HPE Zerto Software Reviews

We're solving the issues of disaster recovery with it. So, our main use case is disaster recovery. We use it to do real-time replication of our data so that if we needed to failover for whatever reason or we had a disaster at our primary data center, we would be able to spin up in our colo disaster recovery location with minimum downtime. Our delay is about five seconds. So, if something negative were to happen to our data center, our DR copy would be within five seconds of the original copy, which is pretty good. We are also using it for testing.

Our setup is on-prem. It enables you to do DR in the cloud rather than in a physical data center, but we didn't go that route. We went the route of creating our own colo location. So, instead of leveraging Azure or AWS, we decided to maintain our own facility. Our primary data center is on-prem, and our disaster recovery location is a colo location that we control.

The current version that we're using is 9.5, which is the latest. When we installed it, it was probably version 8.

The mere fact that we're able to do live testing has definitely helped us with deployment times. It has helped us with troubleshooting as well.

It saves effort, time, and money. It saves us the effort of having to make sure that information is replicated. It saves us the time that would be required to build that ad hoc, and it allows it to be more of a point-and-click operation than something for which we have to dedicate more time and effort. Especially in our use case, we're not replicating a crazy amount. We're only replicating about 40 virtual machines and about 13 terabytes of data. It's not a small amount, but it's not a crazy large amount either. To be able to load all those 40 machines at one time with one click and then bring them up either in production failover or production test is fantastic. We haven't really been able to find any competitor that can do that at least as easily as Zerto. That was the driving force.

It has helped to reduce our organization's disaster recovery testing. We can now do it in minutes, whereas previously, we could never do a valid test. We could only test that our backups were copied. We could never spin them up and run them all. Barracuda would do point-in-time backups, but we didn't have any place where we could actually deploy and test them all. That's not necessarily a hundred percent on Barracuda, but from basically not being able to do it, we are now able to do it within a few minutes. 

It has saved all the time that would've been spent validating copies of virtual machines. It can now be used to actually test that everything is connected, everything is spun up properly, and everything is connecting and speaking properly. So, there has been a tremendous amount of time savings. People who were responsible for doing it have saved time because they don't have to spend an entire day testing to make sure that the backup is copied properly so that they can be recovered. Now, we can do a test failover in a few minutes and be able to validate it like that.

It helps to protect VMs in our environment. It has been great in terms of RPOs. Prior to using Zerto, depending upon the level of disaster, it took us hours, days, or weeks to recover. Now, the average recovery is nine seconds. That's pretty big. We went from hours, days, or weeks to seconds and minutes to recover.

Its overall impact on our RTOs has been fantastic.

Its main feature is continuous replication. We are able to have continuous replication, and we are able to have the information available as per recovery point objectives (RPOs) and how much data to retain. The real selling point was to be able to have those statistics and be able to test and show that the replication is occurring properly and then to be able to do live passive testing.

We can spin up our environment in DR without affecting production, which is probably the biggest feature for us. We have the ability to do passive testing. We can even test scenarios, such as installing software or changing software. We can make modifications without affecting our production environment. So, the test functionality of being able to test the failover solution and being able to bring up our virtual machines in a test mode is the biggest benefit.

In general, the solution is pretty good, but because it is geared toward simplicity, sometimes, when things go wrong, the answer is not very detailed so that things can be solved quickly. If things do go wrong, it does require a little bit deeper troubleshooting to resolve the issues. That's the only area where improvement could occur. There should be a little bit more details about if things go wrong, how to remedy them. 

Everything is meant to be simple. When something doesn't work, even though what you were trying to do appeared to be very simple, there are probably a lot of pieces behind the scenes. So, to be able to narrow down where in those 100 steps something went wrong can be a little tricky. When there is a failure, there should be a more detailed explanation of what the error is and how to remediate it. Currently, it's a little vague. A part of that could be because we use Zerto on top of Hyper-V. VMware still has a very large market share over Hyper-V and a lot of the information and a lot of the deployment plans are geared towards VMware. So, sometimes, there are new features that first roll out to VMware and then come to Hyper-V.

