Our primary use case is to continuously replicate our VMs to our DR site. Having the ability to recover them at almost any point in time, mostly back thirty days, is the main purpose of Zerto.
HPE Zerto In-Cloud Software for AWS
Hewlett Packard EnterpriseExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Increased our ability to restore at a point in time
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
We didn't previously have a continuous replication tool and now we have the ability to recover to any number of points in time. That's really beneficial to us. It cuts down our recovery time.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is how quickly it powers down the original source VMs and the speed at which it powers up the new VMs. The amount of time it takes to put up the operating system is valuable. The speed is what I like the best.
The near-synchronous replication is awesome. When you get hit by a cyberattack, you never know where the clean VM resides, and at what point in time it actually exists. Having the ability to find the point in time when we are clean is a good thing.
We are going from a physical data center to a physical data center at the moment.
We use Zerto to protect VMs in our environment. It increased our ability to restore at a point in time. We didn't have it before, and now we have it.
Compared to other tools, Zerto is a lot faster. There are tools with your primary block storage backup, but they're just not as fast.
What needs improvement?
I'm having a problem with CentOS 7 and with VMs with multiple network adapters. Zerto recognizes those multiple network adapters on CentOS 7 vm but it will not give me the option to specify a failover IP, for that particular VM. Something's not working right, but Zerto is going to follow up.
For how long have I used the solution?
Zerto has been in production for three months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It seems stable so far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability seems pretty easy.
How are customer service and support?
Customer service is really good. Technical technical support is lacking. At least from who I've been talking to. Maybe my case has not gotten bumped up to the higher level technicians. Customer support is great, and they're really responsive but their technical knowledge is just not quite there.
Zerto's documentation is outdated. I'm finding it hard to find documents related to my questions. Their documentation is bad.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very easy. We needed a little help with the initial configuration, but it was pretty straightforward.
What about the implementation team?
We worked with Eagle Technologies for the deployment. We loved them.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I wasn't involved in negotiating any pricing. It evidently worked into our budget.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We also looked at Cohesity and Rubrik. I don't know that there's anything like Zerto. We went with Zerto because our third-party vendor recommended it. We also did a proof of concept two years ago. We liked what we saw with Zerto so we went with it.
Everybody taunts their one pane of glass but Zerto is simple to use. I really like the GUI, the interface is not too busy.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten. We don't have a test network setup. I know with Zerto, you can simulate a recovery.
Zerto would be a perfect ten if the documentation was easier and if level 1 support would be more knowledgeable.
Has enabled us to mature our DR stance quite a bit
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution to protect our general workloads, migrating VMs to the cloud and protecting VMs in the cloud. Our primary use case is to protect and provide DR.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto has enabled us to mature our DR stance quite a bit in how we protect functions.
The near-synchronous replication works pretty well. Going from RPOs of an hour to five seconds is pretty interesting.
Zerto enables us to do disaster recovery in the cloud rather than in a physical data center.
Having disaster recovery in the cloud is very important for our organization as we're currently moving our production workloads to the cloud.
We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. Our RPOs are getting lower.
The speed of recovery in Zerto is much faster than with SRM.
What is most valuable?
The on-prem to Azure, migration, and protection aspects are good. Zerto is one of the few tools that work pretty good and at moving between regions or clouds.
The near-synchronous replication is good.
What needs improvement?
Automated protection of workloads from one site to another could be improved. For example, with SRM, you can create a VM, and it automatically protects it based on mappings and other factors. Zerto does not do this.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for about a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It can throw us for a loop at times and it can be challenging to figure out.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are pretty large-scale. It's been one of the challenges, as it seems pretty simple for smaller scales, but as you get larger, it gets more challenging, which is where the automation piece and lack of that comes in.
How are customer service and support?
Level one and level two are excellent. The development team is a challenge sometimes because they work four days a week. Sometimes, when we have to have a Dev escalation or a severe issue, it takes quite a long time to get a response.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We use SRM and Commvault. Zerto is better than both of them. Commvault is not great at Orchestration DR, and SRM locks you into VMware.
How was the initial setup?
We were early adopters, so the deployment has been challenging, but it's definitely getting more mature and better as we go.
What about the implementation team?
We bought it from a reseller but we used Zerto services to get it going.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It has reasonable pricing comparable to VMware and others.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I rate Zerto an eight out of ten because it makes testing easy and provides flexibility between on-premises and various clouds.
Saves significant recovery time, doesn't require a lot of resources, and eliminates the need for a dedicated physical data center
What is our primary use case?
We store a lot of raw data for reporting and use Zerto to protect that data.
Before implementing Zerto, we lacked a data protection and recovery solution, resulting in a significant data loss incident of approximately 70 percent during a past event.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto is easy to use.
The near-synchronous replication offers a critical advantage for our customers' multi-platform environments by providing continuous data protection with minimal delay.
The main benefit of Zerto is that it doesn't affect the performance of the cloud platform while protecting the data. We realized the benefits of Zerto within the first three months.
