HPE Zerto Software Reviews

The setup is easier than most products, and for us as a cloud partner, once a customer is trained to create VPGs, they are good to go.

• The replication being log-based is awesome. 
• The VMDK can be preloaded to the remote site or allowed to come across the WAN, then the logs just keep flowing.
• You can set the number of days a VM can be rolled back in case of corruption or virus infection.
• Since the log files are continuously transmitted, the granularity of restores is amazing.
• You can practice failovers (start the replicated virtual machine at the remote site) while the logs keep stacking up. The replicated machine can be open for a few hours, but short times are best depending on how much data is changing.
• Files can also be extracted from the VMDK at the remote site even when the VM is off.
• In case of a disaster, a single mouse click sets the restore to the real failover; click the Failover button, the VM on the replication site is started, while the VM at the source site is shut down. Once up, reverse replication begins and stays in log replication until the systems are reverted back to normal via the same process.

An integrated encryption would allow for faster initial install and connection to the remote cloud site. 

Their offsite backup is a bit clunky, but it will probably improve.

No issues with stability. The delivered upgrades and major updates are stable.

No issues with scalability, it pretty much takes care of itself. One does have to watch where all the recovery site systems are located, to avoid running out of space on the datastores. We can control/move recovery VMs as necessary.

Awesome. Their helpdesk people are among the best.

The product needs a VPN tunnel from the customer site to ours. VPNs can be tricky depending on the compatibility of the hardware. The programs themselves are a snap, and surprisingly small.

Cloud providers get good pricing to encourage quick adoption. A new feature is the One-To-Many VPG allowing a VM to be replicated at up to three different locations, including local.

As a cloud service provider, we have many tools to satisfy the needs of the customer. We have used Asigra, Veeam, StorageCraft, as well as Zerto. Each has its strengths. The market is heating up because of CryptoLocker and other viruses.

There are many products on the market that perform Virtual Machine replication. The other products use Snapshot technology which can have issues with Hypervisors or large disk volumes. The datastore or shared disk (depending on Hypervisor) must have enough free space to allow the Snapshot to be open for as long as the backup runs. This can lead to crashes and consolidation issues, which are usually painful. Zerto is a log-based replication product, for that I give it a 10 out of 10.

I've been using it over a year now, and the product has kept improving. It is easy to upgrade to the next minor or major release.

In terms of advice, I would say become VPN, as well as VMware or Hyper-V, savvy.

Improved the DR RPO and BCP.

VMware VM replication over narrow WAN bandwidth.

It needs to support more public cloud, especially in China.

No stability issues so far.

No scalability issues so far.

Excellent.

No previous solution.

Very simple.

It's a little bit expensive.

Tested several other products such as NAKIVO, Veeam, VM Replication. Zerto proved to have better replication efficiency over WAN bandwidth.

It works only for a virtual platform, it does not support bare metal. If you're looking for a comprehensive solution for both virtual and physical platforms, then Veeam is a preferable solution.

In our case, we used Zerto Replicator mainly for DRP (Disaster Recovery Plan), but also for testing.

For example, journaling capability allows you to recover from a ransomware attack. Thus, it is not only used in DRP scenarios.

In addition, there are increasingly more environments (such as IBM BlueMix) that support Zerto replication, for public cloud contention environments.

Zerto allows RPO of seconds, without need of snapshots. It is agnostic to storage and allows journaling of up to 30 days.

For me, limiting the minimum licensing package for 15 virtual machines (VMs) is a issue. Not all environments (especially in Latam) start with 15 VMs.

No, not really.

No, not really.

The support is in English only, and I estimate it 4/5.

I know Veeam B & R and VMware SRM (along with vSphere Replication) and in environments with aggressive RPO, and non-reliance on snapshots, Zerto is a superior solution.

It is not really complicated, if you do a previous good design. Installation is non-invasive, does not require agents in the virtual environment.It is not really complicated, if you do a previous good design. Installation is non-invasive, does not require agents in the virtual environment.

The licensing is by virtual machines, start in 15, and grow in packs of 10. There is an annual support that must be contracted.

Yes. Veeam B & R and VMware SRM (along with vSphere Replication and storage-level replication) were evaluated.

It is important to have clear:

1. Required links between sites.
2. Available network (ideal network L2 inter sites).
3. Capacity for journaling (+/- 7%) in contingent site.

Zerto is used to provide real-time replication for the important virtual machines that my organisation uses to our Disaster Recovery (DR) site to ensure business continuity. 

The ability to test which virtual machines can be failed over to our DR site without interruption of our production environment. Being able to do file level recovery in case you delete a file accidentally or want to recover from a ransomware attack.

It allows for my organization to quickly recover from any disaster with very little downtime utilizing a user interface that requires minimal knowledge or experience.

I cannot think of any new features that should be added at the moment. With time, I should be able to make suggestions.

None whatsoever.

The only issue that I observed was that depending on the number of virtual machines that are being replicated, you will have to provision the appropriate bandwidth for the link that the replicated systems will traverse. Zerto gives you a bandwidth calculation estimate, but in my case that still was not enough to handle the volume of traffic being generated by our virtual machines.

10 out of 10.

We used to use Veeam Backup and Replication. We encountered some loss of connectivity with Veeam when we replicated some of our larger virtual machines that we hosted on our older virtual machine hosts.

