HPE Zerto Software Reviews

We utilize Zerto for our disaster recovery solution, which involves replicating our virtual machines to a remote hot site to ensure failover capabilities.

Zerto's near-synchronous replication is great. 

Our RPO is around ten seconds.

I found Zerto's dashboard and features, such as the Zerto console, easy to use. It is simple to navigate and comprehend. Additionally, it is convenient to check various RPOs and BPG groups to stay informed about the current status.

We now have a robust disaster plan in place since the implementation of Zerto, which was a significant aspect we aimed to ensure.

Syncing data over to the data center for disaster recovery is easy.

I cannot provide a specific answer regarding our RTOs, but they have definitely improved significantly compared to our previous practices.

Zerto is considerably faster than our previous disaster recovery testing, which has saved us a significant amount of time.

Zerto has reduced the number of resources required for our data recovery.

It has helped reduce the number of staff for our backup.

We are utilizing a third-party company to assist us in managing Zerto. However, the RPO time for the copied-off VMs appears to be quite short. Additionally, it is straightforward to use.

One concern we have is the speed at which Zerto maintains compatibility with VMware and different versions of VMware. We are specifically worried about potentially major security issues with our current ESXi version and whether upgrading it would cause any problems or compatibility issues with the Zerto version we are using. It is crucial for Zerto to collaborate closely with VMware in order to promptly test updates.

I have been using Zerto for six months.

Zerto is stable. We have not had any stability issues.

We have not used Zerto in the cloud, but on our ESXi host, it appears to be scalable.

We used to back up VMs to powered-off off-site storage, but Zerto provides live disaster recovery capabilities. We had been utilizing a different disaster recovery concept, but Zerto is easier to use and provides us with an improved turnaround time in the event of a disaster.

The initial setup was straightforward. I assisted in the deployment, and a total of four people were required. The deployment took one week due to the necessary networking changes that had to be made.

We implemented using a third party.

I give Zerto a ten out of ten.

We utilize Zerto for our disaster recovery, and we employ our storage appliance for local snapshots.

No maintenance is required for Zerto.

I suggest using Zerto to have the servers in different Virtual Protection Groups so that they can prioritize the most important aspects of the business.

Zerto is primarily used for disaster recovery. In rare cases, it is also used for backup, but only for long-term storage.

We deployed our on-premises infrastructure in two data centers in Russia located in two cities, and multiple regions with combined infrastructure. We also had two data centers in Europe.

Zerto is extremely easy to use. When I started to pilot the product in 2016, I was able to deploy all required components in one or two hours without any help from Zerto engineers. I only used the provided documentation and user interface. In the years since my engineers have also had no issues with the implementation or configuration of the product. Zerto's ease of use is one of its best features.

To ensure good synchronization and replication of changes in a timely manner, we need to have a very good storage subsystem. In our case, we replaced our old storage subsystem with a new one that is based on full flash storage. After that, Zerto started to replicate changes at lightning speed. Many companies experience issues with Zerto if they do not have full flash storage. When full flash storage is implemented, Zerto is the best replication solution because it is highly dependent on the latency of the storage. Therefore, any kind of storage that is not based on full flashes, such as hybrid storage that combines flash and disks, is not a good foundation for Zerto implementation.

Prior to implementing Zerto, our disaster recovery tests had a 70 percent success rate. After implementing Zerto, all DR tests were 100 percent successful. This represents a significant improvement in our DR capabilities.

We used Zerto to replicate our virtual machines from our primary data center to our disaster recovery data center in another city over a single connection.

Zerto can achieve very low recovery point objectives due to its efficient use of resources and compression techniques. However, our company has different RPO requirements for different-sized companies. Since our company is small, our standard RPO is four hours. Zerto exceeded this requirement by achieving a typical RPO of about 15 seconds.

Zerto is a very easy and fast tool to use. However, it is important to note that Zerto requires some time to accept changes after migration. This means that if we do not finish testing within the required time frame, we may run into issues with storage space, as Zerto will continue to collect logs and other data. If the testing period is short and we are comfortable switching between data centers frequently, then we should have a very good experience with Zerto. Compared to VMware SRM, Zerto is much more reliable. I have never had any issues switching between production and the DR data center with Zerto, while I have had to start DR exercises from scratch multiple times with VMware SRM.

We always define and perform the required RTO values in our company. RTO is the time required to recover from a switch. It is about how long it will take IT staff to restore the environment. With Zerto, we can now do this in hours, typically one or two hours, for all switching activities. We have 70 virtual machines configured in Zerto, so it takes about one hour to switch all of them. This is four times faster than our previous solutions, such as VMware SRM or storage-based replication.

Zerto has saved us time in data recovery situations due to ransomware or other causes. It is very easy to use, so we do not need to spend extra time training engineers on how to use it. All of our engineers were able to start using Zerto immediately. Zerto is also very fast at replicating data. For example, when we set up a new replication, the initial replication was completed very quickly. Another advantage of Zerto is that it does not require additional steps to change the size of virtual disks. With our previous solution, VMware SRM, engineers had to perform additional manipulations in VMware when changing the size of virtual disks. This was a complicated process, but it is not necessary with Zerto. Overall, Zerto is a very user-friendly and efficient data protection solution. It has saved us time and money, and it has made our data recovery process much easier.

Zerto has saved us around 50 percent of our time.