I have been using this solution for about three years.

It's a very stable platform, but sometimes, we've had instances where we've upgraded versions and went from version 8 to 8.5 or to version 9 to 9.5, and there were issues. When you deploy, depending upon how many host machines you have, something might go wrong with the deployment to a host. In that case, you have to do a decent amount of work so that you can remove your virtual machine and restart the underlying host, which is something that you try to avoid doing, but sometimes, that's required in order to resolve the issue so that you can do the upgrade properly and allow that. When there is a problem like that, it can affect the performance of the system, but that falls more under maintenance and upkeep. In general, it does run pretty smoothly. It comes down to the fact that whenever there is a problem, it's a problem. That's the same with anything. Everything works until it doesn't, but in general, it works more than it doesn't, which is what you want. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of stability.

Their tech support is pretty good. We've had issues where we have reached out to them, and in general, they're pretty responsive and helpful. A few times, we've had them jump on to do screen shares and pull information and do deeper dives into some of those errors that didn't have detailed inputs about the area we need to look into, and their tech support has been pretty good. Based on the help that they provided for the issues we had, I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

We were using point-in-time backups provided by Barracuda. The issue with that was that we were taking point-in-time backups, and we were saving them in the cloud, but if we didn't have a location to restore the data to, the backups weren't very useful. They were useful from the backup standpoint but not from a disaster standpoint. In such a case, our primary data center would be wiped out. We would have our cloud copy, which would probably be a day old, and then we would have to take that cloud copy and download it somewhere where we don't have machines. So, we would have to buy servers or buy something to download our backup copies to and then spin them up. That could potentially take weeks. Now, we already have the hardware in place, or if it was a cloud, we would leverage the cloud, but we already have the hardware in place. So, at any point, it's a matter of enabling, going live, and saying failover, and then basically, having our DR copy become live. So, the time to recover was the main reason for going for Zerto.

We still have the Barracuda solution in conjunction. A lot of that is due to the fact that we already have a long-term contract. We have a five-year contract with Barracuda. We probably don't need to renew that, but there are benefits of both. We have kept both solutions because they do slightly different things. The way we use Zerto is that it's focused mainly on disaster recovery. Barracuda gives us more of a long historical recovery for easily recovering things such as files. We have backups of virtual machines that might go back four or five years. You might argue that it is not worth it because a lot of the data that is multiple years old might not be of value.

The way it would work with Zerto is that we could keep a live copy within Zerto for 30 days. After that, we would have to take that data and throw it somewhere else for long-term storage, which would incur additional costs and adds a little bit. Because we already had Barracuda, we leveraged Barracuda for long-term retention. We don't use Barracuda for disaster recovery anymore, but we use it for point-in-time recovery. We take a backup that gets shipped to the cloud to have an extra copy that is just there, which then becomes part of a historical backup where we could go back six or seven months, whereas Zerto is only for recovering files up to a few days. Anything older than those few days would be recovered via Barracuda.

Zerto can do a backup for or recover data longer than that period of time, but it becomes a little bit different process. When we looked at Zerto three years ago, the ransomware, journaling, and being able to go back a few hours and restore your entire environment back to a point in time were nice features, but they weren't the selling point. The selling point was disaster recovery. So, that's the main thing for which we're using it. We are not looking at the ability to go back 30 days to recover a file. I definitely see it as a plus, but because it wasn't the initial selling point, and the way that we architected things, we don't necessarily use that right now. However, when our contract with Barracuda ends, instead of renewing, we could consider just buying long-term retention through a cloud provider and then maintaining a longer history with Zerto.

There is a lot that goes into setting it up. So, the planning has to be done. We were pretty much able to have it up in a few hours, but it also depends on your use case and the complexity of your deployment. Like anything, there are a thousand ways to skin a cat. So, it depends upon how you want to have it set up. It depends on:

• How complex groundwork do you want to put in?
• How isolated do you want your test case to be?
• How isolated do you want different things to be set up?

