HPE Zerto Software Reviews

Our systems are primarily Windows-based, but a big portion of the organization also runs on AS/400. About 40% of our systems are AS/400.

We use Zerto to replicate data from a primary data center to a secondary data center. In the previous incarnation, we used Zerto to replicate our secondary data center and also Azure because we were looking to start moving more and more things to Azure. We were considering Azure to have someplace where we could run some of our critical systems in the event we did not have much capacity in the secondary data center or it just made sense to leverage Azure for a particular application.

Zerto’s near-synchronous replication works very well. Most of the time, our systems are running about three seconds behind the primary, which is something most people are not going to complain about. It also has the ability to take you back to a point in time where everything is in sync. You can start from that point and maybe lose a couple of transactions as opposed to a typical backup environment where you could lose hundreds of transactions as a result of an outage. It can help revert systems to a specific point in time, providing continuity where data loss is minimal compared to traditional backup solutions. 

We saw the benefits of Zerto right away. It gave us the confidence that if something happened, we would be able to restore our data. A notable benefit is the ability to conduct failover testing in a virtual environment. We can confirm operations without affecting external users. The software audits its processes, offering detailed reports.

Zerto has also continued to upgrade features, including Secure Vault and tools for immutability, enhancing ransomware protection, but a hardware change is required to fully benefit from Zerto's ransomware solutions. We have to go with their hardware versus what we are running. We can take advantage of some of the things that they do to help with ransomware, but we cannot get all the way there without switching the hardware.

We use Zerto to protect virtual machines. Our RPOs have moved. Prior to Zerto, and at different places, we have used other solutions such as Pure Storage or IBM replication solutions. Most of these solutions tend to have an RPO of minutes or more, whereas, with Zerto, we are looking at an RPO of less than ten seconds or something like that. That was one of the big differences we saw. It is also an integrated solution. You move the entire environment as opposed to some of the other environments where you connect to the storage, and then the storage is doing the replication. At the point at which something fails, you have to reconnect servers back up to the right hardware before you can get started in recovery. With Zerto, your recovery time goes down, and your RPO becomes much better.

The recovery time or RTO is much better with Zerto if you have the right bandwidth and other things. If you have an issue with latency or bandwidth, you may see those RTO numbers go up a little bit. Generally, RTOs are much better.

We have not seen Zerto reducing downtime in any situation. We have not necessarily seen an improvement there.

In terms of time savings in a data recovery situation, we went through a ransomware event at the last company. I have seen Zerto help from a ransomware perspective because one of the things that Zerto does is it maintains a whole bunch of snapshots as it goes along. In a ransomware situation, you can go back to the time before you were hit by the ransomware. You can go back in time and recover those servers. You can scan them to make sure they do not have whatever malware was installed for the ransomware, and then you can recover.

Zerto has had a huge impact on our resiliency strategy. It allows us to be able to leverage our secondary data center for a major event. It also frees us up to do more things in the local environment such as leveraging SQL Always On.

Zerto has not helped us to reduce overall DR testing. We would like to do more testing with Zerto, but some folks are very comfortable with just Zerto saying everything is okay. On the other hand, Zerto has been able to help us increase our testing where we could not do it before. That does not mean that we are satisfied with where it is. We would like to do more with it.

I appreciate the real-time nature of Zerto. It continuously copies data, maintains synchronization, and allows rapid recovery of key systems. In most situations, the recovery delay is approximately six seconds, minimizing data loss. It gives us the ability to recover without losing a bunch of data.

Additionally, it facilitates migration between environments. We are in a business that does a lot of acquisitions and divestitures. That can be tiring, but Zerto makes our path smooth because we can use it to replicate something to another location and then bring it up there.

When it comes to failover tests, we would like to be able to take that extra step to shut things down and see what it looks like at the other site versus just doing it in a virtual environment. That is one thing I would push back on them. I would like the ability to perform actual failovers more easily compared to our current process. In the event of an issue, we can switch and bring back servers smoothly, but when we do the tests, currently, Zerto's test failovers are virtual. We cannot get end users to come access those systems. I would like to be able to do a test where we failover and rebuild the network connections so that end-users can hit that center or server and test. Improving testing capabilities would be advantageous.

When it comes to deployment, one improvement could be being able to visually see virtual private groups and server names. Although the reporting is comprehensive, occasionally, people use long names that do not display fully on the monitoring page. Despite this minor issue, deployment has been easy, and we rarely need support.

I initially explored Zerto around 2018. That was when I first became aware of it and initiated a pilot project. It was not until around 2023 that I began working in an organization actively using it.

I have not observed any instability. Occasionally, systems might run out of space, which is a common issue in any setup. However, the software alerts us effectively, allowing prompt resolution. Overall, I have not seen any stability issues with the system.