The most important thing to me is Zerto's ability to deliver continuous protection for all data without any issues or incidents. Zerto is a rock-solid product in terms of protection. We migrated to Zerto from VMware SRM because we had a lot of issues with VMware SRM, including the loss of one server.

Zerto's price has room for improvement.

I have used Zerto for six years. 

I give Zerto's stability a nine out of ten.

Globally we have around 200 engineers that use Zerto.

Zerto's technical support is excellent. When we first started using Zerto, we had Russian technical support to help us with some complex tasks, such as configuring unique virtual machines. Our engineers had no communication issues with the support team. Later, when we were in a stable period, global technical support was also very helpful. I cannot recall a time when technical support was unable to help us. Overall, I give Zerto's technical support five stars.

Positive

For many years, the company globally used a variety of different solutions for data protection and disaster recovery. These included storage-based replication solutions based on IBM and EMC storage, as well as special appliances from Dell EMC. For smaller companies, VMware SRM or VMware replication without SRM was used, with manual configuration of replication. In order to simplify and unify its data protection and disaster recovery strategy, the company decided to adopt Zerto. Zerto was initially implemented in a small region, the Middle East/Asia. After a couple of successful migrations of data centers in this region and a parallel unsuccessful DR exercise in EMEA, the company selected to use Zerto globally. Following this, smaller companies in Russia started to receive a recommendation to implement Zerto instead of any existing solutions. Zerto has been a success for the company, providing a unified and simplified data protection and disaster recovery solution that has improved the company's overall resilience.

We used one internal engineer to perform the initial setup on two data centers in two days. In general, this involved installing two virtual machines with Zerto Virtual Manager on each data center, creating the corresponding network access rules, and then deploying Zerto replication agents to all virtualization hosts. The last activity was automated, so it took about one hour to deploy Zerto for all virtualization hosts. The replication took one week.

The implementation was completed in-house.

Zerto is a premium disaster recovery solution. It is not the cheapest option on the market, but it offers a number of features that make it a good value for businesses that need a comprehensive disaster recovery plan.

I give Zerto a ten out of ten. Based on my experience with different replication solutions, Zerto is the best one I have used. I am very disappointed that my current company decided to stop using it due to existing standards. Zerto is not cheap, but it is very stable, available, fast, and easy to use.

The most time-consuming part of a disaster recovery test is the testing of small and medium-sized enterprises, business users, and other stakeholders. IT-led environment restoration activities typically take up about 30 percent of the overall DR process. Zerto can reduce this time by 50 percent. Overall, this is not a significant impact, and Zerto is a very stable and reliable solution.

Zerto has not reduced the number of employees involved in data recovery situations. This is because we have a small team, and we always use engineers to perform disaster recovery activities related to storage and virtualization infrastructure. As a result, we have not had to reduce the number of staff members used for these activities.

Zerto did not replace all of our legacy backup solutions. Our legacy backup solutions were dependent on IBM Power servers, which required corresponding backup agents. Zerto is not compatible with these agents, so we use a separate backup solution for these servers. This separate solution is still in use.

We have two data centers, each with its own equipment, servers, storage, network equipment, and so on. In each data center, we deployed two separate VMware vCenter server infrastructures connected using an L2 line. There was no L3 connection between the data centers. This created a flat L2 network with two data centers and two vCenters on each data center. After that, we deployed two VM servers configured for replication. This allowed us to have a highly available and resilient infrastructure in the event of a failure at one of the data centers.

Regarding Zerto's maintenance, we configured some monitoring for related Zerto services. However, we do not have any daily routine procedures to manually check Zerto to ensure that everything is working properly. Instead, our engineers spend one hour per week reviewing monitoring items and other metrics to ensure that Zerto is operating as expected. From my perspective, Zerto is a self-operating system that requires very little manual intervention.

Zerto is very easy to pilot. I recommend that any customer pilot Zerto before making a decision on whether or not it is the right solution for them. Zerto is a self-selling product. When I piloted it in 2016, I was able to install it in hours and start using it immediately without any help. I believe that a pilot is the best way to see how easy and beneficial Zerto can be.

Zerto is used as our go-to disaster recovery failover software for the replication of key systems from our main office to our main data center. We primarily use it to protect VMs.

Being able to offer the level of disaster recovery RPO that we do has been a game-changer. Offering that level of RPO would have taken other methods to accomplish, but this has been straightforward.

It has been compatible with our VMware environments as time has progressed. We started using this in 2013. To make it easy and even more seamless, they spanned a Layer 2 subnet from one site to another using networking strategies. That way, when we fail over a VM or an asset, it does not change IPs at all. It has definitely given us a level of recovery that we would not have been able to accomplish as easily otherwise.

Recovery with Zerto is faster because, in the past, I believe our organization implemented asynchronous replication and used replication methods that were specific for storage. Having synchronous replication and an RPO that is essentially nothing, between sites, has definitely increased our response time. It allows us to immediately fail over seamlessly. It has also reduced RTOs throughout, since the recovery point objective in general is just a second. The smaller our RPO gap, the faster the RTOs we get.

In terms of downtime, there was a particular situation where we had an unexpected double outage of our WAN link. Unbeknownst to us, both of the fiber runs, although they were from the same company, ran through the same place, along the same train tracks where there was maintenance going. We were able immediately to fail over to our secondary site and keep downtime to zero.

That was an outage that I now know, in hindsight, lasted a couple of hours and it was during the peak closing of the US market for trading. It would have cost us millions. It would've been bad if something had gone wrong, since we needed to trade "now, now, now," but would not have been available. Thankfully we were able to trade.