There could be a little bit more complexity, but in general, it's pretty simple to get going. Obviously, there is a lot that goes into it, but the actual work of setting it up, once you have those decisions made, is pretty straightforward. It's pretty easy.

We definitely did a lot of planning, but we did the actual deployment or the actual configuration of it before we engaged with the professional services aspect of our deployment plan. When we bought the software, we had a project management plan and support from Zerto directly. We pretty much did all the setup ahead of time by ourselves. So, in our case, the setup was very simple and very easy.

It does require some maintenance. There are always service updates that are available, and occasionally, there will be little bumps in the road that require maybe reinstalling or updating something. In terms of general maintenance, as compared to other solutions, its maintenance is probably a little bit less than other solutions. Maintenance is still required, but it doesn't require an extreme amount of maintenance to keep things running smoothly.

When we went to locate this software, we worked with ePlus. They made several recommendations on different solutions, and from those recommendations, we narrowed it down and picked Zerto.

I liked them a lot at the time. The sales rep that we had there was fantastic. Unfortunately, a few months after our project was purchased, our sales rep left the company, and then we just never really connected with any of the new people. That has not necessarily something to do with ePlus. They're a large, great company, but what really separated them and made that project beneficial was the account manager that we had during that time period. He was fantastic.

In general, it's pretty fair because it is software. In our case, we built our own colo. So, the cost of the colo was very expensive, and that's where a lot of the equipment is. The same thing is there if we were going to spin up in the cloud, but as a solution, in general, it's pretty fair for what you get out of it and how it works. It's not cheap, but at the same time, you get what you pay for, and it's definitely worth the cost. You just have to understand that the cost of the software alone is not the total cost of the project of doing ransomware protection or disaster recovery. It's a piece of the pie, not the entire pie.

We did look at other similar solutions, but what made Zerto the solution that we went with was the fact that it included the recovery of the actual virtual machine. Other solutions had the ability to do the same kind of synchronous or near-continuous data replication. However, if we had the underlying data replicated but our virtual machine's copy or our virtual machine configuration was different or was not at that target location, we would have to then configure those machines to load the underlying data. The feature that made Zerto useful was that it handled that and replicated the virtual machine information as well. So, we didn't have to do that. Once we configure and specify it to replicate a virtual machine, all the data that's associated with it and its configuration is replicated. We don't have to deal with additional steps.

Three years ago, when we were looking at disaster recovery options, a lot of the solutions were targeted at replicating the underlying data but not necessarily how to get that data usable. Getting the data usable part is often the trickiest and the most time-consuming part. So, when you don't have to take that into consideration because it's already being copied and it's current, your downtime associated with a failure event is reduced. That was definitely a selling point for us.

We looked at Veeam, and we looked at how we use Pure Storage for our underlying data storage. They have the capabilities of doing synchronous, real-time replication, which has improved a lot in the past three years. So, the limitations that made it less appealing a few years ago might have been removed now, but at the same point, that's only the underlying data. We would still have to recreate virtual machines that will spin up that data. There is no other real solution that I'm aware of that does this as nicely. Even some of the other Microsoft native solutions aren't as nice and user-friendly. They definitely don't give you the ability to do testing. We couldn't spin up a replicated copy without causing issues. Zerto allows us to spin up a test version of our production software or our production VMs without affecting the production copy.

There is a lot that goes into setting it up. So, the planning has to be done, but once it's running, it's very simple. If it's set up right, it literally involves a few clicks. Testing and failover can be done in a few clicks, which makes a very complex thing simple. So, if you set it up and you have the groundwork done, then with one or two clicks, you could do major testing, and you could do major failovers. From that standpoint, it's extremely simple to use once it's up and running.

