuable.
What needs improvement?
I cannot think of any features that Zerto does not have. They probably have a lot of features that I do not even use. I am primarily interested in Zerto as a backup and recovery mechanism, and it does a phenomenal job of that. It is an enterprise-grade tool, and enterprise-grade tools tend to be complex. They can be a little difficult to use at first until you learn them. It is not reasonable to suggest making it easier to use because it is an enterprise-grade tool, and it is very robust. Therefore, it is not going to be easy to use. I just have to spend the time to learn it and become good at it. I am very pleased with it as is, but the ease of use of the restoration utility could be challenging initially.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used Zerto for just over a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is 100% stable. We have had no downtime with it, and we are pleased with its uptime and stability. We have great confidence that it will be available and usable when needed.
How are customer service and support?
I have not personally contacted Zerto customer service, but Todd, my sysadmin, is the primary point of contact for Zerto. He has contacted them for issues or day-to-day troubleshooting. When there is an upgrade to be done, he always reaches out to them to get guidance and ensure that he is doing the upgrades correctly. They are very good to work with.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using Veeam. There were no security concerns. It was more about performance. The restoration took approximately two hours with Veeam compared to five minutes with Zerto. The benefit was obvious, but there were no concerns about data security in the backups, protection mechanisms, or air gaps on either platform. It was just about the performance.
Neither one is easy to use. They are both very similar. Veeam is probably a little bit more complex than Zerto. Zerto is already doing a slightly better job than Veeam in ease of use, but they are both very complex and difficult to learn at first until you learn them.
How was the initial setup?
Anything new is always going to have a level of difficulty. It was difficult, but Zerto's onboarding development team helped us every step of the way. As we crossed bridges and had problems, that team jumped right in the middle of it and helped us resolve each and every problem until we were a hundred percent satisfied.
To fully set it up, from the kickoff call until I was satisfied that it was fully functional, it took about two weeks. There was probably a month's worth of preparatory work done in advance of the actual kickoff call and deployment, including some information gathering. You could include those 30 days prior as part of that work. Technically, it was about two weeks from the kickoff call to fully deployed and fully functional.
What about the implementation team?
It is a one-person job. One person primarily takes care of it, but we have three of us who are kept abreast and familiar with the process so that we do not have a single point of failure. It is definitely something that one person can handle.
In terms of maintenance, it requires periodic patching and upgrades.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is an enterprise-grade product. When you buy enterprise-grade tools, you have to expect to pay a higher price. It goes back to the idea of you get what you pay for. If you want an old cheap tool, you pay cheap prices to get it. If you want a good-quality tool that is robust and does a good job for you, you have to pay a higher price to get that, and Zerto is no different. We pay a little bit higher than the cheap tool price, but we get our money's worth. I am not dissatisfied with the price.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten. There is nothing that is absolutely perfect, but Zerto does a pretty good job of getting as close to perfect as they can.
Shorter disaster recovery timelines have increased client confidence
What is our primary use case?
While we primarily function as a service provider rather than serving a direct use case, our core focus lies in disaster recovery. We employ a rigorous testing process akin to gear testing and actively engage in recovery operations using Zerto for a diverse clientele, including numerous entities in the financial and government sectors.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto is straightforward to use.
We started to see the full benefits of Zerto one month after the implementation.
The effort on the RPOs has been excellent, greatly enhancing our operations. We have a diverse range of customers who are quite satisfied and express confidence in the timeline for recovery.
Even Zerto's RTO is low.
Zerto has helped significantly reduce downtime and helped reduce DR testing by over 45 percent.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect of Zerto is synchronized replication, which is very useful. Additionally, the availability of the virtual machines is quite good. Regarding the recovery point, we achieved at least ten recovery points, and the availability of the virtual machines is particularly notable.
What needs improvement?
