HPE Zerto Software Reviews

We use Zerto for disaster recovery and DR testing.

Zerto has improved our restoration time and made it easier to test software upgrades. It has simplified tasks like decommissioning a site and replicating virtual machines from one location to another. 

It gives us peace of mind that we can recover our systems in minutes or hours instead of days. Zerto is also helpful for insurance purposes. Our insurer wants to know how long we'll be down in a disaster. Of course, the company owners love Zerto because we won't lose business if something happens.

When we had a firmware failure, it saved us time performing a failover to our DR site. It isn't easy to calculate, but it saved us days and possibly weeks of downtime. 

A firmware update on our SAN went wrong, crashing the entire device. We're in Rhode Island, and it failed over to our DR site in Tennessee within 18 hours. Our users didn't notice because it happened on a Sunday. They had all their data when they returned to the office, and we reverted the following weekend. Without Zerto, some applications would've been down for days, if not weeks. 

Zerto has also improved our DR testing. In the past, we had to test over the weekend, but we can now do it during the work week without any outages. Our IT staff doesn't need to come in over the weekends, so it doesn't affect their personal lives. Zerto has reduced our DR testing time by about 50 hours. 

The interface is easy to use. It's not intuitive per se, but the average IT expert will have no problems using it. A non-IT person might have a little difficulty at the beginning.

I love Zerto's near synchronous replication because I can get up-to-the-minute data back in a disaster. This capability is essential because a disaster could cost the company money and even cause it to go out of business. We can sleep better at night knowing we can restore our systems in minutes.

Surgical blocking of unknown threats is a feature that's available on the cloud, but we're on-premises. However, it's certainly a feature I'd like to have, especially with all the malware and vulnerabilities. It's great to know that Zerto offers this capability, but we don't take advantage of it because we're an on-prem customer.

Zerto is too reliant on VMware's vCenter. It's tough to upgrade, move, or do anything related to virtual servers with vCenter.

Zerto is highly stable. We haven't experienced any noticeable bugs. We're sometimes too stable. Sometimes I want to upgrade my VMware ESX host, and I can't because they have not approved it on their matrix. They usually take about a month or two to accept it as a supported system, which is probably the industry norm or better, but I want it faster. 

I rate Zerto support 10 out of 10. Zerto's support team is knowledgeable and goes out of its way to help. Instead of just throwing KB articles at you, Zerto support walks you through the solution.

We previously restored everything from scratch using tape backups, but we had no software disaster recovery solution. It hasn't replaced our legacy backup solutions because we do not use Zerto as a backup. Our hardware backups are still online and working. 

We do not use Zerto as a backup solution. It is mainly for recovery. However, we use Zerto/Keepit for Office 365 backups. We still back up to tape and restore using Zerto. It has made the recovery around 20 times faster. 

Deploying Zerto was straightforward, and I did the job by myself.

We've seen a solid return with Zerto

Zerto costs more than most, but we negotiated a fair price. 

We have Veeam Backup and Replication, but we don't use it for disaster recovery. We also tried another solution for Office 365 backup. We prefer Zerto replication for the speed and support. 

I rate Zerto 10 out of 10. When implementing Zerto, you should consider your internet speed and the difference between the WAN connections at the sites you want to replicate. You need enough bandwidth to handle the volume. 

We're currently doing a two-tiered on-site and off-site replication, with one long-term retention being displaced into a cloud and one long-term retention being displaced to a third data center. We were looking to make our recovery solution more streamlined and efficient, that's why we implemented this product.

We're not as huge as everybody else. We just have large devices. We have four SQL servers running, each of which is about six terabytes, so our continuous replication is a lot larger than others. We also have multiple secured file storages in the two-terabyte range, so we replicate around 140 terabytes continuously, utilizing about 60 VM servers. Our primary and secondary production is VMware, and our third-tier backup area is a hypervisor. 

The most significant improvement is the reduced stress of running our operation. Before deploying the solution, we had two people on-call 24/7, one on-shift and one off-shift. Now our workload has been reduced, and we only have to give support over the phone, which rarely happens.

For this deployment, I realized the benefits very quickly. I already knew how the solution would provide a reliable safety net and offer a better risk-reward profile for our cybersecurity insurance. I knew this three deployments ago. The main selling points I presented for this deployment are the continuous replication, plus the reduction in man-hours and cybersecurity risk.