Zerto's implementation has significantly improved our recovery time objective, allowing us to get our systems back online much quicker.
Zerto has significantly improved our disaster recovery capabilities, reducing downtime from days to just two hours.
With Zerto in place, our disaster recovery time has been reduced to a maximum of two days, whereas previously we lacked a recovery solution altogether.
Our disaster recovery testing with Zerto exceeded expectations. We aimed to restore all data within five days, but using Zerto's capabilities, we achieved a full recovery in just two days.
Zerto saved our staff three days of work, freeing them for other tasks.
Zerto's continuous data protection, journal-based recovery, automation, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud support, and non-disruptive testing have significantly improved our IT resilience strategy. These features not only enhance data protection and improve our Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective but also provide the flexibility and scalability needed for a robust IT environment.
It facilitates a cloud-based disaster recovery solution, eliminating the need for a dedicated physical data center to ensure business continuity in the event of an outage.
Zerto was our disaster recovery solution of choice because it offers a cloud-based implementation, which perfectly aligned with our organization's prioritization of cloud-based disaster recovery.
What is most valuable?
It stands out for its user-friendly approach to data protection and recovery, allowing for quick and efficient backups and restores.
What needs improvement?
Zerto's pricing structure could be more competitive to better suit the needs of a wider range of businesses.
The setup process could be simpler. A more streamlined installation would improve the user experience.
Zerto's long-term data storage capabilities, specifically how long data can be retained and managed, could benefit from further development.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for ten months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We sometimes face challenges that require multiple hours of downtime but it is rare. I would rate the stability eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto is expensive.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is quick to respond.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
Integrating the initial deployment into our infrastructure proved to be a complex undertaking.
To ensure a smooth implementation, we prioritized planning and engagement, starting with management and then incorporating other stakeholders. We piloted the project with the operations team for a month before a full organizational rollout.
The deployment took around one week and involved six people.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was completed in-house.
What was our ROI?
Zerto provides a return on investment through the peace of mind we get knowing that all of our data is protected.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Zerto is expensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
After considering both Commvault and Carbonite, we ultimately decided Zerto was the best fit for our data protection needs.
Zerto emerged as our choice for data protection because its feature set directly addressed the specific needs of our organization.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto eight out of ten.
Maintaining Zerto is manageable as we have a dedicated team of three people responsible for its upkeep.
Our organization consists of 40 analysts in one site.
Zerto provides robust data protection and excels in disaster recovery for businesses, but its cost may be steeper compared to other solutions.
It is flexible, stable, and user-friendly
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto for disaster recovery and cloud migration.
We are an MSP, so we have Zerto deployed on multiple public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises.
We implemented Zerto because its continuous data protection significantly reduces data loss and downtime costs. In the event of a production issue, we can quickly recover using the user-friendly Check Point feature. Zerto also offers flexible support for storage models, primary and disaster recovery, and hypervisors.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto's user-friendly interface simplifies data protection tasks. It allows users to create virtual protection groups easily, configure failover and recovery processes, and manage licenses.
Zerto's near-synchronous replication can replicate our primary data center services related to PR, which is essential. But somehow, we are facing some pros and cons on this. If we face any challenge like a ransomware attack on our PR site, with the synchronous mode, it is also replicated on DR. That can affect us. So, if we use an asynchronous model, our data will not be replicated continuously from the PR site to the DR site. There is a specific time bracket where the data has been replicated after a particular time frame. So, there are different types of business cases and business requirements. However, we are comfortable with the near-synchronous model.
Zerto helps us set up any disaster recovery site on a cloud-based model and establish an on-premises-to-cloud migration plan. The continuous data protection feature protects our infrastructure services from ransomware and other bugs.
Our virtual protection groups safeguard virtual machines across various models, including hypervisors and virtualized environments. When configured to route to our disaster recovery site after synchronization between sites A and B, VPGs achieve our desired Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective, meeting our Service Level Agreement. Flexible protection models range from 250MB to 350MB, with varying time slots to facilitate data recovery between the PR and DR sites.
Zerto provides two functionalities: live migration and test failover. Live migration allows a seamless transition of our primary machine to the disaster recovery site within ten minutes.
Zerto has reduced our RTO from 30 seconds to three to nine seconds and has helped reduce downtime.
Zerto has helped save time in a data recovery situation and helped reduce our DR testing.
It has improved our IT resiliency strategy by 90 percent.
The ability to perform disaster recovery in the cloud is helpful because it can reduce our DR footprint and time.
What is most valuable?
Continuous protection is Zerto's most valuable aspect.
What needs improvement?
Zerto can improve by offering bare metal recovery for our physical infrastructure.
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?
Zerto is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto is scalable, and if we need to scale down the line, we know it can handle it.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used VMware's Site Recovery Manager. We switched to Zerto because it is easier to use and requires less set-up time.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment of Zerto is straightforward. We must set up a VM server and install the VR agents, followed by the PR site.