They have a lot of other features that we don't really leverage 100%. We use it only for disaster recovery, but it also contains features for ransomware where you can recover files. Although we don't use that feature, that's definitely a benefit. We have recovered files from time to time but not because of ransomware. We maintain a history of up to 30 days for each of the virtual machines that we have. We have a different solution to recover files older than 30 days.

We don't really use Zerto for immutable data copies, which goes into the ransomware where you expect not to be corrupted by ransomware. We use it, but we've never had a case where we had to recover from a ransomware instance or anything like that. We use Zerto only for disaster recovery and continuous replication. We have a separate backup tool that takes point-in-time backups. In terms of the 3-2-1 rule for our organization’s recovery strategy, our separate point-in-time backups give us three locations. At a point, we have three copies of the data in different stages.

It hasn't reduced our downtime in any situations because we didn't need to do disaster recovery. So, from that standpoint, we don't have any baselines before or after.

It hasn't directly reduced the number of staff involved in data recovery situations, but the amount of time required per person or the time required by people for validation has greatly reduced. We never had anybody dedicated to it as their only function, but the amount of time that's required to do testing is significantly less. So, there has definitely been a saving of time. Similarly, there has been no change in the number of staff involved in overall backup and disaster recovery management. In theory, it wouldn't because, in most IT organizations, a lot of people wear different hats at different times. We didn't have a dedicated person or a dedicated team only to validate backup and recovery.

Compared to other solutions, I would rate it a 10 out of 10.

We use Zerto for our disaster recovery procedure and testing to ensure our servers and virtual machines can failover from a production environment if there's a catastrophe. We have a disaster recovery test twice a year and use Zerto to recover the environment.

We have two environments for Zerto. One is for the US, and the other is for Europe. We updated one last week to version 9.0, and the other still uses version 8.5 but I will update that today or tomorrow.

Zerto cut down the recovery time tremendously and improved our disaster recovery process. It made it easier for us to recover if needed during a disaster. Zerto definitely reduced downtime. The other software we used had a lot of manual steps. It was efficient, but our recovery time was longer. I estimate that Zerto cut our recovery time by at least 70 percent.

We had a disaster recovery four or five years ago. I can't remember what happened, but I believe something crashed in our data center, like a power outage. We did a failover of our network using Zerto from production to disaster recovery. We successfully completed the failover process in three or four hours without issue. The data was current, and the application owners could access their data and continue working while the issue was resolved. 

Zerto also brings down our costs. If we don't meet our SLAs, the clients are not happy and we get billed or fined. Every minute an application is down is costly for us. However, I don't think it has reduced our staff. We have a dedicated team for disaster recovery. While it doesn't cut down on the number of team members, It makes our jobs a lot easier.

Near-synchronous replication is an extremely powerful feature because it's like a mirror environment with almost real-time replication. Everything in my production environment is mirrored in the Zerto environment. I want the two to be as close as possible. 

If you have a disaster, we don't want your data to lag too far behind. You don't want to be an hour or two days behind. When you recover an environment in Zerto, the data is current.

I would like to see some graphical improvements in Zerto's interface. There's an option to export a list of all of our servers, but the information isn't presented the way we want. We want it in a specified sequence broken down by region, etc. We can't manipulate the data when we export it. Maybe they could change it to look more like an Excel sheet, and we can customize the graphics and data. We suggested these improvements to Zerto through their portal.

We've been using Zerto for six or seven years.

It's highly stable. We've had no issues. We haven't had an incident or any problems with Zerto being unavailable or maintenance that would cause an outage on our side. If anything is happening on Zerto's side, we're not affected and that is great.

We haven't seen any limitations so far. Zerto is constantly upgrading its products. There are upgrades every five months or so. They're constantly tweaking and making the product better.

I rate Zerto support nine out of ten. It's excellent overall. We've only had one issue in the past six or seven years. I think the person was maybe new to the team.

They prioritize calls based on severity. If the issue is affecting our environment and we can't get anything done, they'll escalate the ticket and help us immediately. If we just have general questions or a concern that isn't severe, they still respond quickly.