The whole package is valuable. The most useful feature for the company is the rapid RTO, which offers a faster return to operations and brings us back online quicker. The last time we had an issue, we recovered within about 36 minutes, which was probably the most valuable thing for us because, previously, it took four to seven days.

I've worked with Zerto since the beginning; I think it was when we were still on version one. Having that continuous replication, as we call it, where we have just a small delta point is paramount to being able to create that multiple mine backup solution or recovery solution. It's absolutely the product's selling point. 

Zerto is the simplest disaster recovery and data recovery solution I've ever deployed, and I've been doing this for 30-plus years. 

We have used Zerto to protect VMs in our environment. That's the entire solution for us; it's all virtual. They can even calculate a number now, and I have 30-day testing documentation that gives them real-time data that shows a 15 to 40-minute recovery. It's astronomical because they now have a number they can guarantee to the stakeholders. 

There isn't much comparison with other disaster recovery solutions, though it depends on the configuration. A more dramatic or complex multi-tiered recovery would expand the time, but we went from four to seven days down to under an hour. For that reason, it's almost incomparable to other solutions. Depending on the deployment, even the VMware Site Recovery Manager takes four, eight, or even 12 hours. We can bring things back online in under an hour. I don't know any other solutions that can do cross-breed virtual environments or multi-hypervisors with VMware, with different types of cloud. We can go with Microsoft Cloud, VM Cloud, or Google Cloud. It's not even a comparison. If you have a good product seller and a buy-in from your network engineer and your software engineer, it's an easy sell. 

We currently have over 600 days of saved downtime. It's almost two years now without a single moment of downtime, because we utilized the failover to do maintenance cycles.  

Our last collapse was when we were hit by ransomware just about two years ago. It took out 80% of our systems, and we were back online in 36 minutes. 

I use the orchestrator for DR testing. I run a simulated test every 30 days, and we do two live tests a year. Before my arrival, they had never done a test, but that's what we do as a standard now. It only takes two members of staff, me and one other, for the entire test. It's very low-volume in terms of staff requirements.

The solution dramatically reduced the number of staff involved in recoveries. Before my deployment of Zerto in this organization, they had one disaster recovery and had to hire 19 people to do it. When we had the ransomware attack, two of us recovered the entire solution within an hour without having to hire anyone. The previous recovery costs were around $20,000 for the staffing alone, not counting the loss of revenue. I implemented the recovery during my regular work shift.

There are quite a few elements in the long-term retention areas that I wish were better. The bio-level recovery indexing of backups is the area I struggle with the most. That's probably because I desire to do tasks that ordinary users wouldn't do with the solution. The standard medium to the large customer would probably never ask for anything like I ask for, so I think it's pretty good the way it is. I'm excited to see some of the new improvements coming in the 9.5 version. Some of the streamlines and how the product presents itself for some of the recovery features could be better.

We have been using the solution for two and a half years, and I've assisted in the deployment at three other companies. I personally have close to ten years of experience with it.

I've been using Zerto for close to 10 or 11 years, and the stability is probably in the 95% to 98% range. That's pretty good, and I give it an A.

This is the smallest solution I've ever deployed. It scales very well across multiple platforms and at a long-range. It's very scalable; I've implemented substantial deployments and deployments over huge areas. I'm impressed with the solution's scalability, especially the integration with vCloud environments.

I dealt with them recently, and they're pretty solid. The process is mainly automated, they connect remotely, and I don't have to explain much as they can look at the logs. With that capability, it does work very nicely.

Positive

I replaced the VMware Site Recovery Manager and a Symantec backup solution when I came in. I also replaced the third-tier snapshot replication, which they had never successfully tested or recovered from.

We switched because I begged them to. I've used Zerto extensively, and the amount of fluidity and flexibility it offers is necessary. It gives me peace of mind and allows me to sleep well at night knowing it will be alright, which is uncommon in this business. I said as much to the company and was able to convince them within about six months.

I used Veeam and some other bare-metal backup solutions before. Since virtual servers have been in place, Veeam and SRM are pretty much the two standards, with Symantec being the tape backup solution or virtual hard drive backup solution. Since Zerto came around and I saw what the product could do, it's all I ever push for when I get called in for a company that needs a DR plan.