Another benefit is that it allows for automated testing and non-impactful testing with the ability to spawn VMs in a test. We can perform any type of DR and integrity testing at will without impacting our production. I can't really quantify it but I know that DR tests definitely move a lot quicker now. Normally, DR testing would happen over a weekend. And it used to be the case that we would fail over everything immediately. We still have tests where we do live failovers with Zerto, because they really want to say we have done them. But we have averted investing time in monthly and quarterly tests over a weekend because we can present the automated testing that happens by Zerto with that test network. Without that, we would have to do monthly live testing, so it saves us time.

The most valuable feature is its ability to do failovers from one site to another.

It's also very intuitive, simple, and very straightforward. Its layout doesn't seem very complicated. It shows its features upfront. When I first started using it in 2016, I had not heard about the product, but coming to this company and having to take over managing it was not challenging at all. I was able to intuitively start using it. I have not had any issues with the interface. It's a clean interface and that has allowed me to intuitively use and configure it.

The near-synchronous replication is key. That has allowed us to provide the low RPOs that we promise. For key systems, that has been the deciding factor. The other option would have been establishing VMware's native HA approach, where you have to spawn new VMs. It's not as transparent as Zerto, it's more under the woodwork. Zerto's ability to offer that level of synchronicity and immediateness has enabled us to offer that level of SLA for our processes in case of a disaster.

Recently, I started to try to deploy vVols instead of VMFS volumes in my VMware environment and I did encounter an incompatibility. It seems that for Zerto volumes to be protected, there's some sort of limitation with drives having to be either thick-provisioned or thin-provisioned, I forget which. But there's some sort of inherent limitation that causes an incompatibility with vVols and VMware. That has to be overcome somehow. It has to be flexible enough to be able to do its thing.

And for an additional feature, and I'm not sure if this is already in the works, I would like to see improvement on the Zerto Virtual Replication appliances, so that they are a little bit more streamlined as opposed to now where they just span multiple ZVR appliances like there were gremlins. We have our three main ZVR appliances, each one of them associated with one of the hosts, but as this thing grows it just spawns unlimited numbers of additional ZVR appliances and you end up with a bunch so that you can't really tell which is which. Better management of those ZVR appliances would help, if you have to vMotion them off of something.

If you want to migrate a ZVR appliance from one storage to another, you can't really tell what's what and there are multiple pieces related to this ZVR appliance. I would like to see that cleaned up a little bit with better management features for ZVR appliance maintenance overall.

I've been with the company since May of 2016, so I've been using Zerto for that long—going on seven years. Through the years, I have become a Zerto-Certified administrator because Zerto offers a free course on it.

It's very stable and very hands-off. I have so many other things to do and the last thing I need to be doing is babysitting Zerto, and that's not the case. Thankfully, it's one of those solutions that you set and forget. You pop in every once in a while and make sure the VPGs are still green and thinking. 

The only thing that has happened over the years is that the data store that this thing was on might have run out of space, but that was for other reasons. As long as you keep an eye on it, it will probably always be green and you'll never have to do anything.

I've been able to engage with their support many times over the years and I have not had bad experiences with them. They've always been very efficient and prompt in taking me out of very sticky situations.

Positive

We already have solutions in place for backup, such as Rubric. We used to be a Veeam shop.

I wasn't involved in the initial setup.

We have two environments, one in our main office and the other in a data center. We have virtual protection groups that protect VMs in the main office and we are able to move them from failover to the data center as a DR strategy. That will change in the future when we move all assets that currently exist in our practice office into the data center as its native location. For now, it's office and data center, but in the future it will be data center and data center.

Our Zerto environment is VMware vSphere 7, and ESXi 7. It's mostly Windows VMs but there are some Linux VMs in there. It's a mixture of thick and thin-provisioned drives, all on VMFS data stores. Those are VMs that it protects and that it is able to move from one place to another.

As for maintenance, Zerto is really hands-off. It's just the usual software updates and that's about it. 

I believe the next step is that the recovery ZVMs (Zerto Virtual Managers) will turn into appliances, so they will be full Linux appliances. That will be great because we won't have to patch the Windows box underneath. Once that migration happens, it'll be even easier to manage. The only other thing that I have to do every once in a while is when we have another VM to protect. I edit the VPG and keep moving.

We have seen ROI due to the lack of losses from downtime that has been avoided.

The pricing seems reasonable. It's still within what we consider to be value-add. Currently, we're running 50 licenses. We're probably going to downsize because there have been organizational changes in our environment and we don't protect as many VMs as we used to.

We have not looked to change over since I got here because Zerto has been that good.

We don't really leverage the restore point backup capabilities of Zerto, although we do, in our virtual protection groups, configure it to have at least two hours' worth of restore points since the last RPO. We also haven't ventured toward DR in the cloud, although there will be initiatives in the future, but it's just something we have not done yet. At least for the assets we're covering with Zerto right now, we've limited ourselves to being able to pivot between data centers.

Currently, we are using it to provide DR coverage for key assets, but I am also going to use it to move all these assets from the practice office in downtown Chicago to the data center, which will be its permanent location. I am going to leverage Zerto's move capabilities to relocate those VMs, Windows Servers, and Linux boxes to the data center permanently. And then I'll establish a recovery relationship between data centers.

For the cost of the product, its value-add, and the return on investment, which is twofold, you should definitely consider Zerto. The hands-off approach and stability of the product alone will give additional dividends. Invest in the solution. It's pretty great.