The main issue with Zerto is its user interface, which lacks flexibility and presents a steep learning curve. To improve usability, the UI should be simplified and streamlined, making it more accessible to technical and non-technical users. Additionally, the UI should be better aligned with the platform's various options and features, ensuring a more intuitive and efficient user experience.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto consistently for almost four and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Zerto continues to be a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
We interacted with technical support many times. They were totally fine and very polite. We receive support around the clock, which is excellent.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Zerto was straightforward, and their customer service was instrumental in helping us achieve a stable implementation within one month.
What about the implementation team?
A team of five implemented Zerto in-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
One of Zerto's main disadvantages is its pricing structure, which involves significant upfront costs and limited options for startups with minimal initial funding. Although Zerto offers a comprehensive suite of features, the high cost and lack of flexible payment options, such as pay-as-you-go subscriptions, present a barrier to entry for many businesses. To increase accessibility, Zerto should consider offering lower pricing tiers or more flexible subscription models tailored to startups' needs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated a lot of different solutions.
What other advice do I have?
There are some disadvantages; therefore, I rate Zerto eight out of ten.
We are not a partner, just a customer, but we are trying to collaborate with them as a reseller within one year.
No maintenance has been required as of yet.
Enhanced IT resilience with seamless hybrid cloud migration and automated disaster recovery
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is for seamless migration to our client's cloud environment, ensuring a non-destructive migration with minimal downtime. We focus on cloud adoption and migration, and Zerto assists with the smooth migration of client workloads to the cloud environment.
Additionally, Zerto provides disaster recovery solutions, data protection, and ensures minimal disruption during migration.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto has significantly improved our organization's IT resilience by ensuring security, protecting against ransomware, and enabling seamless cloud migrations.
It has enhanced our flexibility, ensured reliable recovery, and minimized downtime.
Overall, it has increased our ROI by helping secure our digital ecosystem and improving client satisfaction.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Zerto include its simplicity, ease of use, and automated features like failover and failback. It facilitates hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies, providing seamless migration with reduced risks. Zerto automates the complexity of manual tasks, which is beneficial for streamlined operations.
What needs improvement?
Zerto could improve by offering more flexible pricing models, especially for startups. In the Indian context, cost is a concern for many businesses, and a pay-as-you-go model would be beneficial. Additionally, more cloud support is needed beyond the major providers like AWS and Azure, such as support for Alibaba and Oracle Cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable, straightforward, and reliable. It consistently performs well in recovery situations.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As a large enterprise, we find the scalability of Zerto to be very good. It effectively supports our extensive use across many users.
How are customer service and support?
I rate the customer service and support highly. They provide assistance with initial setup and other issues promptly.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, we used different solutions like vMotion and NetBackup. We switched to Zerto as it provides faster recovery and minimizes recovery time, which was a limitation in the previous solutions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was smooth and straightforward, with the support team providing help, particularly in configuring work storage.
What was our ROI?
Our ROI has increased by about 15% since implementing Zerto.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would rate the pricing, setup cost, and licensing around a seven on a scale of one to ten. The pricing model could be more flexible to accommodate startup companies with lower budgets.
What other advice do I have?
Zerto is adaptable and straightforward, making it easy for new users to adopt. The solution has significant advantages in recovery and offers good scalability.
I would rate Zerto an eight out of a ten.
Provides real-time analytics and monitoring, enabling our organization to quickly identify and resolve issues
What is our primary use case?
I use Zerto to monitor replication, configure protection, and manage disaster recovery and performance.
We implemented Zerto to manage disaster recovery and also for faster performance on backups and failovers.
How has it helped my organization?
Learning how to use Zerto can be easily achieved with some training and practice.
Zerto has helped us reduce downtime, retrieve backups faster, and manage our workload more efficiently.
Zerto has reduced downtime by 20 percent and helps protect the VMs in our environment.
It is 25 percent faster at recovering data compared to IBM Spectrum Protect.