I designed it all and already knew what I wanted to accomplish and what the product could do. Once we knew what direction we were going in and where the critical applications aligned, it was just a point of picking things up and putting them into placeholders already in the required image I designed for our purposes. It was pretty easy. It might take a little longer without prior experience and an idea of what I want to accomplish. It would still be pretty easy as Zerto provides excellent documentation. This is one of the most straightforward designs out there. End-to-end, with testing and approvals at each step, I think it took two and a half weeks.

I implemented the solution on my own.

I can't give an exact figure, but I would say that protection from Ransomware tech alone paid for the initial startup process and most of the maintenance needed. 

I wouldn't say I like the licensing pricing structure. Every year, it increases exponentially, which bothers me a little. It's worth it in terms of the value, but I worry the price will increase even more often after the Zerto merger. I still think it's worth it and that the solution is cheaper than the others. 

We evaluated Symantec, and NetApp, and we brought in Veeam.

The main differences between Zerto and the other solutions are the continuous replication capabilities and the ability to have two continuous replications simultaneously. These were major selling points for the company. With snap replication from NetApp or even Veeam, there isn't that consistency between multiple divisions. I showed the company we don't have to have VMware at the low MBR; we can have a hypervisor at a much-reduced cost, as the price was the last hope for the other solutions. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. I don't give anybody a ten, as nobody is perfect. The best score I give is an eight, and they get that.

We don't necessarily use Zerto for immutable data copies as it's never been a requirement. I know it's there and what we can do with it if we need to.

We only use the physical solution because of the nature of our business, but we do long-term retention in the cloud. It is nice to have that long-term cloud retention, as it gives us another tier of data available for worst-case scenarios. 

I wanted to replace our legacy solutions, but we still have old-school solutions for legacy data recovery. We use Symantec for backup exec. on our bare metal, but I don't think it's critical because it's more for our legacy data recovery. After all, we're not like most companies. We have to keep our data for 24 years. 

I use Zerto for disaster recovery and data protection.

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.

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.

Its price should be improved.

I have been using Zerto for three years.

I have had a crash once or twice.

I feel it is very good because it supports virtual machines.

I have not contacted their support.

I have not used any other solution. Zerto is the first one.

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.

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.

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.

If you have not deployed it before, you should seek assistance before the deployment.

I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten.

We provide disaster recovery with Zerto in two scenarios. One is for our customers using on-premises deployments, and the other is for using the multi-tenant cloud. They're buying the cloud as a service, and we're also protecting that with it.

Zerto is primarily well-recognized as a leader in disaster recovery. It makes it easy for us to talk to our clients about the solution we provide them. Since it is Zerto-powered, we don't have to answer many questions about how it works, its reliability, or its capabilities. Thus, having name recognition, a positive company reputation, and technology benefits us.

The platform's ease of deployment and the ability to isolate failovers are key features for our customers who want to perform testing without interrupting their production environments. Those are the two primary use cases.

Our operational teams have discussed the ability to integrate multiple Zerto cloud platforms more seamlessly. For example, we have acquired 22 companies over the last seven years. Some already had it deployed, and integrating those existing deployments into our primary deployment is more challenging than it could be. We have provided our feedback to them.

Thryv has been using Zerto for about twelve years now.

As a product manager, I haven't received any feedback indicating issues with platform stability, which our engineering team would certainly inform me about.

We've had no issues with the product scalability so far, whether it's individual customers or even as an aggregated group.

The size of the environment varies. We have some small customers with only a handful of virtual machines and others with two, three, or four virtual machines.

In our previous company, we used VMware Site Recovery Manager and Veeam. However, over the last 12 to 14 years, we have primarily used Zerto.

We have our private cloud, and that's where we primarily use Zerto. We also manage some Microsoft Azure environments where we have sparingly used the service, mainly because the same functionality is not present as it is when using it in a private cloud.

Disaster recovery as a service is a significant component of our overall cloud services. So, the ROI lies in Thryv's profitability, as we offer a managed service that adds value to our customers and generates a profitable revenue stream.