The deployment times vary depending on the business model, but for someone with full knowledge of Zerto, it can be completed within 30 to 90 minutes.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was completed in-house.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto ten out of ten, but I would like it to offer bare metal recovery as well.
No maintenance is required for Zerto.
Reduces our operational costs, time commitment, and downtime
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto to protect our centralized environment on our data center.
We implemented Zerto to ensure our environment keeps running in the event of power failure or hardware issues.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto is extremely easy to use.
The near synchronous replication is powerful and eliminates the need to use other storage solutions. The near synchronous replication is important for the services that we are providing.
It has drastically reduced our downtime. Previously, recovering from an issue took three days, but now with Zerto, we're back up and running in about an hour, minimizing disruption and keeping our business operational.
The continuous data protection has transformed our IT operations. By enabling us to restore our entire environment and resume functionality within hours, it eliminates the multi-day downtime we previously experienced in recovery situations.
Zerto has significantly reduced our operational costs and time commitment by 90 percent. Compared to our previous solution, Zerto requires fewer resources and allows us to complete tasks much faster.
Zerto safeguards our virtual machines, ensuring critical applications recover in minutes while less essential ones are restored within hours. This significant improvement replaces our previous recovery time of two to three days for the entire environment.
It has reduced our downtime by 85 percent.
While we hadn't previously tested our disaster recovery plan, our current backups and improved recovery time give us greater confidence in our ability to respond to an incident.
Zerto strengthens our IT team's disaster recovery plan by boosting their confidence in the system's reliability. With Zerto, the system can now recover quickly from the biannual power outages that used to cause instability, thanks to its improved stability within the failover environment.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Zerto are the ease of use and recovery speed.
The most valuable feature for enhancing our data protection strategy is the ability to test and validate that the protection is up and running when we need it.
What needs improvement?
While Zerto's current version supports VMware environments, I'd like the added flexibility of using Hypervisors as well. Although previous Zerto versions offered this functionality, it seems to be missing in the latest iteration.
We are expecting to have VME to VMware or VMware to HPE VME to have fully functional environmen
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for 3 years
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of Zerto nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of Zerto nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support team was responsive and effective in resolving the small number of problems we encountered.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to rely solely on Veeam for backups, but now we have a layered approach. We still perform Veeam backups for long-term data protection. However, we've added Zerto for disaster recovery, enabling much faster recoveries of our critical systems in case of a major outage. This way, we have both comprehensive backups and the ability to get our key functions back up and running quickly.
Zerto boasts faster recovery speeds than Veeam and offers a significantly easier testing process.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment was straightforward. It was completed by one person in one day.
What was our ROI?
The time Zerto saves us restoring our services provides a significant return on investment.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.
Our Zerto deployment spans multiple locations and is managed by a team of eight administrators who are responsible for protecting 30 virtual machines.
While Zerto itself doesn't require regular maintenance, it's important to conduct periodic tests to verify our disaster recovery functionality and generate reports to monitor its health.
I would recommend Zerto because it provides better and more simplified protection.
Provides near-synchronous replication, and improves our RPO, but the backup functionality needs improvement
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto for disaster recovery and backup of our application server.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto's ease of use is moderate.
The near-synchronous replication is good.
We use Zerto to help protect our VMs.
Zerto improved our recovery point objective, but to achieve long-term data retention we had to invest in additional local storage.
From an IT resilience perspective, our UK-wide implementation ensured a swift recovery, solidifying the strategy's effectiveness.
It has enabled disaster recovery in the cloud. This is important from a software recovery perspective to keep things running.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect of Zerto is the recovery speed.
What needs improvement?
The recovery processes of large datasets in the Cloud have room for improvement.
The backup functionality can be improved.
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?
Zerto is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used various solutions in the past including Veeam and Quest AppAssure.
We came to the end of what we could do with AppAssure so we moved on to Zerto.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was difficult. The deployment took a couple of weeks and required around four people.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
While Zerto excels in disaster recovery, its backup capabilities fall short. To ensure proper data protection, we require a separate backup solution alongside Zerto for disaster recovery therefore the price for Zerto is high.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
In our search for a cloud-based disaster recovery solution, we considered both Veeam Cloud Connect and Zerto, ultimately choosing the latter.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto seven out of ten. It only works for virtual machines, not physical ones. This means we need separate software for physical machine backup, which adds complexity and cost.
Zerto's recovery speed falls in line with what we've experienced from other disaster recovery solutions.
Disaster recovery testing was prevented due to security restrictions. Our policies don't permit creating a sandbox environment that interacts with Zerto.
Four people are required for the maintenance of Zerto.
I recommend Zerto for disaster recovery purposes.
Easy to use with fast disaster recovery and near synchronous replication
What is our primary use case?
We use it mainly for our disaster recovery, so we replicate our production VMs between our data centers.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution meets our high availability and disaster recovery needs.
What is most valuable?
The disaster recovery reviews itself and it has the ability to fail over within seconds and get new machines up and running on a new data center in a matter of minutes.
