We use it for disaster recovery, replication, and backup.
HPE Zerto In-Cloud Software for AWS
Hewlett Packard EnterpriseExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Enables swift disaster recovery and seamless site transitions with near-synchronous replication
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
We were able to see its benefits immediately after we deployed it. I used it to move sites. It is a good tool for transferring from one site to another. It does the configuration on its own and the site comes online seamlessly. You just have to commit to it, and it comes online and no one even notices it.
We create a job, which is a VPG, and we tell it to replicate it to another site. I live in Philadelphia. If Philadelphia gets attacked, we could shut it off and then go to the site that it replicated over and turn that on. It will just work as if nothing happened.
All the RPOs are less with our infrastructure because it is VM to VM in less than five seconds. We have never had a spike in our RPOs.
The recovery time of each VM is less than three to four minutes. Once we send a job over, it starts doing its thing. There is an auto-commit button, or we could time it to how much time we need before commitment. Once we bring up a VM and it reboots, we will see all the changes made, such as the IP address. If we go to DNS, we can see that the DNS entries have been updated with the new IP. We then commit to it, and it just comes back online.
Zerto has helped us reduce downtime. In just about five minutes, we are up. We had one incident with a Windows patch update to a server. The server could not come back online. We went in and recovered the VM right before it rebooted and got it back online. It had the same IP and other things, and everything was fine. Even though there was a slight downtime, we were able to get it back 100% before the reboot, and then we took off the update.
Zerto has saved us time in a data recovery situation due to a vendor mistake. We use a vendor for patching. The vendor accidentally mistyped something and took down a couple of servers because of this registry. We were able to get all the VMs back online. It took about three minutes per VM. When we used Veeam, depending on how much data was there, it took us about 45 minutes to an hour.
Zerto has reduced our organization's DR testing. We send it to a DR site from prod and then back to us. It goes from prod to DR and then DR to back in less than ten minutes. We did a DR move. We had about 15 VMs. We moved all the VMs to a different site. We then moved this actual site to a different location and then moved everything back. It did not take that long compared to Veeam.
Zerto has had a positive impact on our IT resiliency strategy. I have never had a problem. The product works very well. Their support is always active. They are willing to solve any problem that you have. Each time I have spoken with them, they have helped with every question to make sure our infrastructure is running well.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature for me is the replication. If I need to fail over sites, it can be done quickly, in less than five minutes. Each backup is implemented in five seconds. If we were attacked, I could revert to a backup from five seconds before the attack, and no one would know we were attacked.
Once it is implemented with the vendor, they show you everything. Everything is very simple and easy. Replication and Restore are the buttons to focus on. It is all there with just a couple of clicks. It is simple. It is laid out simply so that you can understand it quickly.
What needs improvement?
I would suggest improving automatic updates. Their software requires updating level by level to keep it current. I was unaware that I was several versions behind, so I needed assistance to guide me to the current version.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used the solution for about a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It only crashes if there are insufficient resources on my ESX box, which I discovered after overloading it with too many VMs. When the Zerto job tried to run, it crashed due to a lack of resources. I consulted with tech support, and we determined the solution was to move the main workload to a resource-available ESX box. After double-checking, everything has been running smoothly. Having good equipment ensures stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is tied to our vSphere environment. By adding more hosts and installing VRAs on each, tasks can be efficiently managed. Increasing the number of hosts allows for more VMs, depending on licensing. The bandwidth is also strong.
How are customer service and support?
I would give their support a ten out of ten. I deal with support often, and online ticket creation yields a quick response. They understand what they need, and I provide it. They analyze the logs, suggest changes, and everything works well.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Veeam, which is more in-depth and requires extra steps for recovery. With Zerto, I just log on to the GUI and click what I need. For a live VM backup or replication, it takes just a few clicks, which led us to choose Zerto over Veeam.
Zerto is the easiest one that I have used. In terms of pricing, it is way better than Veeam.
Our MSP used Zerto to do a project for us. I was in the meeting looking at what they were doing. It seemed so simple to use. I asked them if they could compare this to Veeam, and they said that this is way easier than Veeam. With Veeam, you have to log on to the actual backup program. You have to go to the job that you are looking for and right-click it. There are about six steps after that, whereas in Zerto, when you go down on the bottom left, with just two clicks, a menu pops up, and then you are done with another three clicks.
How was the initial setup?
It is on-prem. It is VM to VM. We are also thinking about a third solution, which would be on their site. Right now, we have VM to VM, but we have two NAS for hot and cold storage, so we are using everything that they offer at the moment, but we probably might head down more in the future.