Positive

We previously used a site recovery manager from vCenter. It's effective, but it requires a lot of manual steps, especially when we deal with databases and so forth. Zerto is quicker, more efficient, and easier on the eyes. I'm a huge fan. 

We started using Zerto because vCenter required more steps to failover our environment. Zerto does all the steps that we would normally need to do manually, reducing our recovery time and procedure steps. Something that previously took 45 minutes takes Zerto 10 minutes.

The other solutions are still in place. We use vCenter and NetBackup for our legacy systems.

Zerto is user-friendly. When I set this up six or seven years ago, I knew nothing about Zerto. It was relatively straightforward to go from the vCenter SRM to the Zerto environment. It's intuitive, so I can log onto Zerto and figure it out without having to take a class or official training. I can log on and navigate through the screens. If I get stuck, Zerto support is always available.

There were two of us who set it up. I'm in the US, and the other guy is in the Philippines. He initiated it, and I finished it. We completed it in one day, but I don't remember how many hours it took. We did a quick check the following day to ensure everything was in line.

I contacted Zerto recently when I upgraded one of my environments to version 9. I had some general questions because a few of our VMs were not syncing. I was getting an error message because the recovery didn't progress, so I had to reach out to Zerto support. We actually figured that out on our own, but they pointed us in the right direction.

We tested one product for two or three months, but I can't think of the name of it. Zerto was easier for us to dive into and pick it up quickly. The leadership of the disaster recovery team made the final decision along with management. I don't know if cost played a factor, but Zerto was more efficient and easier to use. It was exactly what we needed.

I rate Zerto ten out of ten.

Our primary use case is for seamless migration to our client's cloud environment, ensuring a non-destructive migration with minimal downtime. We focus on cloud adoption and migration, and Zerto assists with the smooth migration of client workloads to the cloud environment. 

Additionally, Zerto provides disaster recovery solutions, data protection, and ensures minimal disruption during migration.

Zerto has significantly improved our organization's IT resilience by ensuring security, protecting against ransomware, and enabling seamless cloud migrations. 

It has enhanced our flexibility, ensured reliable recovery, and minimized downtime. 

Overall, it has increased our ROI by helping secure our digital ecosystem and improving client satisfaction.

The most valuable features of Zerto include its simplicity, ease of use, and automated features like failover and failback. It facilitates hybrid cloud and multi-cloud strategies, providing seamless migration with reduced risks. Zerto automates the complexity of manual tasks, which is beneficial for streamlined operations.

Zerto could improve by offering more flexible pricing models, especially for startups. In the Indian context, cost is a concern for many businesses, and a pay-as-you-go model would be beneficial. Additionally, more cloud support is needed beyond the major providers like AWS and Azure, such as support for Alibaba and Oracle Cloud.

I have been using the solution for three years.

The solution is stable, straightforward, and reliable. It consistently performs well in recovery situations.

As a large enterprise, we find the scalability of Zerto to be very good. It effectively supports our extensive use across many users.

I rate the customer service and support highly. They provide assistance with initial setup and other issues promptly.

Positive

Previously, we used different solutions like vMotion and NetBackup. We switched to Zerto as it provides faster recovery and minimizes recovery time, which was a limitation in the previous solutions.

The initial setup was smooth and straightforward, with the support team providing help, particularly in configuring work storage.

Our ROI has increased by about 15% since implementing Zerto.

I would rate the pricing, setup cost, and licensing around a seven on a scale of one to ten. The pricing model could be more flexible to accommodate startup companies with lower budgets.

Zerto is adaptable and straightforward, making it easy for new users to adopt. The solution has significant advantages in recovery and offers good scalability.

I would rate Zerto an eight out of a ten.

We use Zerto for replication.

We implemented Zerto to help with the high bandwidth required for the live application replication.

In my minimal experience with Zerto, the near synchronization replication is good.

Zerto does a good job of blocking unknown threats and attacks.