It's pretty easy to use. It depends on how detailed you get into the product. If you get real detailed into the product with some of its backup capabilities, it can get a little bit more detailed, for example. However, for the disaster recovery piece itself, it's it's pretty easy to use.
The near synchronous replication is effective. It works really well. The replication and the RTO, RPO times are pretty much the best in the industry.
We saw some benefits right away in that we were understanding that we were now highly available. We also started to see more and more benefits as time went on.
It helps protect virtual machines in our environment.
Our downtime and our ability to replicate happen within seconds. We've seen other products that take about five minutes. Now, we take seconds to get things back up and going. Therefore, the loss of data is virtually nothing. We've been extremely happy with that.
It's helped reduce downtimes in pretty much any situation. We've had instances where a data center or a cluster in a data center was down or we were having problems with it and being able to have that replicated data being able to be spun up within a matter of minutes. It's significantly helped where if we didn't have that ability, we were probably looking at at least three to four hours, if not a day, of downtime. We're talking about the difference between minutes of downtime versus hours to potentially days.
With Zerto we haven't had any any actual instances where ransomware or anything like that actually comes up. We do yearly testing where we'll fail over an entire data center. While we haven't had any malicious incidents, we've had success with conceptual testing.
Zerto hasn't necessarily reduced the overall testing in our organization. We still have to do the testing. That said, it's reduced the time in which it takes to perform that testing. So, we still have our requirements to do yearly testing. However, it's at least reducing the amount of time it takes. Before, the testing would take an entire weekend and multiple departments in order to complete it. Now we're finishing our testing in a matter of hours. We're knocking off quite a bit of time with Zerto - plus hours of time in order to complete testing.
Zerto is now our resiliency strategy. We're able to replicate all of our data and be able to bring up an entire data center within a matter of minutes, which has become our go-to for our resiliency within both of our data centers.
What needs improvement?
Recently, they started forcing everybody to use a Linux-based appliance for their z/VMs. That appliance has been extremely touchy and, in some cases, problematic. However, there were Windows-based z/VMs prior, and we never really had issues with them. But now we're running into problems where certificates aren't able to be imported for things like LDPAPS and SSL. We've run into actual downtime with the z/VMs recently, which is new to the Linux app appliance. Overall, the appliances had some bugs, and they've not been as reliable as they were in the past.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using Zerto for a little over 4.5 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There are the no real lag issues, We've only had a couple of instances where the system has been down, and wasnew since our Linux appliance install. Overall, it's been pretty reliable with the caveat that the new Linux appliance has had some downtime. Prior to that, we hadn't had any.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability's been good. There's a couple of instances where they could allow for some more local replication, however, scalability has been good.
How are customer service and support?
I quite frequently contact technical support. On most things, they have been pretty good. The issues that we've had with that z/VM, those tickets can take quite a while. I have one ticket that's been open for about four and a half months now. They're still trying to figure out some of the bugs within their system, which has caused some tickets to take longer than they really should.
The quality of response has been pretty good. Maybe 7 or 8 out of 10 are quality responses. They're they're pretty good, pretty knowledgeable. Again, there are some instances where they're still learning the system as well, or there's something new, and it's a little bit odd; however, other than that, their answers are typically pretty spot on and pretty well documented.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to build products by Nutanix. Their RTO times were much higher. That's about the only solution that I've used at least recently.
I wasn't part of that decision making process. Zerto had been onboarded by the time I came on to to the team here.
How was the initial setup?
The deployments have been pretty easy as long as you have your network topology figured out. If you're just starting up a brand new appliance, and you're running through a setup, signing IPs , et cetera, you have to make sure that the z/VMs can talk to each other. It's a pretty easy process.
Usually, for the setup, we have the SME, which is me, and then a backup to be a second pair of eyes, however, a lot of the work is been done just by myself.
In terms of maintenance, there are updates that need to be applied. The certificate imports need to happen depending on expiration dates. There also is their key cloak integration for authentication, and that requires some upkeep as well depending on how you're signing permissions and what you're signing permissions for.
What about the implementation team?
I've done redeployments myself, for example, when we switched over from Windows to Linux to z/VMs. That was all in-house. At the time when they did their very first deployment, they had used a third party vendor to assist with that. We've not needed them since.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I don't have any visibility on the pricing.
What other advice do I have?
We're a Zerto customer.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
New users need to understand the product prior to deployment and make sure that they're taking the time to whiteboard this out. Your VRAs are going to take up a good amount of space. So users need to understand that when you're replicating data over, you are making a second copy of that data, and understand what your test scenarios are going to be. You need to understand if you need things like a test environment to actually be within Zerto since that will be taking up more space. Overall, people just be aware that the Linux appliances still have to have their bugs worked out. For first-time users, especially, I would keep those deployments as simple as possible to start.
It has improved our RTO, is stable, and helps manage our complex environment
What is our primary use case?
We do many data-related activities for various government ministries in India. We use Zerto to back up and recover data in many training and capacity-building activities.