Zerto is a 10 out of 10 for me. It's one of the easiest pieces of software that I have to manage and one of the most reliable over the years.

We mostly use it for disaster recovery purposes. We do a lot of migrations as well, e.g., VM from one site to another. We use Zerto for that, as we have hundreds of VMs that we protect as our main DR position using Zerto.

In general, our DR position is entirely based around Zerto. We use it for everything. We just have a couple things that we don't put on it. There are a couple of Oracle things that we replicate with different methods, but we pretty much do everything related to DR with Zerto.

We are not using it for backup. We are using it for continuous DR and replication between two on-prem sites. 

We have two data center sites with bidirectional replications. Each site protects the other site and we have our VPGs that go back and forth.

We perform more DR testing now because it is so easy. For example, what we are doing right now is baselines on our recovery time objectives, determining, "Okay, if we recover one VM, it takes this long. If we recover another VM this size, it is this long." Then, we recover 10, 100, and 800. That way, we get kind of a forecast, when we add VMs, about how that will affect our DR stance.

When we need to move a VM from one data center to another, it is replicated there. We don't need to do any snapshots of storage. We just make a VPG for it, do a move action, and it is just there. It works really well.

The test features have been really good for us. Our DR testing goes very quickly and easily now for all our stuff with Zerto. We have our priority recovery process, where we cover our databases for our app servers and web servers. All our teams pretty much get their VMs very quickly. The RPOs are very low. 

It is very easy to use. There are a lot of training materials online on the Zerto portal, which make it very simple to learn and use. You could go from not knowing how to use it to fully understanding all of it in a day. This can be done by using the Zerto University, getting your little certification and making your boss happy. It is pretty easy to set up VPG-wise.

You have a 24-hour journal. The amount of disasters and things that you can recover from using a 24-hour journal is huge, e.g., ransomware. We haven't had to do that yet, but the possibility is there. It is good to know that you can go back as far as you need.

I would like to see the app be more like the analytics site. Right now, when you go into the analytics, you need to zoom in real tight on your browser. You get a lot more from the analytics site than you do from the app. If they made those two more similar, it would be really useful for day-to-day monitoring of your stuff.

I don't like the evacuation process. The host evacuation process could be a little simpler too. It takes our maintenance a bit longer, when we are doing host maintenance, because we still need to evacuate the vRAs manually. I know they tried to make it more automatic, but it is not quite there yet.

I have been using it for at least three years in my job function.

We have had no problems with it. Stability-wise, I can only say positive things because we haven't had any real negatives with it.

It is very scalable. If you add a data center, then you just add a ZVM at that data center, link it up, and add your vRAs. After that, you are ready to start making VPGs. It is very simple to set up.

We don't have issues with scaling. If a vRA is getting a bit overloaded, it makes little vRAs. So, it kind of handles itself. We have our vRAs at the maximum size, as far as CPU and memory, that they can be. Our RPOs are really short, so we are doing pretty well for our size.

Zerto's support is always responsive. I have never had any problems with it. Our lead Zerto engineer does a lot more stuff than I do as far as with support. Typically, I will escalate to her. If there is an issue, then I defer to her. However, as far as my experience with support, I have experienced nothing but good things. The learning portal, myZerto portal, and analytics are very good. I don't have to use support very often, which is a good thing.

If I were to rate it, I would probably rate it as 10 out of 10. Every time that I have needed them, they have been responsive and quick. I haven't used them that much, but when I have, they have been very responsive.

Positive

We have used SRM, who is Zerto's main competitor. 

SRM was pretty quick. However, the speed of recovery with Zerto is so simple. It can failover, e.g., do whatever kind of failover you want it to do. You choose your VPGs, then you are off. It is really fast and simple. A lot of people could handle using it pretty easily.

I haven't found it to be hard. When you add a new host, you just go to set up and add a new host, then it builds a vRA. It is pretty easy to manage alerts. It will tell you exactly what is wrong, e.g., this doesn't have enough scratch disk, so you need to go update that. Or, this host is offline, e.g., you forgot to evacuate it, so then you need to take it out of Zerto. So, it will alert you to that stuff.

I have done my share of deploying vRAs. Though, our lead Zerto engineer handled most of that stuff from the initial setup.

We have definitely seen a return on investment. We can move any of our VMs from either of our data centers back and forth very easily, bringing them back and doing tests as frequently as we want. We will be doing two tests next week. At previous companies, we did one test a year. Now, we are doing different stacks, e.g., if we do 20, 100, or 700 VMS, then it will be this long. So, we can forecast additional workload and how much that will affect our DR position.

Zerto is definitely a lot easier to manage. My whole team knows how to use it, since it is very simple to use and intuitive. There are a couple people who use it and I am the secondary person. We have someone who basically lives in Zerto. She adds stuff on a daily basis and we are always on top of our updates. We are always looking at whatever new features come out. We try to maximize our journals. We are up to 24 hours on a lot of them. Our average RPO is eight seconds, and that is pretty good since we have 1,500 VMs and 280-plus VPGs. We have a pretty big on-prem environment. So, the good thing about it is the frequency and ease of testing because Zerto is very simple to use. DR has enough problems to deal with and Zerto makes things a lot easier.

We have looked at Veeam and SRM. We examined the marketplace, Gartner, etc. This product that management chose, and we are pretty happy with it.