Zerto has helped save four hours per week in recovery situations and has reduced our disaster recovery testing by 30 percent. We have used five percent of those savings towards other value-added tasks.
It has positively impacted our IT resiliency strategy.
Zerto enables disaster recovery in the cloud which is important.
Zerto provides real-time analytics and monitoring, enabling our organization to quickly identify and resolve issues.
What is most valuable?
Zerto makes my work easier. Replicating my settings helps me recover point objectives faster and retain policies.
The most valuable feature is the customization that allows me to set my protection group myself.
What needs improvement?
While Zerto provides good service, I find the pricing to be high and believe there is room for improvement. I would like to see Zerto implement a pay-as-you-go model.
While Zerto offers scalability, its implementation can be more challenging in larger organizations, indicating room for improvement in its scalability features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of Zerto seven out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of Zerto seven out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support responds promptly to our requests.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used IBM Spectrum Protect but Zerto provides a quicker recovery time. With IBM the recovery process for particular data is manual but with Zerto it is automated.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment of Zerto was straightforward and took two hours to complete. Two people were involved in the deployment.
What was our ROI?
We have seen a 20 percent return on investment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Zerto is priced high.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto eight out of ten.
Zerto is deployed in multiple departments and we have ten users.
I recommend Zerto because it helps recover data faster and improves its overall quality.
The benefits are immediate, it is easy to use, and it reduces downtime
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto to back up and recover our data servers.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto is easy to use.
The near-synchronous replication is beneficial and simplifies my work.
I saw the benefits of Zerto immediately after we started using it.
Zerto does a good job of helping protect our virtual environment.
We have seen a 30 percent improvement in our RPO using Zerto.
We have seen a 40 percent improvement in our RTO using Zerto.
Zerto has helped us reduce downtime in several situations and has helped reduce the amount of our disaster recovery testing.
It helped save 20 percent of our time during data recovery situations due to ransomware.
Zerto has had a positive impact on our IT resiliency strategy.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Zerto is the quick recovery time.
What needs improvement?
The technical support response time has room for improvement.
For how long have I used the solution?
I am currently using Zerto.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of Zerto eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto is highly scalable.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support offers high-quality responses, but the response time is lengthy.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used Azure Backup. Zerto is faster and more dependable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was straightforward and took two hours to complete. A team of three people was involved in it.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was completed in-house.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Zerto is expensive but offers many features that make it competitive.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.
We can quickly restore our servers, reduce downtime, and rely on the stability
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto is easy to use and implement, especially when performing a failover.
Zerto's near synchronous replication is valuable for our SQL database.
The benefits of Zerto were immediately apparent. After implementation, we quickly realized we were protected against any disaster. Zerto also provides visibility into the health of replication, allowing us to identify and address any potential issues.
Since implementing Zerto, we have observed a positive impact on our Recovery Point Objectives, which have been reduced by half. Zerto's ability to easily group servers by application and configure protection groups streamlined our processes. Moreover, Zerto's support for on-premises to cloud replication is invaluable. We've leveraged this capability to replicate all systems to the cloud, establishing a robust disaster recovery solution. Zerto has proven to be an effective cloud migration and disaster recovery planning tool.
Our Recovery Time Objective determines how quickly we can restore our infrastructure. Zerto has been instrumental in reducing our RTO by enabling rapid recovery in any disaster recovery scenario.
Zerto has significantly reduced our downtime. For example, some servers have a recovery point objective of just five seconds. During disaster recovery tests conducted last year, we recovered 60 servers within eight hours, including server delivery, startup, and operating system verification by our team.
Zerto is our primary tool for achieving all disaster recovery objectives.
What is most valuable?
Zerto is a flexible and resilient business continuity and disaster recovery solution. Its industry-leading replication technology enables seamless data protection across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments.
Another valuable feature is the failover capability. Unlike many other tools we tested, Zerto allows us to perform a disaster recovery test without risk to our production environment.