We implemented Zerto to address challenges with data centralization in our complex platform environment. Previously, pulling data from a central source was impossible due to the need to feed it into an internal location before deployment. This limitation hindered customization and integration efforts. Additionally, integrating our primary data source, previously used with IBM, into the new platform proved difficult due to compatibility issues. Zerto's capabilities were seen as a potential solution to these problems.
How has it helped my organization?
The remarkable benefits of Zerto have yet to manifest fully. The software operates efficiently without significant bugs or issues, and Zerto's customer support has been responsive. While real-time reporting is a standout feature compared to other trial products, its impact on our ongoing projects remains to be determined. A full assessment of Zerto's potential will require an additional six months.
Zerto has significantly improved our Recovery Time Objective, particularly regarding project timelines. The expedited turnaround during critical project phases has been instrumental in streamlining our processes. By accelerating these stages, we've reduced the need for additional developer resources and eliminated time-consuming tasks associated with establishing essential parameters and metrics. As a result, projects that previously took six months can now be completed in as little as four. This accelerated timeline has enhanced profitability and optimized resource allocation, allowing us to maximize project revenue.
Zerto has significantly reduced our disaster recovery testing efforts. By consolidating software and streamlining processes, we've dramatically decreased the required manpower. Multiple teams efficiently utilize a single platform, eliminating the need for disparate services and reducing costs. This centralized approach has markedly decreased the time and resources invested in disaster recovery testing and pre-testing activities.
What is most valuable?
Zerto's greatest strength is its speed. We never encountered lag or interruptions, even when working remotely from home or other locations with potentially limited internet bandwidth. The software's streaming performance was exceptional, without buffering or connectivity issues. This was a primary factor in our decision, as Zerto emphasized its ability to operate effectively on lower bandwidth connections during the initial demo. Deploying the software in any remote location is straightforward and hassle-free.
What needs improvement?
The primary concern expressed by all server users is the lack of robust integration features. While Zerto offers some integration capabilities, the smooth and efficient data flow between portals remains a significant challenge. The support and technical teams know this issue and actively seek user feedback, but progress has been slow. The current process, involving multiple platforms and a database management system bottleneck, is time-consuming and inefficient. Additionally, while reporting and dashboard features exist, real-time reporting and mobile functionality require improvement. The user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly. Customization, a critical requirement for government clients, is another concern. Implementing requested changes is often time-consuming and expensive, hindering adaptability. Addressing these integration, reporting, user experience, and customization issues is essential for improving customer satisfaction and retention.
Currently, Zerto only offers an annual subscription, but it would be beneficial to provide quarterly and semi-annual subscriptions to help retain clients.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not encountered any performance issues, such as lagging or crashing. The system operates efficiently and reliably under various conditions, even with significantly lower bandwidth. Zerto has consistently demonstrated stability and high speed, ensuring uninterrupted application performance.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Approximately 50 to 60 individuals within our ecosystem utilize Zerto directly or indirectly. Given its operational efficiency, which I estimate to be between 95 percent, I confidently assert its scalability. While we haven't encountered a scenario within our ecosystem that necessitates testing its scalability limits, its exceptional performance thus far strongly suggests its capacity to handle increased demands.
How are customer service and support?
Zerto uses a ticketing system and offers support through a help desk accessible via chat or phone. A dedicated technical team is assigned to address customer issues, which are typically resolved within 24 hours. We have not experienced any significant delays in issue resolution.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We find the Zerto pricing fits our budget.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.
Maintenance is required quarterly. The Zerto technical and business teams collaborate with us on the backend to remove all the repeated queries that make the system sluggish. This service is charged additionally.
I strongly recommend that anyone considering purchasing Zerto begin with the 30-day trial, which can be extended to 60 days. This ample timeframe allows a thorough evaluation of all features and functionalities. Understanding Zerto's customization and integration capabilities to align with specific business needs is crucial. Had I followed this approach and shared my feedback earlier, the outcome might have been different. Therefore, it's essential to fully explore the trial version before committing to an annual subscription. Close collaboration with the Zerto technical team is vital to ensure successful implementation. While sales teams often present an optimistic view, real-world experiences from existing users provide the most valuable insights. I encourage potential customers to connect with other Zerto users through industry networks to gather honest feedback before purchasing.
Is user-friendly, saves us time, and costs
What is our primary use case?
We utilize Zerto as part of our disaster recovery toolset. We employ a multi-tiered model, catering to a select group of customers, primarily hospital clusters. These customers maintain on-premise networks with cloud-based disaster recovery. In this managed service offering, we leverage Zerto to facilitate their cloud recovery.
How has it helped my organization?
The replication is quick. We encountered some challenges replicating the data during the first full copy. Since we weren't using Zerto, I suspect the bandwidth requirements for replication were a bottleneck for us. However, once the initial copy was complete, the process became seamless. The recovery was near zero after the first replication. Zerto worked perfectly.
