HPE Zerto Software Reviews

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.

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.

We have two data centers, so we use HPE Zerto Software for site recovery. We fail over, run out of one data center, then we fail back and run out of the other, and we do failover testing. 

We were using VMC on AWS with VMware replication. The challenge was it had a five-minute RTO and we wanted something faster. At the time, HPE Zerto Software didn't support VMC on AWS, which was actually our first choice. Then we had a mandate to build a new data center.

We wanted both physical locations, so we went that direction and decided to go with HPE Zerto Software. We wanted something that we could fail over quickly, have minimal recovery times, and make sure that we could come up quickly. We use the move feature in HPE Zerto Software probably the most, moving from data center to data center. It allows us to meet with our compliance regulations to test our DR site and run in our DR site with seamless operation.

We've proven a few times that we can fail over within a very short window, and it works very well. Our RTO with HPE Zerto Software is less than five seconds. It is extremely important. We work in the financial industry, and being able to fail over and know that we can bring that server up within a very short window and that the data is going to be accurate means we're not having to go back and rework a day's worth of data. That's what we wanted and that's what we got.

The failover test option in HPE Zerto Software is the most valuable at this point since we can validate that things are going to come up, that the data is valid, and then tear it back down without having to interrupt the users. 

It's extremely easy to use HPE Zerto Software. 

Our first failover test went flawlessly. We failed over our entire data center, approximately 200 VMs in half an hour - very fast. This last fast failover, we ran into a couple of hiccups. Working with support, we found we need to do more testing in between our main failovers since we've actually had an 11% failure rate of things not coming up. They advised us to test, validate, and then resync if needed, so we're learning from it.

We haven't experienced any ransomware yet with HPE Zerto Software. Regarding time savings, it has definitely been beneficial. Once we've got it set up and can manage it, it really is a time saver.

We haven't had a situation where we've had to use it to reduce downtime. Comparing it to our other failover solution, the speed is notable. We used to schedule an eight-hour day to do this, and now we're scheduling a half an hour, which saves us significant time on weekends.

Regarding RTOs and RPOs with HPE Zerto Software, we can look at it and know exactly where every VPG is regarding recovery time. The speed to move it over and bring it up is extremely efficient for us.

The solution has helped reduce our organization's DR testing. Previously, we would isolate our DR and test in a defined bubble just to validate the data was there and users could access it. Now we can fail it over to our backup data center and actively run there. We can fail it back and run both locations in an active-active mode with HPE Zerto Software, which we hadn't been able to do before.

It has allowed us to trim the team down and focus on other tasks without constantly worrying about disaster recovery. We know it's there and we can validate and test it through our monthly procedures.

When we did our test this year with HPE Zerto Software, we had some failures that we weren't expecting. The challenge was realizing there was data corruption, and fortunately we found it before we committed the failover, so we could fail back. We could resync it, and we weren't in an actual disaster. If there's any way to validate that data on the recovery site without having to manually go in and do failover testing and try to validate, that would be a feature that would be really nice. We're not sure why we had some corruption, however, we did the resync and it seemed to bring it back up and fix the problem. That's probably the biggest area I'd ask about - some way of validating the recovery sites in an automated fashion.

We started using HPE Zerto Software in April last year.

We haven't had any crashes or performance issues with HPE Zerto Software, except trying to figure out why we had some data corruption. Overall, it seems to be functioning very well. Support's biggest recommendation was that we just need to do more failover testing and validate.

We have not expanded our usage of HPE Zerto Software.

The customer support I received from HPE Zerto Software has been very good. I haven't had any complaints about the support we receive. I would rate it a nine or ten. When I ask them a question, they give me a very quick response.

We were using SRM before selecting HPE Zerto Software. From attending different conferences, HPE Zerto Software was where I wanted to get to, however, at the time, our disaster recovery site wasn't allowing for it. Comparing SRM to HPE Zerto Software, I really prefer using HPE Zerto Software. It's easier to group, set up. I can see really quickly what things are doing and I feel a lot more comfortable that things are working.

Setup was extremely fast, and we had the system up and running within a couple of days. Our biggest hold-up was getting the network configured correctly. For training, we were able to take some online courses that got us up to speed very quickly.

During the setup for HPE Zerto Software, we were working with a technician who could walk us through it and that worked really well for us.

Since we just got HPE Zerto Software, our pricing didn't seem too high. Our renewal is next year.

We used SRM before adopting HPE Zerto Software to address similar needs.

My rating for HPE Zerto Software would be ten out of ten.

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.

We use Zerto at a very large public sector undertaking in India that manufactures power equipment. 

It is being used for continuous data protection, replication, and recovery. We have a consolidated data center in Hyderabad, India, and we are replicating the data to another data center in Hyderabad. For replication and continuous data protection, we are using Zerto between both sites.

It simplifies management. The console provided by Zerto is very simple to use. With the click of a button, we can do the failover and failback.

It helps with business continuity. We can easily failover from one site to another and back. We are able to do most of the operations very easily.

It does asynchronous replication. When the data gets modified in the main data center, the modified data is immediately replicated to the other data centers. It helps to maintain minimum RPO in seconds and the RTO in minutes.

We have a number of virtual machines for databases, application servers, web servers, Internet servers, and proxy servers. We are using Zerto for the complete replication of these VMs to the other data center.

Our RPOs are in seconds, and our RTOs are in minutes. That is critical for the applications. Earlier, we were using another replication software from IBM. We did not get the same RPOs and RTOs. Zerto is helping us a lot in preventing data loss. The data loss is minimal. It is only in seconds. This is a very important feature of Zerto, where it maintains RPOs in seconds and RTOs in minutes.