Give it a try. Move some VMs back and forth to see how easy it is to use. The one-to-many is pretty good. We have two sites, so it is not a very big deal for us to do that, but it is very useful. 

I would rate Zerto as 10 out of 10. I love Zerto's CDP solution. It is really easy to use. It does everything that we need it to do and scales easily.

Zerto is primarily used for site-to-site replication and recovery, low RTO and RPO, and migration from onsite to the cloud.

Currently, we have ZVMs installed on Windows Servers in our environment, vRAs and VRAHs installed on our vCenter environment, and ZCAs installed in our Azure environment.

I am not the primary user of Zerto. I am sort of the implementation or API specialist on it.

It gives us a seamless, performant data center migration. When we were migrating between physical data centers, we did what normally would have been a 72-hour job in about 18 hours. A large part of that was thanks to Zerto being able to rate limit and throttle how much data was being sent or transfers were happening. Being able to script around it and create governors was important. We didn't have that previously. That is one big use case that has saved an immense amount of time and effort. 

Previous data migrations were really tough and hard. It was high stress with late nights, no sleep, and a lot of coffee and Red Bull. We didn't have that this time. Everyone felt that we got through this in a slightly longer working day instead of 72 hours. So, we have seen a return on investment.

Another use case is being able to do disaster recovery testing at will, whenever we want to. That has been really special.

Primarily, the most valuable feature is the simplified deployment methodology, but also use the REST API and script ability for modularity. 

Zerto API Wrapper is really good. We don't use the Zerto module specifically. Instead, we use API Wrapper, which is a lot better in my opinion. The fact that we can extend the functionality of Zerto to high-level policies or processes via the API, whether it is through API Wrapper or otherwise, sort of brings out a lot of interesting usability use cases for us. We can do self-service replication of servers via ServiceNow, scripting, etc., offering extensibility. It is really easy to use. It helps to save a ton of time as far as replication goes.

There are open API calls. Things are available via the UI and API that may not be documented really well. You can open developer tools, inspect those elements, and see what those payloads are, but it is an extra step. For someone who is kind of new to the game, they may not know how to do that. 

Zerto is not an API-first company, but an API-now company. A lot of the functionality that is in Zerto UI is not in the Zerto API. That is likely because it is baked in code or compiled down DLLs. Every business has to make a decision to work on something, and I don't think Zerto has committed resources to working on that part. It is a problem to do cleanup for Azure Blob Storage, recovery site storage, or whenever you remove a VM from a VPG without deleting the VPG. That needs to be improved. 

Doing scheduled disaster recovery connection tests, e.g., being able to migrate things up and get things working on a recovery site without needing a user to do it, would be helpful.

Analytics has a 90-day window, where it keeps data. It would be nice to have on-prem storage instead of cloud storage for that so we can keep the data for longer. Unless you discover the problem within three months, you don't know that you need the data. Then, it is gone by the time you realize there is an issue. 

I would like to be able to offsite some data. We export our analytical data so we can keep it longer without having to script around it. It is possible right now, with the API, to script around it. However, I don't want to have to write a monthly process to export the last three months of data to a spreadsheet so I can just have it if I need it. 

A lot of the PowerShell documentation in some of Zerto tutorials or how-tos is a PowerShell-to-legacy sort of paradigm. It needs to be updated to at least 3, likely 5, or probably 7. It looks like it was written by someone who didn't know PowerShell, but had to learn it really fast. It does the job. If you copy and paste it, then it will work, which is something. That is way better than what a lot of people do. However, I feel like a bit more effort should be pushed towards PowerShell.

I would like them to build an alerting system. I am trying to find a way to connect it to my business continuity people, so the Zerto people don't need to be pseudo-business continuity people all the time. They can just be IT people. 

I would like more creature comforts for the scripting engineer. It would be nice if they could expand the development community around building different APIs or API structures for Zerto.

I have been using Zerto for two and a half to three years.

Stability of Zerto is significantly better now than it used to be. It was a little unstable, especially when you were doing massive amounts of migrations. I think there was a disconnect with Zerto's handling of jobs and the ticketing systems inside of vCenter. I am not saying that was a Zerto problem. It might have been a vCenter problem, where vCenter was unable to communicate how much availability it has to field those jobs, then its internal tickets were consumed in a way that Zerto couldn't deal with them well. There was probably some type of internal timeout that was reached when things failed. 

If you are not prepared to rapidly click retry a bunch of times, that will be a big problem for you. You can get around it by scripting. That is how we did it. You can get around it by updating Zerto to at least version 8, maybe even 7.53. 

The stability now seems solid. If there are some disruptions of service, I am not seeing it. We have taken off restrictions on our network throttling. So, we are not throttling that at all. We fullly let it go and it doesn't seem to be having a problem.

We have hundreds of terabytes up to petabytes of storage and replicated data. Triple-digits up to thousand-plus virtual machines are being replicated. There is RDM to VHD and VHDX-VMDK conversions. We have temporary disks or bypass disks involved for situations where VMs might be turned off or removed from environments without any lead time, thus pausing VPGs.

I don't think it has a problem with scalability. We haven't yet run into a problem scaling it. You could always deploy more ZVMs and ZCAs. The analytics engine has a calculator to figure out how many you should deploy. Follow that. It isn't perfect. If anything, it's a little conservative. Just don't test the waters unless you are prepared to sink a little bit. Be prepared to sink if you're going to try to min-max it. You can always tweak it. There are so many tweaks you can do on the ZVM and ZCA side. We have had to do probably a half dozen of those because our environment isn't the same as every other environment. 