I believe Zerto scales quite well. In our current environment, we manage around 200 servers, with licensing that supports up to 500. Scaling is largely about expanding compute and storage capacity. There are no significant barriers to scalability with Zerto.

They have support, but we do not tend to need support from them. They have a lot of good material online to learn about the product. For the most part, it just runs and does not complain about anything.

I have not personally contacted technical support. In my previous organization, other team members, one of the four or five colleagues, reached out to tech support.

I have used and explored several solutions, including Commvault and NetWorker. We have also used Rubrik, which effectively manages storage across data centers.

We constantly monitor available technologies to create strategies for using Zerto alongside others like Rubrik and NetWorker. We use Rubrik for certain things and NetWorker for other things, but without Zerto or any of the others, it would not work. Zerto's development aims to substitute some tools by enhancing functionality. They continue to work to add functionality that could then help us eliminate some of the other tools that we are using because we can get the same functionality out of Zerto.

It is extremely easy to deploy. The deployment is straightforward. Once the virtual replication appliances are connected to the environment, the system is ready to start. After licensing, replication begins.

In this particular organization, it was deployed before I got here. At the previous organization, it took a few weeks or a month. We had to set things up and wait for some storage. We then rolled it out. The actual rollout was something that was done overnight, and it was relatively easy to do.

The maintenance that it requires includes upgrades to the latest version of the software. There might be features that you want that are not available in the current version. Overall, the system just runs itself, but you may get an alert that says that this particular system has gone out of bounds of its RPO. You can go in to find out the problem. You might need to add space to the journaling system so that it can get back up again.

We had a team of probably four or five individuals handling the implementation.

We have always been able to get the pricing worked out. At this new company I am right now, we are doing well. We sometimes go through a third party to help us with pricing, but Zerto is fairly decently priced, especially when you consider some of the other solutions that are out there which could be very expensive.

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten.

It is part of a new deployment. We have a large deployment for the public sector in the UK, and we are using Zerto to enable disaster recovery by replicating data. This allows us to have a very low recovery point objective for that data.

Zerto is easy to use and fairly straightforward to set up. It reliably keeps the data in sync which is all that we can ask of it. It does what it says on the tin, and that takes away any worries. We know that we will be able to recover as we are contracted to do.

Having Zerto in place takes a headache off my plate. I do not have to worry about it. I check it, or I have my team check that it is up to date and synchronizing. All they have to do is log on, have a look, and confirm that we are okay and have green lights across the board. It is very easy to understand the interface.

Unfortunately it does introduce another headache. Trying to add licenses to the deployment, in order to expand our DR facility has proved to be a nightmare. Over a month of back and forth with HP. The licenses are purchased and good but adding them to a current deployment seems impossible and the process just falls into a black hole.

Zerto has given us confidence in our IT resilience strategy. We had similar strategies in place with the previous infrastructure. We completely renewed our entire infrastructure and replaced it with HPE backend and SAN. Zerto is the recovery solution. We have a lot of confidence that it will work if called upon with the licenses we have.

Zerto is quite straightforward to use. It is quite easy to set up. Getting it right is a bit more complex, but setting it up is quite straightforward. 

It seems to be very reliable, and it consistently keeps our data synchronized within ten seconds or so, which gives our customers confidence that the data synchronization and replication will allow for a very low recovery point objective.

The onboarding was not very good. It felt like, "Now you have Zerto, good luck. Figure out how to use it." It was not terrible. Their support since having the product has been good when I have had an issue, but there was not much of an onboarding process. The setup of the system, although simple to get working, is a little more tricky to get right. This aspect could have benefitted from a bit more explanation. As noted the addition of licenses is apparently very difficult and takes a lot of work with HP support (over a month so far and not resolved).

I have been using Zerto for about a year an a half.

It is stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.

So far, and just my experience, very poor. I purchased a license count I needed at the time (with some overhead) and now wish to expand the count. Having bought the licenses HP seem unable to get them applied. This causes us issues which we have no control over.

Our environment has about 400 virtual machines. It is not massive. We are an application provider. We provide a purchasing and inventory management application set to our customers mainly in the UK public sector. Our clients are large organisations. They are health care and local government organisations.

I have a team of eight people. They are not daily involved with Zerto. Only four people are daily involved with Zerto.

Poor. for the reasons stated.

We used another replication system prior to this, which was the old EMC RecoverPoint. It was very good as well, but we had a change in technology. We shifted our technology to HPE for various reasons, and Zerto was the offering that came with their data synchronization.

Overall, it was straightforward. I did it myself in the afternoon by figuring it out myself. It took us a few days to get it right and then another couple of days fiddling with it, but it was under a week.

It requires very little maintenance on a day-to-day basis. It requires monitoring to ensure that you are not running out of space. Once you have got those space parameters right, it pretty much looks after itself unless there are significant changes.

We update Zerto when a new version is available. At that point, we schedule an update.