The installation process was new to us as we started from scratch. After that, it was simple. Installing the VRAs involved pointing to ESX boxes. The NAS storage connection is simple; I just enter the IP address and credentials, and it links via SMB. I just create the job, point it to its destination, and it is ready.
What about the implementation team?
Deployment was handled by one representative and me. I am also responsible for managing it.
In terms of maintenance, it requires manual updates.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its pricing is way better than Veeam.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to new users is to become more familiar with it. Once you start using it, it is easy to pick up and manage.
I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten.
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.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
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.
Leverage disaster recovery with reliable support and cost-effective future-proof features
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use Zerto as a disaster recovery tool to handle data transfer between virtual machines. Currently, Zerto is implemented on-premises, as 90 percent of our services reside there. However, we plan to migrate some services to the cloud and utilize Zerto's migration capabilities to move VMs directly from our on-premises environment to the cloud. This is a crucial feature for us, as our virtualization technique relies heavily on VMware, and Zerto allows for straightforward migration of critical VMs to the cloud.
Our multi-campus university faced challenges delivering services hosted in a single location to geographically dispersed users. The extensive data volume and risk of outages due to disasters led us to implement a Disaster Recovery and Continuity setup. This involves hosting primary services in one data center and maintaining a disaster recovery site in another. Zerto's replication technology allows us to continuously update data at the DR site, ensuring data currency and the ability to roll back to a stable version quickly.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto is straightforward to implement because it only requires the installation of an agent on the VMs designated for migration. A service, typically a VM, must also be deployed at the disaster recovery location. This entire process is simple and can be completed within three days.
Zerto's near-synchronous replication occurs every minute, allowing for highly granular recovery points. This means that even if interruptions or malware disruptions occur within that minute, Zerto can restore to the last known good state, effectively recovering the entire setup to the latest backup. This capability ensures high data security and minimizes potential data loss.
One of the main benefits of implementing Zerto is its data compression, which significantly reduces the load on our IPsec VPN. Zerto compresses data by 80 percent before transmitting it across the VPN, minimizing the data transferred between geographically dispersed locations. This compression and subsequent decompression at the destination alleviate the strain on the VPN, preventing overload and ensuring efficient data synchronization.
Zerto simplifies malware protection by integrating it into its disaster recovery and synchronization features. This comprehensive approach eliminates the need for separate antivirus setups in virtual machines and applications. It streamlines our security measures and removes the need for additional software or solutions, resulting in an excellent return on investment.
Zerto's single-click recovery solution offers exceptional recovery speed. Through the user interface, a single click allows for a complete restoration from the most recent backup within two to three minutes, enabling rapid recovery and minimal downtime.
Zerto's Recovery Time Objective is excellent. In the past, if a virtual machine crashed, we would recover it from a snapshot, which could take one to two hours. With Zerto, the recovery process takes only five minutes, and users are typically unaware of any disruption. This allows us to restore everything quickly and efficiently.
Zerto has significantly reduced our downtime. When malware affects our data, Zerto immediately notifies us and helps us protect other applications, even those not yet implemented with Zerto. By monitoring these applications, we can quickly identify and address any potential malware spread, minimizing downtime across our systems.
Zerto significantly reduces downtime and associated costs during disruptions. Our services are unified, so in the event of a disruption without Zerto, even a half-day disruption would necessitate offline procedures. This would lead to increased manpower, service delays, and substantial financial losses due to interrupted admissions and other critical processes. By unifying service processes, Zerto minimizes the impact of outages.
Zerto streamlines our disaster recovery testing across multiple locations by enabling efficient failover testing without disrupting live services. Traditionally, DR testing required downtime of critical systems, but Zerto's replication and failover capabilities allow us to test in parallel with live operations. This non-disruptive approach ensures continuous service availability while validating our DR plan, even in scenarios like malware attacks, by creating a separate testing environment that mirrors the live setup. This comprehensive testing provides confidence in our ability to handle real-world incidents effectively. This saves us over 60 percent of the time.
Zerto streamlines system administration tasks by automating many processes, thereby reducing the workload for multiple administrators. This allows them to focus on other university services that require attention and effectively reallocate support resources from automated tasks to those requiring more dedicated management.
Zerto is used exclusively for our critical services, providing up to a 70 percent improvement in our IT resilience.
What is most valuable?
One of the most valuable features of Zerto is its straightforward cost model. It's essentially a one-time purchase, meaning you pay once and can use the software indefinitely despite the three-year license. This non-licensing-based approach allows for long-term use with a single purchase. Additionally, Zerto offers excellent technical support with responsive and helpful experts.