What needs improvement?
Zerto's current reporting capabilities are insufficient for our needs. We require detailed reports to analyze the performance of our environments. To achieve this, we have developed a custom reporting solution using Zerto and other tools to thoroughly assess VPG configurations and overall environment health against specified parameters. Unfortunately, Zerto does not natively provide this level of reporting functionality.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Zerto is highly stable, and I do not recall encountering any crashes.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scaling Zerto is easy. We just need to add additional virtual/appliances servers.
How are customer service and support?
Zerto provides excellent support, but response times to our issues can sometimes be a concern, possibly due to the size and complexity of our environment.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We currently utilize both SRM and Zerto, but SRM's replication capabilities are limited to data centers, while Zerto offers additional cloud replication options. Unlike SRM, which is exclusively designed for VMware infrastructure, Zerto is compatible with other virtual platforms, providing greater flexibility.
Zerto is easier to use than SRM.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment is straightforward. We only need to deploy a few servers to build an environment and start to replicate.
Deploying Zerto in a single region required three months. One contributing factor to this timeline was the time-intensive process of collecting Virtual Recovery Appliances and deploying them across 500 ESXi servers. A team of ten architects and engineers was dedicated to this project.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was completed in-house by my team and me. As the architect, I oversaw the project's planning, construction, and deployment. We consulted with Zerto to identify potential areas for improvement.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Compared to other options like SRM, Zerto is a more expensive solution, making it primarily suitable for larger organizations. Smaller and medium-sized businesses might find Zerto's cost expensive. While Azure Site Recovery is free for users of Azure cloud services, Zerto offers a broader range of features.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.
Our organization takes a unique approach to disaster recovery testing, conducting 15 tests annually to meet policy and audit requirements. Zerto is the cornerstone of our DR testing strategy, enabling us to validate between five and seven applications in each test.
Zerto requires ongoing maintenance and a dedicated person monitors it daily. However, we must still test and deploy updates into our production environment.
Potential users should be knowledgeable of virtual environments and clearly understand their disaster recovery needs, including the required replication type, desired recovery strategy, and whether Zerto aligns with their specific requirements.
Has had a positive effect on our RTOs and RPOs
What is our primary use case?
I use Zerto for disaster recovery and data protection.
How has it helped my organization?
It is very easy and user-friendly. You do not need too much knowledge about it before you navigate around it. It is not complex. It is easy for users to use.
We can see its benefits from time to time. Every time we use it, we keep seeing the benefits of Zerto.
We have seen a positive effect on our RTOs and RPOs. We will keep using Zerto. We do not have any plan to change the brand.
Zerto helps me save time. It helps do things slightly faster.
Zerto has helped me with my time management. It helps me save time. It makes my work easier. It is easy to navigate through.
I find it to be the best. It has had a positive effect on everything I do in my daily activity.
What is most valuable?
Zerto is easy to use and user-friendly. It is not complex, so I find it easy to use. I do not need to have much knowledge about it before using it.
What needs improvement?
Its price should be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have had a crash once or twice.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I feel it is very good because it supports virtual machines.
How are customer service and support?
I have not contacted their support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used any other solution. Zerto is the first one.
How was the initial setup?
It was easy. I have not tried any other product, so I cannot compare it with others. This was my first time using Zerto, and I found it to be easy.
It did not take much of my time. It probably took two to three days, but I am not sure because it has been three years.
What about the implementation team?
I had a little assistance with the deployment. It was not just me. We had three people involved in its deployment.
It needs to be maintained. You need to check whether any user or anything else requires attention.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
They should adjust the pricing because I feel its price is too much. If they reduce the price, there will be more users and customers.
What other advice do I have?
If you have not deployed it before, you should seek assistance before the deployment.
I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten.
Fast, easy to use, and helpful for disaster management
What is our primary use case?
We use it for disaster recovery and analytics.