Its easy-to-use application server has helped our organization improve its bandwidth.

Zerto has made disaster recovery in the cloud much easier for us than in physical data centers.

We've seen significantly faster recovery times compared to other recovery tools we've used, like Carbonite.

Zerto makes it much easier for us to conduct and manage our DR testing.

The replication feature ensures minimal downtime during disaster scenarios.

Zerto's failback capability automatically recovered one of our live applications after it disconnected.

Zerto helps us monitor our disaster recovery.

Zerto's user-friendliness is valuable. It's easy to use.

It would be great if Zerto could automate replication more.

I have been using Zerto for four months. I joined the company when they were already using it.

I would rate the stability of Zerto ten out of ten.

The technical support is good.

Positive

I also use Carbonite but Zerto offers faster speeds.

The deployment of Zerto took a few weeks.

I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.

We have over 300 clients using our web applications.

We rely on Zerto for data recovery and cloud migration as our primary disaster recovery solution, especially since we lack a dedicated backup data center. Zerto's ability to block ransomware attacks and facilitate rapid server recovery provides us with significant peace of mind.

This comprehensive solution extends beyond processor recovery and data center capabilities. It also encompasses application testing and on-site data protection, ensuring comprehensive coverage in the event of any incident, including ransomware attacks.

We implemented Zerto to mitigate concerns about cyberattacks and data breaches. Zerto functions as a robust multi-layered defense, safeguarding our data. Even if an attack breaches the initial layers, Zerto allows for rapid recovery, ensuring minimal downtime and continuous synchronization with the production server.

In terms of data protection, Zerto enhances business continuity by promptly reporting any encountered cyberattacks. This allows for timely notifications and, critically, prevents the disruption of running production VMs. This real-time monitoring and reporting prove invaluable in the event of threats, facilitating swift recovery efforts.

Our recovery time now is less than 30 minutes.

Zerto's CDP has had a positive impact on our overall data recovery.

Zerto's near-synchronous replication operates in near real-time, enabling data replication with minimal to no data loss.

Our repeated use of Zerto's immutable data copies has significantly enhanced our trust in our backup and recovery procedures.

Zerto provides real-time notifications and reports, which help us prevent unknown threats.

While cloud platforms offer their own security and backup features, Zerto provides an additional layer of protection for our data in the cloud.

Google Cloud Platform provides primary security for our virtual machines. Additionally, Zerto provides us with granular reports that help us focus on specific areas to ensure further protection.

While I haven't had extensive experience with other DR solutions, Zerto offers impressive recovery speeds.

The migration is not complex.

Zerto has helped reduce downtime by over 50 percent.

Zerto has sped up our recovery time by over 20 percent.

We have been able to reduce the number of employees involved in data recovery situations by five.

I like the ease of recovery and backup the most.

Disaster recovery is the most valuable for ensuring minimal downtime during a disaster scenario.

The technical support response needs improvement. They need to treat us more as a partner.

I have been using Zerto for seven months.

I would rate the stability of Zerto nine out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of Zerto eight out of ten.

We contacted the support team by email and tickets during the data migration but received limited response.

Neutral

Previously, we relied on backups from GCP, AWS, and Azure. We transitioned to Zerto because it offers granular reporting capabilities, which helps us keep our managers and non-technical personnel informed.

The initial deployment took a few weeks.

The pricing is reasonable.

I would rate Zerto eight out of ten.

We have 500 people in our organization that use Zerto and it is used in multiple regions.

Zerto requires moderate maintenance, handled by a team of five.

We use our custom dashboards to manage and monitor our disaster recovery plans. These dashboards receive emails automatically, allowing us to take necessary actions as needed.

I recommend Zerto for data backup and recovery, as it also helps mitigate the impact of data corruption or deletion.