What needs improvement?
Zerto's pricing model is cost-prohibitive for small—to medium-sized businesses. Its structure limits affordability to approximately five to ten virtual machines. To increase accessibility for small and medium businesses, Zerto should consider a competitive pricing strategy, possibly including subscription-based licensing options. This would enable more organizations to utilize Zerto's services.
I want Zerto to add support for Proxmox.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Zerto for one year.
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; however, the primary concern remains the cost, especially if needing to scale to 300 virtual machines. It is more cost-effective to use fewer virtual machines.
How are customer service and support?
Zerto's technical support is superb. Following HP's acquisition of the product, significant improvements have been made.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was straightforward. We implemented it in two geographically separated campuses, setting up one server and adding another for disaster recovery. Zerto's demo provided a solid understanding and clear strategy for the implementation.
What about the implementation team?
We did not use third parties for deployment; our on-premises engineers handled it. Only two to three staff members were needed.
What was our ROI?
The return on investment is evident, as Zerto saves more than 60 percent of time in various operations compared to the previous manual processes. The savings extend to hardware and resource allocation, which were reduced by Zerto’s efficient backup solutions.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
What other advice do I have?
I rate Zerto ten out of ten.
Our on-premises firewall provides a basic level of security, but it cannot guarantee complete application security. Therefore, the application, including Zerto, must have robust security measures to mitigate any vulnerabilities. Even with a firewall, loopholes can exist, potentially compromising Zerto and other services. To ensure comprehensive security, we can integrate Zerto with our security firewall, enhancing protection and minimizing the risk of software compromise. Ultimately, Zerto remains our primary solution for software recovery in case of a security breach.
Zerto requires minimal maintenance due to its operation on virtual machines. Three people are required for the maintenance.
We have Zerto on 300 virtual machines in our environment.
Zerto's capabilities would greatly benefit organizations with on-premises and on-cloud setups, as it facilitates seamless migrations. It is highly recommended for anyone prioritizing data security and disaster recovery assurance.
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.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
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.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
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 solution makes work easier, but it's too expensive
What is our primary use case?
I'm a payroll specialist using Zerto to deploy virtual machines, store data, and a little disaster recovery.
How has it helped my organization?
I saw benefits within a few weeks of beginning to use Zerto. It helps us protect virtual machines in our environment and has improved our RPOs by about five to 15 seconds. It has also had a positive impact on our recovery times. Zerto also improves application availability as our business continues to increase our lifespan.
Zerto saves time and helps us reduce the risk of data loss from ransomware. it has also reduced our DR testing time, but I'm unsure how much.
What is most valuable?
Zerto is an easy platform to use. It makes work easier and reduces stress.
What needs improvement?
Zerto could improve its pricing and customer care. I've never used customer care, but I talked to someone who had, and they weren't given the information they needed.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used Zerto for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I experienced some lag twice.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto's scalability is just okay. In my experience, the multi-host support and automated scaling can squeeze performance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Zerto is expensive. It costs too much for the service they offer.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Zerto seven out of 10.
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.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
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.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
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.
Competitive price, user-friendly, and continuous data protection
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto for multiple use cases. We are using it for disaster recovery, backup and recovery, and data protection. There is an inbuilt feature where we can utilize the Zerto platform in a hybrid model which means we have one instance on-premises and another instance on our cloud for redundancy and for cross integration.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto’s near-synchronous replication works. We have configured near-synchronous replication between two different clusters. One cluster is on-premises, and another cluster is on the cloud. For near-synchronous replication, the value proposition is excellent. We are able to achieve the results for which we procured this solution. Near-synchronous replication is working perfectly. We do not see any challenges with data retrieval, complete replication, and synchronization processes. Everything is working perfectly and seamlessly.
We were able to see its benefits when we integrated it with our HPE GreenLake for DR purposes. It is a SaaS-based platform, so we are able to see the fastest way to recover data and applications. We were perfectly able to meet our recovery point and recovery times objectives through Zerto. On top of that, Zerto is protecting our data from ransomware, cyberattacks, cyber threats, national disasters, or human errors.
We are using a lot of virtual machines on-premises and in the cloud. Our main goal is to protect the complete data that we have in production and non-production clusters with different applications and big platforms.
Zerto is a market leader in continuous data protection technology. Previously, we had RPOs and RTOs in terms of minutes, whereas now, they have changed from minutes to seconds.