It was straightforward and easy to setup. Once the software was executed, all that was needed was the basic environment details as well as the hypervisor information.

We implemented through a vendor team. They were very experienced and were able to provide detailed answers to all of our questions.

We expect to achieve a ROI within four years of the purchase. However, the ability to almost instantly failover and the fast file level ransomware recovering times give you that peace of mind that allows for low stress levels.

The setup will require that you have a domain controller and DNS at your DR site as well as a second hypervisor product (VMware vCenter Server/Microsoft Hyper-V) there as well. So, the additional software licensing will have to be factored into your operational budget. 

No, we did not. When we did our research, Zerto was the name that always came out as the market leader.

We use the ZERTO Implementation to pretend critical VM and Groups of VM (Application Consistency) from failing. The solution with ZERTO helpy us to TEST and Failover without pane. Installaion is based on local primary site and remote desaster site with a distance of a few 100km and a bandwith up to 30Mbit.

Managing the system is easy and reliable, you can choose any VM you want to replicate to your DR Site in Combination with other VM's. Testing a DR is easy and well reported.

Any business unit can define it's needs for SLA and the IT department is able to follow these needs with less management and overhead. If a problem occurs (like ransomware or db errors) IT department is able to roll Back to the right point without loosing productivity of other not effected VM. So for both business and IT it is much easier to use Zerto and profit from best function and best performance in these area of replication tools

Migration of complex VMware and Hyper-V solution. Using Zerto to replicate to azure and S3.

DR Solutions with less management and less space. Licensing of DR Site is not necessary until activation of VM. That are very good news for Db users.

As described above, only the WAN traffic regulation should be monitored, if it runs it works fine and absolutely stable

More VM more bandwidth over WAN, but this is normal. In competition with other replication tools, Zerto works well and compression is fast and stable. If you want to scale order license for it and go on.

Customer Service:

Really fast and helpful. The documentation is a good stuff to read before calling, most of the events are well described and could be solved easily by yourself

Technical Support:

very fast and very good

We uses before VMware Site Recovery. It is to complex and expensive at all.

Parallel to the primary replication tool Zerto, we are using VEEAM Always On Replication Version 9.5. It works but we can't replicate in the same manner as Zerto, because this tool works with events and they are queued so you will not be able to replicate in the same way as Zerto. Also the amount of VM's to replicate at the same time is limited to the VEEAM Environment of proxies. More Proxies more VM, but also more overhead and bandwidth usage.

It works fine for replicate a few times a day, but not in sec.

If you follow the documentation you need about 20 Minutes to first run of replication. This is fast and you can choose it if you want with the trail license from Zerto by yourself.

No we did by documentation and without external team.

Hopefully 50% less than with teh other solutions, we will have a look to it after a year production

Licensing is VM based so you can buy packages or single VM. Price is not low but the power of application is high, so you will get your money back, in case of Disaster situation. You will be so fast back in production and this is very rent-able for the business units you safe from outtakes.

Yes, Site Recovery and VEEAM Always On Solution

With the next generation Zerto5.5 they allow replication and production in azure, so cloud based DR comes reality.

Everybody who looks for alternative solutions in physical sync mirroring of data (Metro-cluster) should think about business needs and ABC (Application Business Continuity) Zerto can do it and helps you to keep business online with less cost than other solutions.

Replication of business critical VMware VMs over WAN to the remote disaster recovery datacenter.

The benefits are obvious: The simplicity of the setup and the speed of replication.

The speed of WAN replication is great. It is faster compared to RecoverPoint and 20 VMs replicating over a 20Mbps VPN, which has a RPO less than one minute. Of course, your mileage will vary.

Compared to the previous DR replication solution, Zerto has decreased both RPO and RTO significantly.

In Zerto for vSphere, it is a pain to remove the virtual appliance if for some reason you lose the host.

Make sure to understand how Zerto supports Microsoft/SQL Clusters - more of an advice to the companies thinking of implementing Zerto.

We primarily use Zerto Virtual Replication to protect groups of servers in our production data center, replicating them to a secondary site. We also protect essential test and dev servers.

I have also used it in a past role to carry out a datacenter migration project. 

The single pane of glass in Zerto Virtual Replication and ease of use is what makes Zerto different from other replication products that I have used in the past. You can clearly see if something is not quite right in your disaster recovery plan before you have an actual disaster.

Zerto has made Disaster Recover and Business Continuity Planning tests much easier and quicker. Even when doing 'Live' tests, we are able to confirm beforehand that everything looks OK. This means less time troubleshooting on the day of the test.

The product is improving all the time and I think the Zerto team have quite a good handle on things. I found the Local ZertoCON meetup/conference particularly useful to hear about different user cases. However, sometimes it feels like the QA is not great, as the previous two updates have been bug fixes.

It is easy to setup and manage.

Provides a simple interface for VM DR.

Needs compatibility with multi-tiered applications, such as Sharepoint, for testing.

One to two years.

No.

No.

Fair, depending on which location you get in contact with: They can be difficult to deal with and don't understand the product in which they are servicing.

Not applicable.

It is very straightforward. A simple wizard to install.

I didn't personally deal with the licensing structure.

You should evaluate Site Recovery Manager by VMware. It is more expensive, but works better.

Ensure you run an evaluation and test failovers to verify it will meet your individualized needs.