The product's pricing is the one area where it is less competitive. However, we understand why it costs slightly more comparing the features and capabilities. Customers prioritizing price might choose a solution offering different RPOs and RTOs for a lower cost. We have provided feedback on whether there could be a lighter option or alternative that's more cost-effective for the customers while balancing cost and performance. It would help Zerto and us win more business.

The product is superior compared to the other vendors. 

We offer disaster recovery as a service powered by Zerto. We have multiple disaster recovery targets in the US and the UK and are expanding into Canada and Hong Kong.

I am happy that they've reconsidered the decision to stop supporting Hyper-V, especially with all the changes happening in the Broadcom world and customers looking at it as a solution. Zerto's continuous support is key.

The near-synchronous feature is a differentiator. Other platforms compete with Zerto, with Veeam being the primary one, trying to get the same capabilities. It is a key factor for clients who need low RPOs and the ability to protect their data with minimal potential data loss. It cannot eliminate the potential for data loss entirely and has a minimal impact. If the customers have a production-impacting event, their data is as close as possible to a mirror of what they had at the time of the production loss. So, it is a significant factor.

To some extent, we have implemented DR with Microsoft. It is less feature-rich and has a different implementation. We offer the service but don't offer much in the public cloud. Replicating out of the public cloud adds a whole other set of challenges. We can replicate it to a VMware-based cloud. However, no VMware tools are available if we want to replicate it outside of Microsoft Azure. It makes for a different recovery and is a bit more labor-intensive.

It has greatly impacted the RPOs. As long as our customers have enough bandwidth to transmit the changes across the network to our cloud, the RPOs generally take a minute. However, if the customer has bandwidth constraints, it can take up to five minutes.

With Zerto, recovery is much cleaner and faster. It's orchestrated better, and the testing capability within the cloud is a valuable differentiator. Unfortunately, we don't have many customers experiencing disasters, so our experience is generally around the testing component and making simulated or even full recoveries for customers seeking that. It has always performed well.

I would give it a nine for everything around capabilities and the product itself. The only drawback is the pricing. If we could get a better pricing model, especially in larger deals where we need to be more competitive for price-conscious customers, that would be beneficial.

Overall, though, I'm happy with Zerto as a partner. My reaction would have been different if the Hyper-V decision hadn't changed, as that would have caused complications for some customers. 

We use Zerto for our application data recovery.

Zerto's near-synchronous replication delivers exceptional results. The data at our recovery site is kept nearly identical to production in real-time, minimizing data loss to near zero.

By utilizing Zerto's immutable data copies and adhering to the three-two-one rule, we have established a highly effective recovery strategy.

While Zerto doesn't inherently block unknown threats or attacks, its detailed history logs enable us to revert to a pre-attack state, essentially restoring a clean system.

Our production machine experienced changes that caused the application to crash. To resolve this quickly, we restored the machine to its previous state using a recovery copy located at the recovery site that was made by Zerto. After powering on the restored machine, we changed its IP address, making it accessible again.

Zerto has a positive effect on our RPOs.

It boasts impressive recovery speed. As a customer, all we need to do is power on the machines at the recovery site - that's how simple and fast it is. Even if the recovered state isn't ideal, we can easily rewind to a specific point in time and power up another instance of the machine at that moment.

Zerto makes it easy to migrate data. The total configuration is user-friendly.

While our current RTO is three hours, Zerto can significantly reduce it to just five minutes.

Zerto helps us significantly reduce downtime during hardware failures, software updates, and natural disasters.

While we haven't experienced a ransomware attack, we have a recovery plan in place. If one were to occur, we could quickly restore production to a previous point in time, minimizing downtime and data loss.

Zerto helps us reduce the amount of disaster recovery testing we need to perform, which also allows us to reduce the number of staff required for the testing down to two.

The Zerto application is licensed per VM. However, the amount of data stored on each VM does not affect the licensing cost. Whether we have terabytes or just a few bytes on each VM, the licensing fee remains the same. This means we only pay for the machines we are replicating, which can lead to significant cost savings.

Real-time replication is a valuable feature, ensuring that changes made to the production site are immediately reflected at the recovery site.

Another feature I appreciate in Zerto is its detailed logging. This functionality allows us to easily access past data and reconstruct the machine's state at any given point in time.