You can push it to its limits. I don't think it is a problem with scalability. I think it is a nuance of your environment.

There were some hurt feelings with some of our engineers. They were told that it would just be plug and play. They didn't realize that it would actually take up a duplicate amount of storage. As a point of policy, that is how it works. I asked them, "How do you think it should work? If you don't think the storage should double, where are we putting the bits? Where is it going? How is replication happening?" It makes sense to me, but I think they were told something else. I don't know if that was a salesperson from Zerto's side or an advocate on the company's side, but they were misinformed. 

Zerto support is usually very good. I feel like we always get those Sev 1 cases where something is wrong with the core product. For example, every time that they have released a new minor or major build, there are release notes of what has been fixed. We have had five of those line items since version 7.

We have been using it since version 5. However, since version 7, we have had five big line items for those changes since we have a big environment and script a lot more, and maybe we script more than a lot of Zerto customers. We found a lot of weirdness in our environment, and that matriculated up. I got a call from the East Coast technical representative for the dev team. Every day, I had a call on the update of those tickets. You don't see that a lot. 

Some platforms work flawlessly. Some platforms are more simple. Zerto is a complicated platform doing a lot. After that initial burn-in period with our support team, we got grade-A service, which was really great. I would probably rate them as eight or nine out of 10. There is room for improvement, but if they never improved, I would be happy with the level of service and support that we have now.

I am pretty patient. From a programming standpoint, technology is hard and environments differ greatly, and I am willing to forgive a little bit. I don't speak for all my company. There are people in my company who don't accept that. They want it fixed tomorrow (or yesterday). Personally, I understand that it is hard and takes time to understand as the logs only tell you so much. 

Positive

I can't even remember what the previous product was. 

I wasn't involved in the initial deployment. I have been involved with subsequent deployments, which were straightforward. Originally, I babysat it, then I owned it in tandem with another engineer who was actually the owner of it. I helped with the scripting part since I had more scripting knowledge. 

Subsequent deployments take 15 minutes, which is not long. With ZVM installers, they ask you a question, then you put it in. If you don't have the answers, then you go get them. You have no business deploying Zerto if you don't have those answers to begin with. ZCM is just as easy.

Don't buy Zerto expecting to save money and get 100% performance. That is not how it works. That is not what you are buying. You are buying a solution that you have to invest in. Don't invest in buying the license, but none of the technology to support it. Ask the hard questions and expect answers that aren't, "Yeah, it will do that. No questions asked." 

I don't have a lot of experience with other solutions, but I have used a lot of technology. I know what approachable and unapproachable platforms look like. Zerto is an approachable platform. If you know the concepts of data replication and data recovery and know what those data protections look like, then you should be able to pick up Zerto with relative ease. 

Generally speaking, things in Zerto are where I would expect them to be. That is hard to do sometimes on other platforms. Sometimes, you get designers, UI developers, or user-experience people who don't really understand how engineers will approach a product. The Zerto platform seems tailored for people who are full code, low-code, or no-code, which is really special. I don't feel like you see that a lot. You start to get more of it now. However, having someone who is not specifically geared towards data replication, data recovery, or data protection accessing Zerto, they can use it if they have some of the nomenclature. They need to know a very small vocabulary in order to be able to navigate Zerto since things are where you think they will be.

Determine your questions in advance and ask them to the Zerto sales team. Get them to engage the engineering team as best they can. It does what it is supposed to do. It is not a magic silver bullet that just takes out everything. Everything is in layers. Zerto is only as good as your storage, back-end network, and replication infrastructure layer. It is only as good as the things allowing it to be good.

It has done a great job for what we needed it to do. I don't really have to worry about it doing the job. It is already doing it.

I would rate Zerto as eight or nine out of 10.

We currently utilize Zerto as our disaster recovery solution. With Zerto, we replicate production virtual machines to our DR site. This approach enables us to recover and bring everything back online in a disaster swiftly. Our recovery point objective can be as low as five seconds, depending on the replication point. By journaling, we can also role back to the earliest journal period available. Currently, we keep VM journals for 30 days. 

Additionally, we employ Zerto for scaling purposes and for conducting upgrade testing. This entails spinning up VMs in an isolated environment, allowing us to perform various tests. For example, a few years ago, we tested the upgrade of our active directory domain controllers. By validating processes within this environment, we can ensure their smooth execution in production. These are the two primary use cases for Zerto in our organization.

Zerto is very user-friendly. We can select the VMs by installing a small agent specifically designed for the host. This agent identifies all the VMs. Zerto integrates smoothly with VMware, which is our primary core platform. I believe it also functions well with other hypervisors, although I am only familiar with VMware. Therefore, the integration with vSphere simplifies the process of creating groups, runbooks, and other components necessary for building our disaster recovery environment.

Zerto's near-synchronous replication performs admirably. Many times when I check, we are only about five seconds behind in terms of production time. Of course, this does depend on network performance. There have been instances where the delay exceeded five seconds due to network blips or other issues. However, for the most part, we consistently remain within a five-second range of our production environment.

As a manufacturer, a significant portion of our operations relies on timely execution in order to ensure efficient production and timely delivery of our products. We closely coordinate with external partners and customers to minimize downtime and maintain a seamless real-time production process, which is crucial for us.