I managed the deployment initially, but it has now been handed off to a team.

It is too early to say. I think it will eventually prove beneficial by saving us time and eliminating the constant worry of checking these things.

Having seen the product and how it works and its reliability, it seems it will pay for itself.

Nothing is cheap, but Zerto represents decent value. Licensing I have covered - seems there are a lot of issues (even recognised on the HP support page)

I would recommend Zerto. It seems to be a very good product. It appears to be stable, and it is a simple product to manage that gives us peace of mind. 

I would rate Zerto a seven out of ten. The product works but I have spent too much time on it trying to resolve licensing issues to give it a higher score.

My current use cases for HPE Zerto Software include site-to-site and site-to-cloud.

HPE Zerto Software has saved me time in data recovery situations due to something like ransomware because we have protection against it. Due to the logging functions, we can go back in time and bring systems up a day before or a day after. We have been able to avoid ransomware issues with HPE Zerto Software.

HPE Zerto Software has helped to reduce our organization's DR testing.

The features of HPE Zerto Software that I have found most valuable are the copy capabilities, specifically being able to copy a VM over to another site and bring it back up if I have an outage. I used HPE Zerto Software recently to go from cluster to cluster, and I was able to move VMs seamlessly. 

I find HPE Zerto Software very easy to use. Going in and being able to copy the VM makes it very efficient.

Near-synchronous replication makes it pretty easy for me to move things on the fly, so I can be up within about 10 minutes. Being up in 10 minutes is important for me because if we're not up in that timeframe, we have users complaining and calling.

HPE Zerto Software could evolve to where, instead of me having to push a button, it can detect disasters on the fly and automate disaster detection.

I have been using HPE Zerto Software for about a year.

HPE Zerto Software is really stable. I haven't had an experience where I've had downtime.

HPE Zerto Software scales just fine with the growing needs of my organization; it's gone from a small test group to a larger test group with no problems.

I'd give their support a ten out of ten. 

Positive

The support team was really great. Everything was configured, and out-of-the-box configurations were seamless.

I have seen a return on investment from HPE Zerto Software, already just moving from data center to data center. Just moving the things over from one spot to another with no outage time, or very little outage, reflects how I've gotten the return on investment.

The licensing and setup costs have been reasonable.

I didn't consider any other solutions before selecting HPE Zerto Software. It was given to me.

I would rate HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten.

We are using Zerto as a DR solution. We also utilize Zerto when we have to migrate any servers from one location to another.

Previously, we were using VMware Site Recovery Manager, and we were not happy with the services we received. There were lots of issues. Since implementing Zerto, we have been happy. We are not seeing any issues with the services. Zerto's support is also excellent. If we encounter any issues, we open a ticket, and they are available all the time.

When we implemented Zerto, we were not sure how things would work. We have a DR test or maintenance window every quarter. During the first window, when we did the DR implementation through Zerto, we found it to be very helpful. Previously, we used to manually take screenshots for DR evidence, whereas now, we can generate a report from Zerto. After the DR, it tells everything in detail such as when a VM was moved, what the procedure was, and how much time it took to consolidate from the primary site to the DR site.

When we had an issue with a legacy application over the weekend and users reported it on Monday, we had to revert the VM to a snapshot from eight hours prior. We could do that easily. This is an excellent feature. Zerto allows us to select a custom recovery time. For instance, if no one checked the server yesterday because it was a holiday and we needed to restore the VM to the day before yesterday, we could do that quickly. Zerto helps address downtime situations effectively.

Zerto has reduced the DR testing time. Previously, it took three to four hours, including app testing, but now it gets completed in one hour. 

Zerto is excellent. It is the primary and only solution we are using in our organization.

The constant replication between the primary and the DR site is valuable. Zerto's near-synchronous replication is excellent.

Zerto is very easy to use. A new team member can pick up the pace in one or two days. Someone who has never worked with Zerto can understand it in one week. It has a user-friendly graphical user interface. Everything is well described.

I have one recommendation, but I am not sure if it has been addressed in the current or upcoming version. The challenge we faced occurred during a DR for a database server running on SQL Always On. We experienced a database crash and logged a case with Zerto about a year ago. They said that they do not support Always On. As a result, we had to plan accordingly. We deployed another server to that location with Always On and moved all the database servers out of the Zerto application. We are uncertain if Zerto now supports Always On because we have not explored that option. We have a couple of environments on the cloud but have not tested if that feature is available or not.

I have been using Zerto for the last four to five years.

We have experienced no issues at all.

I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten for scalability.

Zerto's support is excellent. At the time of implementation, the support was slightly delayed because there was only one way to log cases, which was through the portal. They provided us with a few articles to refer to, which helped us address the solution.