We are using it for disaster recovery of their Tier1 Critical SAP HANA systems and a few other workloads in the lanscape

Zerto provides near-synchronous replication, but more importantly, we can see the status at seven seconds, six seconds, five seconds, and four seconds when we log in to the Zerto console. I found that amazing. There is probably no other disaster recovery solution available in the market that is providing this functionality. It is great and definitely a huge plus point for Zerto.

We do get alerts if suspicious activity is detected on a VPG, but we did not get an actual case where there was ransomware or any other kind of attack and we had to prevent that. I have not come across that with either of my clients, but we do get alerts when Zerto finds something suspicious. We go in and look at it. In some instances, because the application was writing more files, Zerto marked it as suspicious, but we never had to do recovery for security reasons.

We use Zerto with AWS as the target. We do the failover of the on-premises VMware virtual machines to the AWS cloud. I do not deal with the implementation. I only do the administration of the tool, but whatever I did as part of AWS administration in Zerto, it was pretty seamless and straightforward. I did not get any issues there. The documentation is helpful in identifying any issues.

We have about 70 virtual machines that are being protected by using Zerto. Zerto has drastically improved our RPO. It was 15 minutes previously, whereas now, it is in seconds.

Zerto has not had much impact on our RTO. RPO has changed, but RTO has been the same for us.

Zerto has not helped to reduce downtime in any situation. We have only done tests. We have not done any actual production failover because there was no need. Similarly, Zerto has not saved us any recovery time because we never had a requirement to do a recovery since we implemented the tool. It is a pretty new environment for us, so we have not had time.

Zerto has not reduced the number of staff involved in overall backup and DR management. It has remained the same for us.

The simplicity of use is valuable. It is easy. We just click Failover and do it. It is pretty straightforward. If someone wants to do a test failover, they log in to the console and do a test failover. 

As a power user, I find the customization lacking. I feel it could be customized a little bit more, but Zerto is simple to use. It is easy to use. That is my main reason for using Zerto.

I would like to request better reporting in Zerto. I can see the data that I need in the console, but if I need to put the data or the history into a report, it is difficult. It is something that auditors might require, so reporting is something that needs to be improved.

The UI does crash a lot, and that is something that can be improved.

It has been about three years. I support multiple clients with multiple backup and disaster recovery products. I was a Storage and Backup engineer, but now, I am covering the solutions for the entire infrastructure. I work on Zerto for multiple clients. We have two clients who are using Zerto as a disaster recovery solution.

The UI does crash, but it does not affect the functionality of the software.

It is scalable. There could be 10 machines or 100 machines. I did not find any issues. It is pretty scalable.

There were some issues for which we had to get responses from them. They were pretty much on the point. There were no issues. The response time was a bit slow, but their support was pretty good. I would rate them an eight out of ten.

We used to use Azure Site Recovery to protect all of the production instances, SAP databases, some file servers, and some basic application servers. We used to first replicate to Azure and then do a test failover and a production failover. It was a bit slow. The RPOs and RTOs were not that great, and the rate of change that Azure Site Recovery supported was not completely meeting the business requirements. The third part was that Azure Site Recovery was not application-agnostic. What we loved about Zerto was that it was application-agnostic. It did not matter to Zerto what was running behind the application. It will replicate everything across any cloud. That was our main point for going for Zerto.

Zerto was also much easier. Azure Site Recovery was a little bit hard to set up and maintain, but Zerto is pretty straightforward and easy.

I did not find much difference between Zerto and other solutions in terms of the speed of recovery. The RPO is great, but when we do a failover, it is basically the same as any other solution.

Zerto has not replaced our legacy backup solutions. Our legacy backup solution is in the same place. We are only using Zerto for DR.

Our environment is hybrid. We are using Zerto to protect our on-prem as well as the cloud environment, but I was not involved in its deployment. 

In terms of maintenance, I never had any requirements to maintain it.

Evaluation was done by someone else in the organization.

I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten. Simplicity is an advantage, but customization and reporting can be better.