The ability to conduct faster disaster recovery testing and the potential for quicker recovery in the event of a disaster have been greatly improved. Before using Zerto, our approach involved log shipping and manual recovery, which meant that the best we could do was recover the previous backup from the previous night, assuming the backup was successful. This process would take hours or even days. However, with Zerto's automation, we can now recover within seconds—five, ten, or twenty seconds from the point of the outage. We can bring systems back online automatically and at a significantly faster pace than our previous manual approach allowed.

Zerto has significantly improved our recovery time objectives compared to what they used to be. Previously, we would have to restore from backups from the previous night and manually configure systems. Therefore, the recovery time objective has likely decreased from days to approximately an hour, or perhaps even less. It's challenging to determine the precise timeframe in a real disaster scenario since we conduct disaster recovery testing. However, it is undoubtedly much better than it was before, although pinpointing the exact time of an actual disaster is somewhat different.

Zerto has helped us reduce our organization's disaster recovery testing from several days of preparation to just a single day.

Zerto is easy to configure and manage. The ability to quickly bring up VMs within a test environment allows us to test our disaster recovery functions and ensures that they would function just as well in an actual disaster scenario. This enables us to swiftly recover in the event of a disaster.

Zerto could be easier to configure when we need to perform data testing and establish network connectivity outside of the isolated environment. We encounter situations where there is a desire to test a printer during disaster recovery testing. However, due to the presence of an isolated environment, doing so can result in complex configurations.  It can be made to work but requires some other adaptations like using Citrix VDI sessions that are dual homed within vCenter to accomplish those tasks. 

Zerto has been improved on how it works with VMware Life Cycle Manager, but there can still be issues. Also, it seems that with the release of VMware VCF 9.X, full compatibility can only be achieved with a fresh deployment and configuration with VAIO.

I have been using Zerto for over ten years.

Zerto is highly stable. It is rare to encounter any issues with it. Typically, any problems that arise are due to changes made on our end that may have inadvertently affected it. However, Zerto remains an exceptionally stable product.

To the best of my knowledge, Zerto can scale to the extent that we require. I am not aware of any limitations, as we have not encountered any thus far.

The technical support is generally very prompt in responding, and highly knowledgeable, and they will continue working with us until the problem is resolved.

We previously used Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines and completely replaced it with Zerto.

Zerto is much easier to use compared to RecoverPoint. Previously, with RecoverPoint, we could only program-specific logs, and the VMs we wanted to replicate had to remain on those logs. If we moved the data off those logs, replication would be lost. However, Zerto keeps track of the VM regardless of its location, making it superior to RecoverPoint in terms of configuration and management.

Zerto is a more cost-effective product than Dell RecoverPoint.

The initial setup is straightforward. We need a virtual machine, install it, push it through, and configure it to communicate with the host for deployment. I mean, it's a very straightforward process. Two people were involved in the deployment.

The implementation was completed in-house.

The human resources necessary to perform a disaster recovery test are undoubtedly available. It is more economical than RecoverPoint. Now, it has been many years, and I am uncertain about the cost disparity. However, on the whole, there is a decrease in various aspects regarding the product's cost and the number of work hours needed for disaster recovery testing which is a clear return on investment.

The pricing is straightforward. We are on an enterprise licensing model, and it is based on a per-VM basis. We have the option to purchase them in blocks. This approach is quite cost-effective as we do not replicate our development and testing environments. We only replicate the production environment. Therefore, we are not paying for the entire setup, but only for what we are actually replicating.

I rate Zerto a ten out of ten.

Currently, we have a separate product that we use for backup, which has immutability features. However, we do not currently employ Zerto for immutability purposes.

We have considered using the cloud for disaster recovery, but currently, we maintain the same hardware at both locations. However, since we conduct all of our firmware testing and upgrades on our disaster recovery site first, we have decided to keep our own disaster recovery site instead of attempting to do it in the cloud.

We could easily transfer data to the disaster recovery system. One of Zerto's functions is to replicate data from virtual machines or migrate entire virtual machines, although we haven't utilized it for that purpose.

The only maintenance required is typically software updates. Whenever a new version is released, we must go through the process of upgrading Zerto. Other than that, unless there are any issues, it generally operates smoothly.

We just need to ensure that we know the number of virtual machines we would be replicating so that we can obtain the correct licensing. Otherwise, we will have to backtrack. If we underestimate, we will need to provide additional licensing. It is important to determine this information upfront, as well as the bandwidth between our site and the replication location, as it also affects our recovery objectives.

Our primary use case is for backup and disaster recovery. 

The most valuable feature is the disaster recovery capabilities. The fact that we can have a clinic across the country backup in as little as 45 minutes is incredible. 

Zerto has enabled us to do disaster recovery in the cloud. This ability is very important because we have over 419 hospitals across the country and being able to quickly get a hospital up in Colorado while I'm in Alabama is impressive. The speed is impressive and it's easy to get it back up.

We use Zerto to protect VMs in our environment. Zerto's overall effect on our RPOs has been fantastic. Coming from our C-suite level and getting reports of how long hospitals are up versus if we do have disaster recovery, the amount of time to recover using Zerto is fantastic. We can have them back up in as little as 45 minutes. I don't have to hear all the bad sides of it, they're very happy when the hospital's back up and making money. 

The other company we used before was Commvault, and we had had multiple issues with them with fragmented backups. Some backups weren't taking properly, and we did have a DR situation with them, and they were not able to recover all the data. That was our big push to find something else, and that's where we found Zerto. 