Positive

We had VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM), which was very difficult to manage. Sometimes, we faced replication issues. When performing a failover, the network was not stable. There were many issues, including dependencies on the storage area, requiring the storage team to be available during DR tests. The network team also had to be available, involving multiple teams. With Zerto, we do not need the involvement of the storage area or network teams.

It was easy. Initially, we took help from Zerto support because we were not sure about the configuration and best practices. We received help from Zerto.

The challenge was not from Zerto's perspective; deploying VMs where we were going to install Zerto took some time. We had dependencies on aspects such as VMs not being ready. The deployment of only Zerto took less than eight hours.

We reached out to Zerto for any support.

One person can handle the implementation, but if that person is not available, it creates challenges. Whenever we undertake projects, it is between team members. One person deploys, but everyone is involved so that everyone is aware of what is being done.

Currently, it is good, but the license we are using is based on VM count. We are only protecting mission-critical servers, so we are using a very low number, about 300. However, we have 3,000 or more servers. If we consider using Zerto for data protection, it would cost us more than what we have for data protection now.

For new users, Zerto used to offer free training and certification. I am not sure if it is still available, but it was available. Anyone planning to deploy Zerto can get support from Zerto and should go through the basic training, which is free on the Zerto website. They can get certification and reach out to Zerto support if needed. Having a basic understanding of how Zerto works is important.

Overall, I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten because we do not have the functionality to protect our database servers that are on Always On.

We use Zerto for disaster recovery between our private data centers.

Near-synchronous replication is the primary reason we chose Zerto, as nobody else is able to meet the same replication times. We have some special contracts, so Zerto is the only one that can meet those contractual requirements.

Zerto has had a significant impact on our RTOs. We have probably reduced our RTOs by 70% to 80%. Previously, we relied on manually replicated backups that we had to restore from, resulting in significant RTO compared to Zerto.

We use Zerto to help protect virtual machines in our environment. When it comes to recovery, if other solutions take five minutes, with Zerto, we can usually get them up in under a minute. Our RTOs are much quicker on Zerto. It is probably 20 seconds on Zerto versus an hour with others.

We have had multiple live disaster recovery events where Zerto saved us a lot of downtime. We have not had any ransomware situations, but it has saved us time in generalized data recovery.

Zerto has helped reduce DR testing. For the customers for whom we use Zerto for disaster recovery, we usually do DR testing once a month, and it takes us probably two minutes to run those DR tests. With other solutions that we use for our wider customer base, it takes us about two days to go through all of our DR testing.

Zerto has had a significant impact on our IT resiliency strategy. The tier-one customers that we use Zerto for have very strict requirements for their disaster recovery capabilities, and Zerto is able to meet those contractual obligations pretty easily.

We were able to realize its benefits immediately after the deployment.

The low SLA times are valuable. It is very easy to use with a straightforward user setup.

The biggest area for improvement is the technical support side. Although it has improved somewhat, after the HPE acquisition, it became apparent that level-one technical support was moved to groups unfamiliar with the Zerto product. As experienced users of Zerto, when we need to open a ticket, dealing with level-one technical support can be tough. We often need to escalate immediately due to our internal skill set surpassing level-one support capabilities. That is the biggest complaint we have with Zerto.

We have used it for roughly five years, possibly six years.

The solution is very stable, especially in the newest version. There were some challenging times shortly after the HPE acquisition, likely due to engineering changes. However, the newest version is incredibly stable, and we have no complaints.

We have not had to worry too much about scalability because we have a fairly limited implementation.

Once past level-one support, the experience improves because we then interact with people familiar with the product. I am assuming that the level-one support is generalized HPE technical support, and they are relying on Zerto Runbooks to be able to help us. They do not have a lot of familiarity with the product.

For the quality of support, I would rate it a seven out of ten.

Neutral

Before Zerto, we primarily used Veeam, but we needed faster RTOs for tier-one customers, who had contractual obligations for RPO and RTO. At that time, Zerto was the only solution that provided the necessary speed. The rest of the industry had not caught up. Currently, we use Cohesity for everything else, but for customers with stringent standards, we rely on Zerto.

Zerto is definitely easier to use from a GUI standpoint and is very straightforward for automation. It is a one-click solution for us to do our disaster recovery events.

Its initial deployment is very easy. We recently did a deployment of version 10 for our VMware 8 deployment. We completed it in a single day, taking approximately three or four hours.

It requires maintenance but it is very infrequent. We need to make manual changes to our Zerto environment maybe once a quarter.

Just one person handled the implementation.

I am not very involved with the pricing, but from my understanding, it is fairly expensive for us. This is why we limit its use to our tier-one customers. We have other disaster recovery solutions for our other customers due to the cost.

It is pretty straightforward. I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten.

My main use cases for HPE Zerto Software are disaster recovery and replication.

The features of HPE Zerto Software that I enjoy the most are the ease of setting up the protection groups and the ease of doing testing, such as failover tests. 