We can recover the replicated machine at the recovery site by simply clicking it back up from the replicated machine. This allows us to keep the original machine running while the recovered machine is active. It's also vendor-agnostic, meaning it works with different hardware vendors like HP or NetApp. In other words, Zerto adapts to the specific hardware we have regardless of the vendor.

Zerto's solution could benefit from additional security features, such as malware scanning tools at the recovery site.

I have been using Zerto for five years.

Zerto is stable.

Zerto is scalable. We just need to add a license and they provide a new key.

The technical support team offers an excellent service. They empower customers by providing comprehensive documentation and guidance, helping them resolve future issues independently.

Positive

The initial deployment was straightforward, and I handled it independently. My only reference was the provided documentation; I required no further assistance.

Zerto's pricing doesn't depend on the number of virtual applications. Even if we have a server with 200 terabytes of data, we'll only pay for protecting that single server, not for the total size of the replicated data. This simplifies our cost structure.

The licensing cost is fair.

I evaluated Veeam and SIM before choosing Zerto. Zerto's interface is much easier to use than the other solutions I tested. Integrating into our environment is also seamless.

I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten.

No maintenance is required.

You can save a lot of time researching solutions by choosing Zerto. It's efficient, easy to deploy, and easy to maintain. Additionally, Zerto offers excellent support, including comprehensive documentation, breach and RCM coverage information, and a knowledgeable customer support team.

We use Zerto for disaster recovery and cloud migration.

The near-synchronous replication is valuable to our organization.

Zerto's immutable data copies three-two-one rule is great.

The ability to block ransomware attacks and help recover our servers is great.

Since we don't have a backup data center, Zerto's cloud disaster recovery is of the utmost importance.

The recovery point objective for our virtual machines is good. We haven't encountered any significant issues. However, there have been some delays due to the substantial volume of data being written to the SQL server.

Migrating data using Zerto is easy.

Our RTO went from three days to a few minutes after implementing Zerto.

In the event of a ransomware attack necessitating data recovery, Zerto would undoubtedly prove invaluable in expediting the process.

Zerto has helped reduce our recovery time from days to minutes.

Zerto has reduced the time our staff spends on data recovery by 25 percent.

The RPO for our SQL server has room for improvement.

On-premises to cloud migration lacks certain features, such as the ability to directly rename virtual machines. In the cloud, renaming resources often requires cumbersome workarounds like cloning and manual renaming.

I have been using Zerto for four years.

Initially, we had stability issues with the older versions but now I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.

Zerto is scalable.

The level one technical support is slow to respond and we usually need to escalate our issue to get a resolution.

Neutral

We previously used Azure Site Recovery and switched to Zerto because it is more user-friendly with more features.

While the initial deployment presented some challenges and took approximately two weeks to finalize, subsequent deployments have been significantly more streamlined.

In the event of a disaster, we will certainly see a return on investment.

I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten.

Deploying Zerto in the cloud saves us costs on maintaining on-prem hardware.

We're a managed services provider that uses Zerto primarily for disaster recovery as a service. We offer Zerto as a DR option for our clients. Our customers in the Bahamas need a DR option outside of the hurricane belt, so we have workloads throughout the world to ensure our customers have somewhere to restore from. 

Currently, we run Zerto in a vCloud environment. All of the services are brought up in a vCloud environment. It saves us from having to constantly buy equipment. The vCloud environment enables us to spin up an environment as needed instead of having unnecessary hardware sitting there using resources.

We haven't had any major disasters that required us to use Zerto, but we perform two or three live failover tests with clients. Everyone seems to be pretty happy with the product and the turnaround time.

It's all about client satisfaction. They may not understand the underlying tech architecture, but they want to know how fast we can bring the environment back up. We can achieve fast restorations and restore sections if needed instead of the entire environment. It's been a great experience for us and our customers. 

The RTO/RPO times are fast. The speed is probably the biggest selling point for us. It's not live replication, where you have two sites up at the same time, but our customers like the fact that they can restore within seconds. 

It takes them nearly to the last point of connectivity, so it's seamless and easy to operate. It's easy to operate, and customers feel that they have a level of control. With some platforms, most things need to be done by the provider, but customers have a management platform in their environment. They can run tests without our direct involvement. 