Zerto has an inbuilt disaster recovery protection and prevention with continuous replication. Whenever we faced any challenge related to our link being broken or not being able to access the data from the primary data center, all the backups were readily available because Zerto had replicated snapshots. We have not seen much latency or delay in recovery and the ability to get replicated data from different destinations.
We have not had any ransomware type of event. However, during the PoC and testing in an isolated environment, we have seen what would happen in the case of an attack. We could see how Zerto and its policies will take action and isolate that environment within a fraction of a minute or second.
For DR, we were previously using VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) but there was a lot of complexity. It was time-consuming. Most of the time, we saw a lot of human errors happening, and we were not able to test our DR activity. By leveraging Zerto for the past 14 or 15 months, we could achieve all of our desired results. There were no human errors. Everything went seamlessly. We are very happy with this solution.
Zerto has had a positive effect on our IT resiliency strategy. With the earlier vendor, we had a lot of problems. Our data got lost in transit during replication, snapshot creation, and recovery scenarios. By using this robust platform, we could achieve our resiliency metrics. The metrics are stable and never went below the benchmark.
Things are working perfectly. Each and every feature is complete with advanced options. It is a simplified DR operation platform. It has great visibility when it comes to protection from ransomware attacks. It has deep analytics features and robust data recovery policies. Everything is good in this platform.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is the resiliency towards cyber threats for data protection. The main reasons for adopting Zerto are data protection and being able to do disaster recovery for site recovery. We can ensure that if the site goes down, data is available to all the users within a fraction of a second. On top of these, we have the resiliency towards malware and other security threats and attacks. Zerto has an embedded feature to protect our data from external and internal threats.
Zerto is very easy to use. It is very user-friendly. It is a GUI-based platform with a centralized dashboard where we can create policies, snapshots, replication policies, and disaster recovery policies. It is very user-friendly.
What needs improvement?
Patch management can be better. Although we are doing patch management on the Zerto platform in an automated manner, it can be improved by leveraging some AI-assisted technology. With the help of AI, things are going to be faster in terms of patching the solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Zerto for 14 or 15 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Since we deployed it, there have been no critical issues or major incidents. The platform is working as per the expectations. There was no downtime of any production activity. We are happy with the stability and overall performance of the complete platform.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is completely scalable in terms of adding licenses, subscriptions, modules, and different sorts of features. Its scalability is seamless, and it is easy to use.
How are customer service and support?
I have contacted them multiple times. Their support was good. We got a timely response and a timely resolution.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using VMware SRM previously. We switched from VMware SRM to Zerto due to complexity, cost, human errors, and data protection.
The most important security feature in Zerto is protection against ransomware attacks and internal or external threats. These capabilities were not present in the VMware platform. Cybersecurity resiliency and protection are embedded in Zerto.
Zerto is very easy to use, operate, and administer. It is very simple and easy to create and work on any of the policies and rules. It is easy to extract reports and navigate to the other tabs where we can see the health scorecard and other things. We can see all the things. It is very easy to patch the entire system. Everything is good.
How was the initial setup?
We have a hybrid deployment. We have one instance of Zerto disaster recovery and protection running in an on-premises data center, and then we have another instance running on the cloud. Both are continuously replicated so that in case of any difficulty or problem with one, we can leverage the functionality of the other one. The on-premises one is taking care of the on-premises environment, and the cloud-based instance is taking care of the cloud-based environment.
Its initial deployment was very easy and flexible. We did not face any challenges. The solution is quite simple. It is easy to navigate, easy to use, and easy to migrate, although we did not go with any sort of migration. It was a fresh greenfield deployment, so we had no issues at all.
Its implementation took us about 12 weeks. It does require maintenance. The maintenance contract was already placed when we went with the purchase order for procurement. It was a multi-year support contract. It does require maintenance in terms of patch management, updates, health checks, performance tuning, policy updates, and recovery plans and procedures updates. We have a storage and backup team working 24/7 in this environment.
What about the implementation team?
We directly worked with a Zerto system integrator. That integrator was recommended by Zerto. We also worked with the Zerto team for the complete architecture, framework design, implementation plan, and other things. We did not take any help from any third-party vendor or resource.
We had five to seven people for its implementation.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Its pricing is very competitive. As compared to VMware SRM, Zerto has reduced our OPEX cost by at least 30%.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten as a platform. With the help of Zerto, we have very enriched features for ransomware protection of all our data repositories. It provides great support for disaster recovery and response. Our RTOs have improved after adopting the Zerto platform, so everything is good.