We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. We are also using it for our Virtual Protected Group or VPG.
How has it helped my organization?
By implementing Zerto, we wanted disaster management, especially for our data. We did not want to lose data unnecessarily.
Over time, I keep seeing different benefits of using Zerto.
In terms of ease of use, Zerto is easy to use.
Zerto has near synchronous replication. It is okay. It has been easy for me to use.
Zerto is faster than other recovery solutions for real-time automation.
Zerto makes it easy for me to navigate and move my data to the cloud. It has had a positive effect.
Zerto has helped reduce downtime. There is about 25% reduction.
Zerto has improved the data recovery time. It has saved me time. It is faster than what I was using before. Zerto has saved me a lot of time, but I do not have the metrics.
Zerto has helped reduce our organization's DR testing by 30%. It has had a positive effect on our IT resilience.
What is most valuable?
I like the automation of transferring data in the case of any disaster to our VMs. It is also easy to use and fast.
What needs improvement?
Its price is a little bit on the higher side. Other than the pricing, I do not have any areas for improvement. I am enjoying Zerto. Everything is working the way I want it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for the past two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Its stability is okay.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Its scalability is okay. As we keep having more customers, we might have to scale it, but for now, it is good.
How are customer service and support?
I contacted them once, and I got a quick response. They are fast. I wrote to them, and I quickly got a response. The response was timely and effective.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I was using Microsoft Azure backup before. I migrated to Zerto. Zerto is faster.
How was the initial setup?
It is deployed in the cloud. Its deployment was not too easy and also not difficult.
Like every other team, it took us some time to get it going. It is not as easy as one, two, and three. It took us about one hour to get it going. That is why it is not too easy, but it is also not difficult.
After installation, we took the entire day because we were trying to make sure everything worked fine.
So far, I have not done any maintenance for Zerto.
What about the implementation team?
We had two people involved in its deployment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Zerto is a little bit on the higher side in terms of pricing. It would be better if they had a pay-as-you-go package.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I got a review from a friend and decided to give it a try. She asked me to give it a try to see how I could recover data fast and do other things without wasting time. I was looking for these features, and I got them with Zerto.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise knowing what you want in the software and why you are going for this software. If you want fast data recovery software, you should go for Zerto. I have been using Zerto for two years, and I have not had any reason for regret. New users who are going for Zerto would not regret their decision.
I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten.
The non-destructive testing enables businesses to test their disaster recoveries without impacting production
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto to recover cloud services hosted on Azure and AWS and on-prem servers. We also use it to protect VMs. Our company has a small data operation, so we can upload all the data to the server.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto helps recover documents and protect data. It has excellent security and is easy to set up. We can make multiple backups and replicate different public or private cloud sites. It gives you versatility and confidence. It's because it's easy to manage and configure. There are no challenges using this tool.
We have near-zero data loss, and it has manual recovery checkpoints. We can create frequent recovery checkpoints in business for in-time backups. The second one is automated and non-destructive testing.
The recovery time is very fast. I don't think another tool can deliver a recovery team that fast. When we ran a DR test on Zerto, it migrated quickly and efficiently. It has drastically reduced the time we spend on DR testing. We're less dependent on Hypervisor for storage resources. Our recovery time has been reduced to 30 minutes on average. It depends on the data. Sometimes, it may take only 15 to 20 minutes, but if we're uploading all of the company's data, it will take 35 to 40 minutes.
What is most valuable?
The HR recovery is valuable because I work with the HR manager to recover the HR system first. The data will synchronize with the cloud. I also like Zerto's non-destructive testing, which enables businesses to test their disaster recoveries without impacting production.
It has a user-friendly interface, so we can manage data protection and recovery tasks quickly. It's also cost-effective because it reduces the infrastructure cost. It's easy to integrate. Sometimes, I integrate it by myself when the manager isn't there.