Another advantage is the ease of use. You can click through instead of typing in the code. It's all already scripted down to the network adjustments within the VMs and the timed delays for servers that need to come up in sequence. Overall, it's a good package for us to use. We started using it in about 2018 and haven't looked back.

We have an issue with the management platform because we don't always upgrade to the latest version, whereas the customers tend to constantly upgrade. Sometimes, we lose connectivity because something isn't supported. 

For example, we have VMware version 7 update 3. This morning, a customer upgraded it without informing us. It's their responsibility to notify us because our environment is large, and we don't update every time a new version comes out. It's somewhat of a pain. 

In addition to data, the other thing would be the hardware versions for VMware. I finally found a proper support matrix, but we ran into a few problems in the early stages. I don't know how to address this, but maybe when the version is going to update, the client could get a prompt saying that the cloud location is not on that same version. It would be a more efficient way to tell them instead of trying to figure it out. 

It would also be nice if you could update without having to download a new installation file for Zerto Virtual Manager. Within the app, it could prompt you to install and perform the installation from within the application. Generally, it's relatively easy to use, but it gets a little complex when customers have special network requirements and need to customize how long they want the save points to be retained. We need to work with the storage team on the backend to see what makes the most sense for the client. 

I have used Zerto for about five years.

I rate Zerto support nine out of 10. I haven't had any serious issues aside from the problem with version differences between a client's environment and ours. That is just a matter of striking a balance with the clients. An IT environment can't update too frequently because you don't want a change to break something. Unfortunately, you can't stop the customer. 

Support has been good about helping us troubleshoot those issues. It's easy to run a diagnostic tool and get the file. It's difficult to pull down a diagnostic file in some solutions because you need to do it via a command line. With this, it's just a couple of options you select. You run a diagnostic, save the file, and send it. 

Positive

I work on the cloud management side, so it was already deployed. I wasn't involved in deploying the cloud portion. However, I installed all of the virtual management for customers and set up the environment for them. That part of it was easy. It was a click-through thing. Most of the time, we'll guide the customer through the process, so they can see it as well. We show them the step-by-step process of performing the updates. 

Zerto is like a Ferrari. It's very fast but not the cheapest solution. You're paying a high price for quality and the assurance that you will have the environment up and steady. 

There are tradeoffs, too. Our clients spend money on licensing but save on equipment. The customers could either buy a bunch of equipment or pay for Zerto licenses. That's where we come in. We provide you with a cloud solution that doesn't cost all this money upfront. The prices could always be better, but we don't complain so much about it because the savings come from other places.

I rate Zerto nine out of 10. A lot of people are trying to convince us to look at VMware backups instead, but I don't see the urgency because Zerto works for us. I don't see anything on the market that can restore in seconds as opposed to minutes or hours. For us to switch, we would need something that beats Zerto. Right now, nothing beats it.

Our primary use cases are for disaster recovery replication side to side. 

We were running VMware Site Recovery Manager and it ran well. It was a great solution compared to what we had before. We didn't have disaster recovery issues. We were just doing our test. It ran superbly. Zerto improved the amount of time it took to failover and address any issues. We went from failing over in about three or four hours during the test to it taking one hour. It was very fast.

It's in a single department in a single company. Luckily, we don't really have to support much of our field force. We have approximately 4,000 agents who are in eleven states, but we don't have to go out into the states. We're on in one building and it's one business unit. We manage the failovers but it's just one group management.

Approximately four users use the solution.

One of the most valuable features is the ease of management. It's very easy to manage. My team grew and a team member took over my role for Zerto support. He was able to pick the ball up and run with it. It was very easy for him to pick it up and go forward. I haven't had to do a lot of management of the product. 

Our RTO is between four to ten seconds to our site, which is about a hundred and fifty miles north of my location. We bought dedicated lines and we've been very happy with Zerto's performance. 

Zerto's two main features are ease of management and that the product just works. It does what they say it'll do.

The near-synchronous replication Zerto offers is exceptional. Our pipe is 10 GB and we haven't overloaded that connection. We are very satisfied with it.

During our test last year, we moved systems around for users to test with. We had some misconfigurations in the journal sizes, they just weren't big enough. There was logging left on some SQL servers. Our DR test lasted for three days. We had a dedicated group come in and test. We failed back to production and then put it in the test phase again. We did it all within thirty minutes, and it worked very quickly. We were very satisfied.