The near-synchronous replication is crucial as we don't want any data loss, which is critical.

The quick setup of disaster recovery environments helps streamline our DR testing.

HPE Zerto Software has reduced both my RTOs and RPOs. Its recovery speed is much faster than other disaster recovery solutions and much easier to use. I can recover one of our tier zero SQL servers and have it up and running in under ten minutes. If I were using one of our backup products, that would take hours.

It has helped to reduce the time it takes for our organization's DR testing, reducing it by days. The big benefit is that I can set up that environment and people can test, but if something happened and we needed to redeploy that environment, it's very quick and easy. It has reduced the overall time for the DR testing, including the testing process to make sure the applications are working.

HPE Zerto Software, as far as the replication, had near-synchronous replication, which made our RPOs better. It was easier to use, easier to recover from, so it was far superior for that purpose. Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, we were using our backup system to test DR.

I don't have any recommendations regarding how HPE Zerto Software can be improved or what additional features should be included in the next release.

I have been using HPE Zerto Software for a year and a half, about 18 months.

I have experienced issues with downtime, crashes, and performance with HPE Zerto Software. When we first deployed it, we were replicating to AVS, and we've done DR tests where we've left that test environment running for a significant period and had issues with the amount of storage space it was using. Sometimes the VMs become unstable when they're running too long.

HPE Zerto Software scales well with the growing needs of my organization because we haven't had any issues there.

I would evaluate customer service and technical support for HPE Zerto Software as good. Any case I've opened, they've been very responsive. I would give them a ten out of ten. They're very responsive and knowledgeable. They've helped me with all my issues.

Positive

I found the deployment to be easy.

My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for HPE Zerto Software was great. It was not overly expensive, and deployment was easy. 

Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, I considered Rubrik, which has orchestrated recovery plans, and we've tried using those. HPE Zerto Software was much easier to use.

The solution has not helped to reduce downtime in any situations. 

The advice I would give to other organizations considering HPE Zerto Software is to do it. If you need a good recovery product, HPE Zerto Software is fantastic. 

I rate HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten.

My main use cases for HPE Zerto Software are business continuity and disaster recovery.

The features of HPE Zerto Software that I appreciate the most include its core function, where I can replicate near instantaneously, which guarantees that I have X RTO, Y RPO, and that actually works. 

The core functionality is what's beautiful about it.

HPE Zerto Software Analytics enables me to see my entire global real estate from one SaaS portal—that's powerful. We are still less than a year into using HPE Zerto Software, currently in the deployment phase, with the plan to have a unified global deployment. It will be a cookie-cutter template for every single site, where based on the application's criticality, that type of provisioning is determined. HPE Zerto Software would automatically inherit the workload, protect it, and create a DR for it. 

HPE Zerto Software also works based off of tags, in an automatic fashion, saving a lot of time for my engineers where they don't have to babysit a tool, as it automatically takes care of itself.

HPE Zerto Software's recovery speed to other disaster recovery solutions shows that it's superior. The native technology is stream-based replication, instantaneous replication, whereas the other technologies I've used in the past are purely snapshot-based, which impact the production. HPE Zerto Software is transparent, as the production is not impacted, and it's a live write to a destination.

My impression of HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication is that it's a great technology, and that's what we're really counting on for the DR teams.

We're still in the process of reducing our organization's DR testing. We anticipate that, since, it doesn't impact production, we should be able to test more frequently on the DR side.

An improvement I would like to see in HPE Zerto Software is the ability to start protecting bare-metal configurations, as today it only handles virtualized workloads. I would love to see some progress in bare-metal protection. Several bare-metal use cases also need similar RTO, RPO, and business criticality thinking, which would be fantastic if HPE Zerto Software ventures into the bare-metal space.

I have been using HPE Zerto Software for less than a year.

We haven't had any challenges so far, so it's pretty robust. There have been no downtime, crashes, or performance issues with HPE Zerto Software.

HPE Zerto Software scales with the growing needs of my organization, as the licensing model is pretty good, and I'm happy with what I have, leveraging economies of scale through my team, making it positioned for us to match our scaling and buy more licenses as we grow.

I evaluate the customer service and technical support for HPE Zerto Software as satisfactory. We have a virtual TAM with a lot of experience in the space, and we have frequent meetings with the technology team, plus the customer support is also very responsive.

Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, I was using another solution to address similar needs, specifically RecoverPoint for VMs and VMware Live Recovery, which I plan to replace. I'm also familiar with Rubrik.

The factors that led me to consider a change were the core architecture, where one solution utilized snapshot-based replication while another used stream-based replication, and HPE Zerto Software's approach is more effective than snapshot-based replication.

The way its architecture is formatted, deployment is fairly easy for us to get started. We can get set up and be production-ready very fast.