Implementing failover to a secondary data center is crucial for ensuring business continuity in the event of primary data center loss. This strategy involves automatically redirecting operations and services to the secondary data center when the primary one becomes unavailable. This not only minimizes downtime but also enhances overall system reliability. 

The failover process requires robust synchronization mechanisms to ensure data consistency between the primary and secondary data centers. Regular testing and monitoring are essential to validate the effectiveness of the failover mechanism and identify and address any potential issues proactively. 

In summary, failover to a secondary data center is a strategic measure to safeguard against disruptions, offering a resilient solution for maintaining seamless operations in dynamic and challenging environments.

Zerto has significantly enhanced our organization's resilience and data protection capabilities. Its real-time replication and failover features have played a pivotal role in minimizing downtime during unexpected events, ensuring business continuity. 

The platform's automation and orchestration capabilities have streamlined our disaster recovery processes, reducing manual intervention and accelerating recovery times. 

The point-in-time recovery options provided by Zerto have proven invaluable in mitigating the impact of data corruption or accidental deletions. This has bolstered our data integrity and provided a safety net against unforeseen data-related issues.

The live failover tests and point-in-time recovery options have been exceptionally valuable features of Zerto for our organization. Conducting live failover tests allows us to validate the effectiveness of our disaster recovery setup in a controlled environment. This feature ensures that all components are in place and functioning as expected, providing confidence in our ability to respond to real-world disruptions. 

Additionally, the ability to choose a specific point in time for recovery down to the seconds is crucial for data integrity. This granular control allows us to roll back to a precise moment, mitigating the impact of data corruption, accidental deletions, or other unforeseen issues. It adds a layer of precision to our recovery process, minimizing potential data loss and enhancing overall resilience.

The product could benefit from improvements in automation, specifically in the area of failovers. Currently, the process is largely manual, and introducing automated failovers after a certain time threshold would enhance efficiency and responsiveness. Automated failovers can reduce the dependency on manual intervention, allowing for quicker and more proactive responses to disruptions. In the next release, the inclusion of scheduled or automated failovers would be a valuable addition. This feature would empower organizations to set predefined parameters and triggers for failovers, ensuring a timely and automated response to potential issues. It not only streamlines operations but also adds an extra layer of reliability to the overall disaster recovery strategy.

I've been using the solution for six months.

We did not have a solution before.

We had great help from the company in terms of setting up our environment.

We implemented through a vendor; I'd rate the experience ten out of ten.

Anything is the worth the cost for virtually no downtime. Time is money.

We did not evaluate other options.

It is a great solution overall, however, it could use some upgrades with automation.

We utilize the solution for our primary backup and recovery source. We use VMware for all of our servers. 

With the ease of integrating with our complete virtual infrastructure, it is nice that we can replicate easily between our HQ and DR sites. 

The flexibility in utilizing the test environment to allow production servers to be test restored with no interruption to the actual production server in use is really nice for quick and efficient testing. 

I highly recommend it for companies using virtual infrastructure.

The product allows us to restore to any given point within 15-20 second increments, including just files and whole servers. 

It allows us to efficiently test restore and restore files that were accidentally deleted within seconds of the deletion, giving the option to have the most up-to-date file restored with little to no data loss. 

It also allows reporting on the results of the testing, which can be provided really easily for board reporting, as well as auditing. There are many great features for sure.

The LTR function has by far been the best feature to allow us to retain our backups for at least a year. Also, it allows us to have full monthly and weekly incremental backups for that year, which can be restored or even just files from that period. It has come in handy for those accidentally deleted files. 

It also helps us keep our required retention period for specific documents and allows us to recover older documents if we have to compare and recreate those.

We would like the LTR function to be able to retain the past 12 months. Before the update to version 9, we could do this in the GUI. I am hoping that in version 10 (which is on the roadmap to be installed), this feature will return in the GUI to provide an easy way to lengthen our retention. The journaling can also be a problem at times. Also, I'm not sure why, however, retention processes randomly fail and have to be rerun periodically.

We have been utilizing this solution since 2017.