We implemented Zerto because it supports a multi-tenant model, which was a critical requirement for us. We have five tenants located on-premises across five different data centers. However, we only have a single disaster recovery site in the cloud. Zerto's solution enabled us to consolidate our disaster recovery needs. Previously, managing five separate data protection solutions for each data center and five different cloud recovery subscriptions would have been incredibly expensive. Zerto significantly reduced our costs. Additionally, Zerto provides a single-pane-of-glass dashboard, allowing us to manage our infrastructure efficiently and effectively. This comprehensive view offers full control over our applications and complete visibility into all our tenants. As an infrastructure manager, I believe these features are the most valuable contributions Zerto has made to our organization.
Zerto has helped save around 30 percent of our time.
Zerto has helped achieve significant cost savings.
In the VMS portal, we had a relatively small amount of data overall. We also had multiple tenants, each with a maximum of 20 to 30 virtual machines on-premises. These VMs weren't particularly large. As a result, recovery was quick, typically taking less than a minute. My Recovery Time Objective would be less than a minute for any VM, even for a complete migration of all on-premises VMs to the cloud.
While I wasn't privy to the details of the client's previous DR solution before implementing Zerto, our discussions revealed significant time savings with Zerto's recovery process. Compared to their prior on-premises DR approach, Zerto offers a substantial reduction in recovery time – at least 15 to 20 minutes faster. This improvement stems from eliminating the need to coordinate with personnel and the time required for on-premises recovery procedures at their dedicated DR site. Previously, they relied on manual, on-premises to on-premises recovery, which inherently took longer. However, a direct comparison between their old solution and Zerto wouldn't be entirely accurate. Zerto offers significant efficiency gains, boasting up to 200 percent improvement.
Migrating data through Zerto is straightforward with careful planning. Our first experience involved Zerto's support throughout the process. While initially challenging due to our lack of experience, we were able to navigate the initial setup. One hurdle we faced was optimizing network traffic for the initial data replication from on-premises to the cloud. However, we embraced the learning curve, documenting everything as we gained control of the environment. This ensured a smooth integration for subsequent tenants. While the first migration presented some difficulties, as is to be expected, Zerto's excellent support made the process manageable. Their responsiveness in explaining and resolving issues made it a positive experience overall.
The RPO was very close to zero, meaning there was minimal data loss between replications. However, this could be impacted by the specific database being hosted and other factors. For application servers or virtual machines replicated on-premises to the cloud, I believe there was negligible lag or delay, assuming no network issues. Bandwidth and network traffic did play a role – we observed instances of slower RPO due to traffic spikes or network events. However, with Zerto providing the recommended data bandwidth, we encountered minimal challenges. In most cases, I'd say 90 percent of the data was synchronized almost constantly. The only exception was when network issues arose.
Our data center experienced an issue, necessitating a disaster recovery procedure. Fortunately, data loss seems minimal, and the impact on our clients appears negligible. This is partly due to the managed service we provide for a tenant, who fortunately didn't perceive any significant data loss. The success of the recovery is also attributed to our user-friendly, always-in-sync system. Upon receiving alerts and notifications, we promptly informed the client, who then quickly authorized the recovery process. From our perspective, the recovery went smoothly with minimal challenges. In the actual scenario, we believe data loss was negligible. While some data loss might have occurred technically, it wasn't significant enough to cause any noticeable impact on the client. It's important to note that our monitoring team maintained complete control of the situation, allowing for swift decision-making and a speedy recovery.
In a data recovery scenario, we'll still have our database administrator, Linux administrator, storage administrator, and Zerto operator available. While Zerto can automate disaster recovery and VM restoration, it's important to remember that it's not a foolproof solution. Even though Zerto streamlines the process, a well-prepared organization will always maintain backups and ensure a dedicated team is in place for data recovery. Zerto doesn't reduce the number of personnel involved; rather, it enhances their productivity by freeing them up for other tasks during a recovery event. During a recovery, it's still recommended to have everyone on call. While Zerto handles most recoveries, there may be situations where manual intervention is necessary. By being fully prepared, our organization can effectively address any data recovery situation.
It is easy to manage and monitor the DR plans using the Zerto GUI.
What is most valuable?
Zerto's most valuable features include its user-friendly interface, multi-tenancy capabilities, and near-zero downtime recovery. Zerto is easy to learn and use, even for those with limited technical experience. Additionally, Zerto's failover testing functionality allows us to run tests in real time without impacting production systems.
What needs improvement?
We encountered some issues during Active Directory recovery. When we implemented Active Directory, we provided feedback to Zerto regarding the challenges of recovering AD from the on-premises environment to the disaster recovery site. Unlike other virtual machines, AD recovery presents unique difficulties due to its active-active nature. It's unclear whether these challenges stem from Zerto itself or limitations within Microsoft Active Directory. However, in our experience using Zerto for AD recovery compared to other technologies, we faced data discrepancies that necessitated workarounds to bring AD online at the DR site.
Certain applications we migrated from production relied on Active Directory authentication. To ensure successful application functionality at the DR site, a functional AD environment was a prerequisite to application migration. Therefore, our initial step involved copying and guaranteeing a running AD instance on the DR side before application recovery.