My experience with pricing, setup, costs, and licensing for HPE Zerto Software was pretty good and in line with what I expected.

Before HPE Zerto Software, I considered other solutions such as RecoverPoint for VMs, VMware Cloud on AWS with the VMLR tool, and a few other industry-standard options, mostly snapshot-based, and a few replication-based, but HPE Zerto Software was the better of all of them. What stood out with HPE Zerto Software is that when making a purchase, it's a combination of great technology and the price matching my expectations, so HPE Zerto Software fit the bill in both cases, which is why I went ahead and purchased it.

Regarding expanded usage of HPE Zerto Software, it's too soon to tell if we will, as we've been using it for less than a year. 

I rate HPE Zerto Software overall as eight out of ten. 

I won't advise other organizations since everyone has to evaluate their own footprints to understand what's the right fit for them. 

Our main use case for HPE Zerto Software is for DR purposes—that's disaster recovery—for our separate DR site.

What I appreciate about HPE Zerto Software is that it seems fairly easy to use, and there are a couple of minor challenges that we figured out. We also found ways around those. 

The way HPE Zerto Software specifically benefited us is that when we've had to do some testing to show we can actually bring things up in our disaster recovery site, we're able to do it with relative ease, allowing us to check off boxes on testing for either auditors or some of the other cyber insurance or whomever else that we need to validate that through. It made it a lot easier and gave everybody else a sense of comfort.

HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication is great, just based on the small timeline that's there; that's what I found to be most beneficial. Near-synchronous replication is very important to our organization as it gives us that safety and security blanket of knowing that the data is being mirrored or replicated up to another environment, so in case we were to have some kind of disaster locally, we would at least have another copy sitting somewhere else within a very short period of time.

HPE Zerto Software has helped reduce downtime in some situations; we haven't had to use it officially to bring anything back up, but we have tested numerous times throughout the year for different applications to see how long it takes for us to bring things up, and while we haven't had to actually use that in place just yet, we know it's there if certain things happen.

HPE Zerto Software has saved us time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes; we've been able to utilize it just for doing some work with it. But we've also found that certain situations will not work for us since we haven't finalized the air gap vault in place, and we know that using some simulated ransomware attacks would cause problems, so we wouldn't be able to recover. That's why we're looking and trying to see what we can do to mitigate that issue.

In testing, I wouldn't be able to come up with a number right now as we take our time to ensure we don't miss anything. Usually, we can normally do that within a day. HPE Zerto Software has definitely impacted our RTOs and RPOs positively; they have come down considerably.

In comparing it to other disaster recovery solutions that we've used in the past, I would say that since we own and use HPE Zerto Software, it clearly beat out any of the competitors we had looked at previously. We're not yet using a cyber vault solution or immutable data copies. I can't say how HPE Zerto Software can be improved just yet; I want to see us get the vault in place first to test that out, so we're hoping to look at it here sometime soon. Our DR testing will probably save about 50% of the time.

The only thing I could suggest for HPE Zerto Software would be better support for detached drives in a clustered environment, as it's currently not supported very well unless everything's running on a virtualized VMDK file. If it's detached an iSCSI drive, it doesn't work, so that would be about the only thing I would suggest.

We have been using HPE Zerto Software for six to seven years.

HPE Zerto Software has been stable and reliable every time we've had to go through it thus far.

HPE Zerto Software has scaled with us thus far.

The support we've received from HP Zerto has typically been very good, and they normally answer any questions we have; we're looking at a couple of gaps we found, and we'll be testing that out to see how that's going to meet our situation.

Positive

Prior to using HPE Zerto Software, we weren't actually using anyone for a similar type of situation; we were relying on backups.

For the most part, it's very easy to set up, and the time it takes for it to keep things in sync is very small, which has also been a huge benefit. We've seen that work out very well when we've had to test part of our DR situations.

I've seen a return on investment with HPE Zerto Software. I've been able to see that return based on the time it saves us for recovery and testing for DR testing.

I can't say what those competitors are since we've had HPE Zerto Software for about six to seven years now, and I don't remember which ones they were at the time.

Initially, HPE Zerto Software has helped us deal with many challenges. We have had a couple of bouts where it did cause a problem, however, part of this is due to the fact that we haven't implemented the new air gap solution yet, so we run into some difficulties there. We are reevaluating that through our rep and also talking to them now just trying to get more information on that.

Our deployment model for HPE Zerto Software is all on-prem; we keep everything on-prem with our primary data center to a disaster recovery location located out of state.

On a scale of one to ten, I would give the product overall a big nine, probably over nine; it's not perfect. There's always going to be some pieces that are missing.

We use Zerto primarily as a cloud provider to set up either ground-to-cloud or cloud-to-other cloud sites for disaster recovery. 

We also use it as a migration tool to get people's virtual VMs from ground to cloud. 