The onboarding is simple because when we're backing up, we have a copy of production running on the secondary side. We have real-time DR, meaning we can automatically remove and replace the data on the server.
It's good for reliability, timing, and simplification. For reliability, it's a logical construction that behaves productively. It's a critical system where timing and coordination are necessary. It also offers simplicity to design and analyze the system by clearly defining the relationship between events and conditions.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes we require extra storage for Zerto.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used Zerto for five to 10 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Zerto is highly stable. We've never had any performance issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I rate Zerto 10 out of 10. Sometimes, we encounter errors, my manager talks with the support. They are helpful and always resolve our issues quickly.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Zerto nine out of 10. I would recommend Zerto. My sister company also plans to implement it. To those considering Zerto, I would suggest using the trial version. The UI seems complex the first few times you use it, but after you work with it a little, it's easy to understand.
Reasonable pricing with a good interface and easy setup
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for DR purposes.
How has it helped my organization?
It provided an easier way to set up everything regarding DR. We had a small team. There were only four people and one of them was a manager, so we had just three people with one desktop guy. We were looking for a solution that was easy to set up, did not require too much maintenance, and something we didn't have to constantly keep an eye on. Zerto provided that.
What is most valuable?
The setup is easy and very comfortable. There are not too many issues doing the upgrades. Maintenance is easy and configuration is easy as well. It's all just GUI-based. You just select the server that you want on the DR and it starts the application.
Transfers between the data center are good as well. They do the compressions and also the encryption. That way, you are protected and it doesn't consume too much bandwidth.
The interface is very good. It's not too complicated. The interface is way easier than Veeam. You can do everything from the interface - including authorization of DR.
Its near-synchronous replication is good. We get an RTO of five seconds. They also provide different checkpoints. They maintain a lot of checkpoints, so you can go back in time on the DR side if you want to. Of course, there is a limitation based on how much space you have.
We noted the benefits of Zerto immediately. Before I joined, the company used to do a very manual process. We started doing a POC with Zerto, Veeam, and Pure Storage. I found that Zerto was easier to manage - and it's cheaper than the rest of them. That, coupled with the limitation of the human resources, we wanted to have less maintenance, less interface, and I found Zerto very, very useful in that process.
Zerto covers our entire production environment. If something goes wrong, you can use Zerto to recover the server if you want. Mainly, we started Zerto just for protection.
The recovery time objective is good. We've had no issues. If the line goes down, it recovers very quickly since it provides a lot of compression in the data. It doesn't consume much bandwidth.
If we have issues in our database, we can recover the data. We can go back and time and pull out whatever is lost.
Zerto has helped us reduce overall DR testing in our company. What used to take a month I can do in less than two days.
It's impacted our IT resiliency strategy. It provides, in terms of DR and data protection, peace of mind. We can get our data back quickly.
What needs improvement?
They have moved to appliances, and the configuration of appliances is a bit complicated. The appliance is is very complicated to configure by proxy as they move everything to containers, and each container needs to be configured. It's a little bit complicated.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for almost eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the solution is very good. I'd rate stability nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's easy to scale Zerto. I'd rate scalability nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I've contacted technical support. I've had no issues with them. They are well-versed and know the answers.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did not previously use a different solution.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment is easy. We create a server and deploy. You just answer a few questions, and you are done.
Even if a person is new to Zerto, it would still be very easy. As a very small team, we are always searching for products that aren't too complicated.
The deployment itself might take half a day. It's a one-person job.
If you add new servers, there will be maintenance. You can also set up reporting if you like.
What about the implementation team?
When we first deployed eight years ago, we may have used somebody from Zerto. They provided us with help as they were new at the time. If I had to do it again, I could handle it on my own. It's not too complicated.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is reasonable and very affordable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did look at the Veeam. We also look at the Pure Storage. Pure Storage also had some sort of replication, however, the RTO was too big. The RTO was around 15 minutes with Pure, and Zerto was providing an RTO of five seconds.