However, upon attempting application authentication on the DR side, data inconsistencies prevented successful authentication. To address this, we created an isolated clone of the AD environment and conducted tests. Through trial and error, we were able to develop workarounds to resolve the issue. Notably, these challenges were specific to Active Directory; other VMs didn't exhibit similar problems.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for over 3 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Zerto has been very stable for us. We do apply patch releases and upgrades whenever necessary to ensure continued stability. Fortunately, we haven't encountered any major bugs or issues that would cause significant downtime, unlike what we've experienced with some other tools. Zerto has been a reliable choice for us.
I would rate the stability of Zerto 9 out of 10.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of Zerto nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is fantastic. They offer same-day assistance, and their documentation is clear and comprehensive.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before implementing Zerto, the client's disaster recovery relied on an on-premises to on-premises failover strategy. Seeking a cloud-based solution, they chose Zerto to leverage its expertise in this area.
We previously used another tool for DR orchestration. While Zerto can also perform recoveries, it focuses on virtual machines and doesn't extend to the operating system or database level for starting and stopping applications within those VMs. Despite these limitations, Zerto excelled in its support. The Zerto team provided excellent assistance whenever we faced challenges, joined calls to help us troubleshoot, and offered clear timelines for resolving issues. Their documentation was also thorough. In contrast, the previous DR tool lacked comparable support and documentation. This stark difference in support quality is why we favored Zerto and ultimately removed the other tool from our project. Currently, we rely solely on Zerto for our existing tenants, and we plan to continue using it for future ones as well.
How was the initial setup?
We encountered some challenges during the initial setup. Zerto offers several data replication options, I believe 2 or 3. These include copying data to our hard drive or storage box, copying it to the DSR site, and replicating it over the network. However, only network replication worked for us.
The issue might have been related to bandwidth requirements. It's possible that either Zerto itself or our network infrastructure wasn't up to par. We faced some challenges during that initial phase.
However, after the initial setup and the application of delta copying, which happens daily, we rarely experienced any replication issues. Most of the time, network glitches and fluctuations caused brief disconnections, but overall, replication ran smoothly.
We went into the Zerto deployment with a clean slate. Both team members were new to Zerto, so we were all learning as we went. This initial deployment was challenging, but it gave us valuable hands-on experience. Once we had a firm grasp of the environment, onboarding subsequent tenants became seamless. We developed a clear plan and approach, which streamlined the process for future deployments. Technically, the challenges weren't ongoing. The main hurdle was understanding how to integrate Zerto with our existing infrastructure. While that initial learning curve was steep, Zerto's excellent support helped us navigate it successfully.
The deployment time for Zerto varies depending on the complexity of your environment. More complex environments will require a longer replication process. However, on average, we can onboard a new customer within 1 month. This timeframe encompasses the entire process, from the initial planning phase to the deployment of up to 30 VMs within a tenant.
Our project involved 2 separate IT teams at 2 different locations. One team acted as the managed service provider, while the other represented the client side. The client-side team, located on-premises, provided us with essential information about their data centers. This included details on virtual machines, such as their size, quantity, and basic data collection metrics. They also helped us identify their storage requirements. Based on this information, we planned our cloud storage procurement and other necessary actions. The project team comprised approximately 10 to 15 people, including project managers, IT personnel, storage specialists, network engineers, and development experts.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto 10 out of 10.
Our organization uses Zerto to manage the replication of data centers from 7 on-premises locations to the IBM cloud for our midsize clients.
Our environment consists of VMware, data storage, and a network, with Zerto deployed for disaster recovery. While VCDM and VMware are managed by our cloud provider, we maintain 5 additional technologies with a team of 8 people.
We experienced a brief on-premises outage. Fortunately, we were able to recover quickly using Zerto. The software triggered an alert, notifying our monitoring team. These features proved to be very helpful. Additionally, we were able to promptly contact our clients and explain the situation. They responded quickly and effectively, minimizing the impact on their end. Our clients were pleased with the response.
I recommend Zerto to others.
Saves millions and we can roll back by seconds or minutes
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto for the disaster recovery capabilities that it provides us. It is for our Tier 1 applications.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto allows us to protect individual VMs. With the other solutions, we are protecting the storage that the VMs live on, which is costly, so Zerto does save us money.
Zerto has near-synchronous replication. It works very well. Our RPO or recovery point objective time was 20 minutes, and we were doing thousands of VMs. We not only met the RPO; we exceeded it. There were many times when it was just seconds behind.
We have used Zerto to help protect thousands of VMs in our environment. Zerto has had a good effect on our RPO. It has helped to exceed our RPO. Our RPO on some of our critical systems is 20 minutes, and we exceed that. Most of the time, we are under 2 to 3 minutes.
It is very easy to migrate data. We ended up migrating from one data center to another data center, and we moved 20,000 virtual machines with Zerto. It was great.