Another use case is to protect our virtual machines in our environment. We have our own internal IT, and we protect them with Zerto, but the vast majority, probably 98% or 99% or even more, of what we do is with customers since we're a cloud service provider. As a service provider, we're not classified as an MSP. We do resell Zerto to our clients.

What I appreciate about Zerto is the speed to recover. We have two ways that we migrate them into the cloud: one is with Zerto and one is with Acronis. Acronis is a bare-metal restorer that takes much longer to do the restore, depending on the size of the VM. 

I appreciate that Zerto already has the disk synchronized to the cloud, and it just updates deltas every five seconds or so. Should there be an instance, such as a migration, or if the customer has been ransomed, or if they want to roll back for any reason, they can do it because we have their data in the cloud. 

When I was an IT manager, our RPO and RTO were measured in hours or days; now it's measured in minutes, which is huge for disaster recovery. 

The interface and ease of use of Zerto make it easy. We're getting into version 10 now. The version 10 update 4 took really long to deploy, and we had to back off and do update 2 because that seems to deploy much quicker. 

Other than that, it's pretty easy to deploy and manage; we can set it up through Zerto Cloud and update it remotely. 

I see the benefits of Zerto immediately after deploying it. As a former IT manager, when I saw what it did, it was a revelation, and I thought this is excellent for disaster recovery. Zerto's near synchronous replication is fantastic. It helps our RPO and RTO and is beneficial all around. In terms of RTO and RPO, Zerto improves them to seconds. It indicates right in the health of the VPG how many seconds the RPO or RTO is. 

Our DR testing with Zerto is much quicker. We encourage our customers to do testing so they get familiar with recovery processes. We maintain a playbook and a method of procedure, and every test adds something new to the MOP, improving how quickly we can resolve any disaster. 

Zerto has a significant impact on our IT resiliency strategy. We do it for customers, making all the difference in the world. It's not just about me as an IT manager using Zerto; as a service provider, we host people's data in the cloud for disaster recovery, making instantaneous recovery possible that wouldn't be as quick otherwise.

In terms of improvement, Zerto does reasonably with support and responds quickly to help us. I don't know if there's anything they could do better, but we'd prefer Zerto to work with our open cloud product for disaster recovery and migrations. So far, they haven't made their product compatible with KVM, and we would appreciate seeing that.

I have been using Zerto in my career for four years.

I haven't seen much instability with Zerto; it seems pretty stable overall.

Zerto scales efficiently; we have hundreds of hosts, with production and disaster recovery environments. We set it up to replicate, such as from Grand Rapids to Indianapolis or Detroit, so it scales pretty efficiently.

Zerto's support is reasonably good. If they know I'm on the call with a customer, they usually join a Zoom session quickly to help resolve issues. Sometimes it's resolved quickly, while other times it may take two or three sessions, but they're generally pretty good.

I use alternatives to Zerto, as I'm a Veeam engineer certified in Veeam. We use Acronis and Cohesity, but in my opinion, there's nothing that works for disaster recovery quite like Zerto. The main differences between Zerto and Veeam are ease of use and convenience. 

Veeam allows a restore of a server in a test environment while detecting any malware before connecting to the network, which I haven't seen in Zerto. Zerto just replicates what's there without evaluating for malware. Zerto is quick and easy to use while Veeam is more complicated but has more capabilities for backup. I haven't greatly used Veeam's continuous replication feature, but from my experience, Zerto is easier to set up and use, and it's less expensive as.

When I first deployed Zerto about four years ago, it took about 15 to 20 minutes to set up after the client had a Windows server ready. We'd give them the installer and set it up, then pair it with their hosts. After installing the VRAs and setting up the VPGs, once the first VPG is set up, we can do the rest without client involvement. Overall, the total time ranged from half an hour to 45 minutes, depending on how many they wanted to set up initially.

I'm a Professional Services Engineer, which means that I implement projects. When our salesman sells disaster recovery with Zerto to a client, I'm the one who sets it up, creates the VPGs, and ensures all the syncs work properly; the long-term maintenance is handled by another team.

Zerto has a significant impact on our IT resiliency strategy. We do it for customers, making all the difference in the world.

Zerto is easier to set up and use, and it's less expensive.

We use alternatives such as Acronis and Cohesity.

The recovery process depends on the customer. Zerto is one of those things that we set up and monitor, but if the customer isn't monitoring their VMs, it can complicate things. 

We had one customer who made a decision to protect only a few of their VMs and then got hacked, which wasn't Zerto's fault or ours; it was their decision.

However, for customers that have everything protected, we've had quite a few successful recoveries. There have been situations involving ransomware or data recovery situations when we used Zerto. I haven't personally been involved in one, but our company has had multiple incidents where we were able to recover without paying the ransom.