Zerto's ease of use compared to other solutions is a ten out of ten. 

As one who is implementing it, my biggest gripe is the ticketing system. Zerto has since upgraded that, so right now, I have no complaints about it.

I have been using Zerto for around one year but my company has been using it for about two. 

The stability is a ten out of ten, we haven't had the issues with them like we did with Commvault. I have no complaints.

Scalability is seamless. We're able to add another server and within the hour build on top of that. 

If we're ever out of licenses, I could just send an email out and say that we need to add some more, and it's done. 

Our environment is large. We have 419 hospitals across the country. 

Their support is a ten out of ten. I have not had any issues with them. It's been fantastic every time I've had to deal with them. They've resolved all of my issues. 

Positive

The deployment was easy and seamless. We put in a ticket. They get our new servers added and within an hour we have new deployed servers on the solution.

We see ROI in the uptime of hospitals that had a disaster recovery scenario and how quickly they're back up and making money at those hospitals.

I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten. 

Our primary use case is for DR failover. 

The most valuable feature is the rollback feature that captures every couple of minutes. Whenever we have a server that goes down, we can use that to pull it back a couple of minutes before and it's good to go. 

The disaster recovery has been a benefit to us. The ability to capture or move something to another data center is also a really handy feature.

The near-synchronous replication is Zerto's shining feature. We leverage the most out of it. 

On the technical side, we usually need more of the deeper, not near-synchronous replication. We need it more for the back backups but there's always a fire drill. There's always an emergency that needs something that happened five minutes ago to be restored.

We use Zerto to help protect VMs in your environment. 

When setting up Zerto, you have to set up VRAs. I would like to see those not be needed as much. They're a little cumbersome and take up a lot of VM counts.

I have been using Zerto for around four to five years. 

The stability is perfect. 

It feels like scalability is what it's built for. It's seamless. 

I don't usually have to call support. Some of my coworkers are a little more familiar with it, and they have always said that Zerto support is very good.

They're fast, responsive, and willing to look at issues that they're not familiar with.

An interactive chat with knowledgeable staff could be a helpful feature.

Positive

We also looked at VMware. Zerto outperformed it and was more affordable. 

What's nice about Zerto that I don't think we saw with VMware is the ability to use one console for multiple beta centers. It's really nice not having to go into a specific site to come to or from that site. If a site or a whole data center goes down, you can still access it from the other and pull over it if needed. 

We had VRAs that we had to set up. The initial setup was good. The hard part was getting all of the servers into certain groups and then getting the disaster recovery plan for all of those. That was the hard part. Once you have that all setup, initiating those plans is very easy.

We have seen ROI. I'm more on the technical side so I can't give exact metrics. 

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten. It gives me everything I want and everything I would need. Failing over is easy. Disaster recovery is easy. If there was ever an event where I had to roll over a whole data center, I don't really worry about it because Zerto has been there. The setup was probably the hardest part but once you get the hard part done, the rest is easy. 

Sometimes the console is a little hard to understand. Simplifying some of the commands inside of it would help. It's a very minor aspect. Sometimes the endpoint and destinations can get a little confusing and exactly how you want some of the functions to roll over can be a little bit hard to pick up.

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 it primarily for DR situations. Whenever we lose our primary location, we switch to another location. We also backup resources and migrating VMs in and out of different environments, cloud versus on-prem.

The most valuable feature is that it provides real-time backup. We're in the financial industry and have to have 100 percent uptime. 

It helps us have a lot better uptime than what we would normally have. It's always real-time synced, with instant recovery. We can return to another location if power drops or generators don't work.

It gives us quick uptime. It also helps our customers maintain that trust, so Zerto really does help with trust. We generally use it on-premise.

The near-synchronous replication is really good. It gives us quick uptime. It helps our customers keep that trust in us.

We use Zerto to protect VMs in our environment. Until Zerto, I didn't pay much attention to RPOs. Zerto gives the ability to bring RPOs down to seconds. 

For certain use cases, Zerto has a better speed of recovery compared to other solutions but it doesn't tie into our SANs like Veeam does. 

It is a little expensive.

We could streamline the installation better. The other thing would be ransomware notifications, like IO anomaly notifications.  If they integrate with the SAN, that would be valuable to see in terms of snapshots.

I have been using Zerto for six to seven years.

We came up with the new version, and it's pretty good. If there's no reason for me to say it's unstable. It's been proven so far.

If you buy the licensing, it will scale up to size until you will spend money on it. 

Support is helpful.

Positive

If you want to pull from the snapshot instead of tools, then SRMs are better used for this case. It's fast and the first to market with continuous data protection.

Zerto is easier to use. There is some standup at the beginning, you must install the agents. It's easy to use when it's working right, but sometimes, it takes great effort to get it going if something goes down. 

We use another solution, Veeam. We keep them both because they're both beneficial for different use cases.

The initial setup is straightforward, but if you have it the first time, you are stranded in the industry. It could take a little figuring out, but Zerto is pretty helpful.  

There have been a couple of situations which they weren't able to fix an issue right away. We move everything off to a different server until we can circle around and extend that one.

We did it in-house.

Zerto has paid for itself in man-hours saved. 

Zerto gives you the ability to bring RPOs in seconds. We can have instant uptime for everything. 

It's more expensive than other solutions but it's worth it for our environment. It has made it very easy to restore files because you can restore them down to the second. It's pretty simple. We have the agent and all the hosts. 

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.