Zerto lowered our RTOs as well. As a part of the solution analysis that we did for the RPO and RTO, Zerto's interface to do a DR test or a DR recovery was the fastest. We had a 24-hour window to recover 5,000 virtual machines, and we were doing them in three to four hours.
Zerto has helped us to reduce downtime multiple times. We had one incident where we used it to do a recovery. The downtime was roughly about 20 minutes. We do not have a value on that because it is customers' health information. I do not know how it affected the end users or customers outside of our company, but it does affect them.
Zerto has saved us time. When files were deleted, we were able to recover the files quickly. While doing OS patching on the servers, when the servers failed on the reboot, we were able to recover all good things when it came to quick recovery on it. As opposed to pulling it from our backup, it has cut our time probably in three quarters.
Zerto has helped to reduce our organization's DR testing. A DR test or a recovery used to take us days, whereas now, it takes us hours. The system that we were using before took multiple engineers to do the DR test, whereas today, a single engineer can do the DR test, and then we need just a couple of engineers to do checks on it, so it saves us a lot.
Zerto has reduced the number of staff involved in a data recovery situation. Instead of a group of people, we now just need one.
We used Zerto for immutable data copies. It was good, and they were on a course, but they shifted their focus. They were doing DR specifically, and then Zerto started shifting over towards doing backups. We were very excited about their long-term backups, but when HPE bought them, HPE stopped that part of it because they were directly competing against their solution. At the time they were doing it, we were very excited about it.
What is most valuable?
The DR testing capabilities that it has are valuable.
Its ability to roll back if the VM or the server that you are recovering does not come up right is also valuable. You have the ability to roll back a few seconds or a few minutes. The rollback feature is great.
What needs improvement?
While going in, we were looking at the backup tool so that we had a DR tool and a backup tool, but they stopped developing their backup solution built into it. That was a bummer for us, so now, we have a DR solution, and we have a backup solution.
For the actual application itself, we have put in our request for certain features, and so far, they seem to be adding those features. In their latest one going to version 10, they did an appliance, which we had asked about 6 years ago. It is great to see that they are doing an appliance. There would be even more savings for us now because we do not have to pay licensing for a Windows VM.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for about 7 years. I have used Zerto a few times at different companies.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have seen very few issues. It is one of the few solutions that actually runs. If you do your leg work and implement it right and go through all the design and other things, you do not have to babysit the solution. Care and feeding is what it amounts to. That is all you have to do, whereas with a lot of the other solutions, you have to babysit them.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Its scalability is very good. It scales very easily.
How are customer service and support?
They could do better in regards to escalating an issue. I would rate them an 8 out of 10. In defense of support, I know it is hard because they are talking to somebody who has got 28 years of IT support. When I get on the call, I am probably dealing with someone who is just starting out. He has to go through his standard process. However, somebody like me is looking for faster support and would like to get to a real smart guy quicker.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
For disaster recovery, we were using VMware Site Recovery Manager, and it was not able to provide the recovery, the RTO, or the RPO that the company required. I went out and did a discovery for different DR solutions, and that is where I came across Zerto. Zerto replaced VMware Site Recovery Manager, and it saved us millions.
How was the initial setup?
Our deployment model is hybrid. I was involved in the initial deployment. It was straightforward. It was a lot easier than VMware Site Recovery Manager. It took us a week to deploy it.
In terms of maintenance, other than typical patching and upgrades, it does not require any maintenance. VMware Site Recovery Manager required a lot of ongoing maintenance.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented it in-house. There were just three of us involved in its implementation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing is based on virtual machines. They need to do better in regards to their tiering pricing rather than one price per VM. A lot of times we have VMs that are lower tier, such as Tier 2 or Tier 3, but we pay the same price as for Tier 1. I know they are developing this out, but it would be nice if they could provide a little better pricing in regards to their tiering protection.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We tested four different solutions, and Zerto was the only one that was able to meet our requirements. We did PoC on Zerto and two other solutions. Zerto was by far the leader when it came to disaster recovery.
What other advice do I have?
To those evaluating this solution, I would recommend doing a PoC on it. Deploy it in your environment and test it. Most of the problems you are going to see are due to the replication, and that is the site-to-site connection. One of the problems that I have experienced with Zerto has been related to replication, not the solution itself.
We have not used Zerto for blocking unknown threats and attacks. Thankfully, we have not had that. We do not have experience of that, thankfully.
We have used Zerto to do DR to both AWS and Azure, but the ability to do disaster recovery (DR) in the cloud is not something critical for us because the health insurance requirements for certification do not allow us to put our Tier 1 data in the cloud. Also, because our applications are multi-tiered where they reach out to the mainframe, Solaris, and other equipment outside of the virtual environment, it did not make sense to go to the cloud with it, but we do have it. We have a development environment there. A lot of times, we will use it to refresh the development environment. So, it is important, but in our case, it is not critical for us.
We have not had any issues utilizing Zerto to support DR on AWS, but AWS is on the slower side. The reason is that for the connection to AWS, even though it is a direct connection, the speed does vary for us.
I would rate Zerto a 10 out of 10.