Zerto does require maintenance on our end. We register the client in the cloud, and if they move away from us, we unregister them and remove their tenant. We also have updates to do, including the Zerto virtual manager and the virtual replication appliances on the hosts. With hundreds of hosts and multiple data centers, we have a lot of work to do, which is why we have someone dedicated to updating Zerto. 

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Zerto a 9.

My original use case was to protect against ransomware and any critical failure in our infrastructure, and that has been carried through to the present day.

It is incredibly easy to use, which attracted me to the product. I have been doing IT for over 30 years, so it did not take me very long at all to learn it. That is a good thing because when you have a solution like this going in, you want to make sure that you are fully confident with it within a short period of time. The learning curve for this solution was very short.

Zerto’s near-synchronous replication is good. Previously, when I tried to do it at a SAN level, which was part of the SAN vendor's portfolio of solutions, I could never get it to work. It was not very user-friendly. It was complex and difficult to configure. In comparison to that, Zerto shines.

Over the years, they have brought in immutable backups. They have brought in cloud migration, though I have not used that due to the nature of the Azure tools I use, but I have used immutable backups. In the past, we replicated from our on-prem site to our data center, and then more recently, we replicated from our on-prem site to Azure. The next stage is to replicate from Azure to another part of Azure or another region.

Zerto has had a very high impact on our RPOs. The recovery is very fast. It is instantaneous. We have already got everything replicated on our remote site, so we can just fire it up. All we have to do is follow through the scripts to change it over.

Previously, our RTO was very much in the order of two days. After we implemented Zerto, it is in the order of an hour.

We put in Zerto in response to ransomware because I had to do quite a lot of manual jumping around. Hopefully, we shut the gate on that problem. We have a solution to utilize.

We are a small to medium organization. We did not do downtime testing before we had Zerto, but now we do. It gives me the ability to test. We never had that option of testing. Usually, you cannot test the system in real-time because you have to turn off the live, whereas Zerto allows you to do it with different VLANs, etc. We can spin it up and effectively test it out. If I was doing a manual test, it would have probably taken me two or three days. I can do that in maybe 15 minutes. There is a 20 to 30 times improvement.

Zerto has had an effect on our IT resiliency strategy. It has supplemented where we did not have a tool before.

The ability to test that my backup regime is actually doing and working as I want it to do is valuable. It provides visibility and comfort. I can see in real-time that things are replicating, and my SLAs for my RPO and RTO are available instantly. That gives a lot of comfort. It is the sort of thing that gives you peace of mind.

Some of the cloud instructions around VNets and peering of networks could be clearer with some best-case examples. It is more complicated once you move into the cloud than running it on-premises. Actually doing these things is quite easy in the cloud and with Azure, but understanding how it fits in my environment can be quite a head-scratcher at times.

I started using it in early 2016 and have continued until the present day.

I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability. I never had a problem with it.

It has been fine. It has grown with the business as we changed things around. It has been very flexible. I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.

Their support is pretty good.

Positive

I used EMC SAN. Zerto is 400 times better. The previous one just did not work. I bought the SAN with the intention of having recoverability with it, and I could never get it to work. There was relatively zero support. It does not encourage us to persevere with it. We just ended up using it as a SAN and moved over to another solution.

We currently have a hybrid setup because we cannot migrate in seconds. It takes quite a long time to pick a network and move it into the cloud. It is not as easy as you would hope when you start moving into the cloud. There is a bit of complexity. If you have a network with multi-subscription, multi-network, VNETs, and peers, it takes a little bit longer to try and figure out how to make it work.

Initially, when I first put it on-premises, it took me about a day to get it working. In the cloud, it took a few days to head-scratch through it.

It is currently running between on-premises and Azure cloud. We do not split by department. We are not big enough to do that. We run a centralized compute function for the entire business, so it is relatively straightforward and flat as a design. Everyone uses the same environment.

It is used by only IT people. There are six of us in IT, but only three people use it with me being the primary person.

It requires a relatively small amount of maintenance. They have moved over to Linux-based machines, so we no longer have to upgrade them. We can apply a very simple process to update the actual version of Zerto. It needs a little bit of maintenance, maybe for an hour or so a month. I do the maintenance. I just keep an eye on it.

It is difficult to quantify that. I have seen no return on investment because I do not calculate around that sort of thing. If we had any disaster, we would have used it for real and would have seen a massive return on investment. It gives me peace of mind. If I am happy, then the management is happy.

Zerto has not helped reduce downtime in any situation because we have not had any downtime. Most people like me hope we never have to use it. It is like insurance.

It is not the cheapest product; it is not the most expensive product, but it works. It is a mid-range product, and it is justified in terms of being pretty quick and easy.

I would definitely recommend it, especially for people who have no current method of implementing a disaster recovery solution. It is a quick and easy fix, and I would highly recommend it.

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten because we need a few more scenario examples when moving into Azure.