Zerto has had a major impact on our RTOs. We've been feeling the impact for a while. It's steady here. It's exceptional. SRM dwarfed as far as our targets for RTOs. 

Zerto has reduced our DR testing. It reduced the amount of time we have to test because it's so easy to failover. We've been very pleased with that. It's even given us the option of where we might be able to test more often anytime. We would like to get to a place where we test it once a month where we would allow some business units to test, and then do another business unit the next month.

It used to take us a week for the failover process and testing. The testing has been majorly reduced to where it now takes a day. It took a day to failover, to get everything lined up and running, and it never worked. We never were able to officially have a successful DR test. SRM fixed that and then Zerto took it to the next level. It improved drastically. This has freed up staff to work on other tasks. It used to be that we needed a room full of people for the test where we now need two. 

I don't feel like we're a big enough customer to warrant being called every week or every month but it would be good to get a little bit more contact with a salesperson or engineer group. Our account executive is very good. He's done a great job, but it was hard for him to tie down an engineer. It was a little bit of a strain to get somebody lined up to show us what version 10 was about. Once we got it, it was perfect. It would be nice if it could be easier to do that. 

They have VPGs and VRAs. The management of that when trying to do a VMware upgrade can get a little finicky. You have to bring nodes or hosts up and down where the VRAs are running on the hosts. Sometimes the VRAs won't come back up or they may not respond. So when you're done doing your work, it could be that you have fifteen servers that are not replicating. So you'll have to stop, delete, manually remove what you need to do, recreate the VRA, and that's easy enough but you have to go through and do that, and then resync. That's part of IT. They are a little finicky. 

Version 9.7 has been a little easier to work with, and it integrates with VMware a lot easier. It shuts down the VRAs. The VRAs are finicky about how they get shut down. 

I have been using Zerto for six years.

We've been very satisfied with the stability of it. 

It is scalable. 

Support has been pretty good and responsive. I would rate them a nine out of ten. They're good. 

Sometimes getting in touch with somebody is hard. We're not that big of a customer though. 

Positive

It's been easy for new users to pick up and it was pretty easy for multiple people to work within the UI.

I was indirectly involved with the setup. It didn't take very long, it was like doing an upgrade. 

You just build the servers and the proxy up, install the VRA, and then one by one had them sync.

Seven months ago we had to do a complete resync which took about four to five days. It was straightforward. There is a lot of documentation on Zerto's support site. My advice would be to get the documentation off their site. Open a ticket for support at the same time. 

We have seen ROI in terms of resources and time. For our overall management of the system, it doesn't require too many resources. The upgrades are not too bad. You may have to dedicate a staff member to do it for a couple of days. I didn't have a lot of experience with it and the two upgrades I did were simple.

In terms of time, it has saved us north of 30%. It cut down on a lot of manpower. There has been a reduction in our management pattern from other prior solutions.

You pay to play and it's not cheap but it's worth it. 

We know we have the capabilities to do disaster recovery in the Cloud rather than in a physical data center. We're replicating about 150 miles north of us. That's probably going to happen in the next five to ten years for us. We're making a pivot to where we know we're going to have to go that way with some of the cloud solutions.

We have not had to use it for data recovery due to ransomware. We have gone through the industrial hardening of our environment. We have been rated as very mature as far as our security stands. We have actually had some counterparts that experienced some issues and they didn't have anything in place, and it was very bad for them. Luckily, we have not had to use it in that capacity. We feel really good about its capability from the testing we've done. We know we can use it for malicious attack response.

We have tested it to help protect VMs in our environment and we have found that it will work for that. We got decent results with testing and I was very impressed.

In terms of it reducing our overall backup and disaster recovery management, it hasn't. We needed two staff members for the last two solutions we used. This year we will need three because I will also be involved with Zerto.

Zerto has replaced our DR and replication legacy solution. We're using Veeam for our backups but Zerto has replaced everything replication-wise. It saved costs to manage them by 20%.

My advice would be to do a POC for its concept and everything you get. Get it. Do it. It's a good product. I have friends that work with other companies that provide similar services and one of their engineers told me that you can't beat Zerto. 

I would rate them an eight out of ten.