In November 2024, we faced a ransomware attack. With the help of Zerto, we were able to identify the journal entry that was malicious. Zerto gave us an alert, and we were able to identify the clean copy by going backward. We went back a few seconds. It maintains journal entries every five seconds, so we were able to identify a good copy of the data. We were then able to do the failover. Because of Zerto, we had minimal data loss. We were able to identify a good copy of the data and do the failover to the main data center.

With Zerto, we have become more resilient and scalable. We were able to scale from a few VMs to about 250 VMs. Our scalability has improved a lot because of Zerto. The ransomware resilience feature has made us more resilient. We chose Zerto over VMware Site Recovery Manager because VMware Site Recovery Manager did not have the ransomware resilience feature. In November 2024, when we faced an attack, with the help of Zerto, we were able to recover within seconds with a minimum amount of downtime. We were up and running quickly.

The features I find most beneficial about Zerto include continuous data protection, easy configuration, and simplified management with a user-friendly interface. We were able to configure it easily for our needs. Continuous data protection between our two data centers is also valuable.

I also like its scalability and flexibility. We have scalability from a few virtual machines to more. We can increase the number of VMs according to our requirements. Zerto scales very easily with our increased number of VMs.

Zerto also provides ransomware safeguards. While doing the continuous data replication, Zerto creates journal entries. When the data gets transferred to the other site, Zerto checks whether the replicated data is malicious or clean. If it is a good copy, it makes a journal entry. If there is any malicious code, it immediately gives an alert. We are very happy with this ransomware protection feature of Zerto.

Its pricing could be better. Also, Zerto needs to improve its reporting capabilities and provide better dashboards. A number of times, I had to contact Zerto for more reports. They are very customer-friendly. They helped us and gave us some customized reports, but its reporting capabilities could be better.

I have been using the solution for about two years.

It has improved scalability significantly. I was able to scale from a few virtual machines to about two hundred fifty virtual machines.

The support team is very customer-friendly. When I raise a ticket, they respond quickly with minimal waiting time. I often get a call within half an hour. Their customer support is reliable and fast.

Positive

Previously, I used some other replication software from IBM but did not achieve the desired RPOs and RTOs. This led me to choose Zerto.

The deployment was very easy. With a few clicks, we were able to configure Zerto for both of our data centers in Hyderabad. It was very easy to configure. It has a very intuitive classical user interface. The configuration was done with minimal clicks.

In about one hour, we were up and running with the first replication. We were able to do the first replication within an hour from our main data center to our secondary data center in Hyderabad. It is efficient and reliable.

Its maintenance is being taken care of by Zerto.

I am the main database administrator, and two of my colleagues also participated. Three of us were involved.

Zerto is definitely more costly compared to its competitors, such as VMware Site Recovery Manager. It may not be suitable for small and medium-sized industries.

We considered VMware Site Recovery Manager but did not opt for it because it did not offer the ransomware resilience feature like Zerto.

Overall, I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten. The software is exceptional in terms of continuous data protection, resilience, scalability, agility, and ransomware protection.

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.

We use it for disaster recovery, replication, and backup.

We were able to see its benefits immediately after we deployed it. I used it to move sites. It is a good tool for transferring from one site to another. It does the configuration on its own and the site comes online seamlessly. You just have to commit to it, and it comes online and no one even notices it.

We create a job, which is a VPG, and we tell it to replicate it to another site. I live in Philadelphia. If Philadelphia gets attacked, we could shut it off and then go to the site that it replicated over and turn that on. It will just work as if nothing happened.

All the RPOs are less with our infrastructure because it is VM to VM in less than five seconds. We have never had a spike in our RPOs.

The recovery time of each VM is less than three to four minutes. Once we send a job over, it starts doing its thing. There is an auto-commit button, or we could time it to how much time we need before commitment. Once we bring up a VM and it reboots, we will see all the changes made, such as the IP address. If we go to DNS, we can see that the DNS entries have been updated with the new IP. We then commit to it, and it just comes back online.

Zerto has helped us reduce downtime. In just about five minutes, we are up. We had one incident with a Windows patch update to a server. The server could not come back online. We went in and recovered the VM right before it rebooted and got it back online. It had the same IP and other things, and everything was fine. Even though there was a slight downtime, we were able to get it back 100% before the reboot, and then we took off the update.

Zerto has saved us time in a data recovery situation due to a vendor mistake. We use a vendor for patching. The vendor accidentally mistyped something and took down a couple of servers because of this registry. We were able to get all the VMs back online. It took about three minutes per VM. When we used Veeam, depending on how much data was there, it took us about 45 minutes to an hour.

Zerto has reduced our organization's DR testing. We send it to a DR site from prod and then back to us. It goes from prod to DR and then DR to back in less than ten minutes. We did a DR move. We had about 15 VMs. We moved all the VMs to a different site. We then moved this actual site to a different location and then moved everything back. It did not take that long compared to Veeam.

Zerto has had a positive impact on our IT resiliency strategy. I have never had a problem. The product works very well. Their support is always active. They are willing to solve any problem that you have. Each time I have spoken with them, they have helped with every question to make sure our infrastructure is running well.

The most valuable feature for me is the replication. If I need to fail over sites, it can be done quickly, in less than five minutes. Each backup is implemented in five seconds. If we were attacked, I could revert to a backup from five seconds before the attack, and no one would know we were attacked. 

Once it is implemented with the vendor, they show you everything. Everything is very simple and easy. Replication and Restore are the buttons to focus on. It is all there with just a couple of clicks. It is simple. It is laid out simply so that you can understand it quickly.

I would suggest improving automatic updates. Their software requires updating level by level to keep it current. I was unaware that I was several versions behind, so I needed assistance to guide me to the current version.

I have used the solution for about a year and a half.

It only crashes if there are insufficient resources on my ESX box, which I discovered after overloading it with too many VMs. When the Zerto job tried to run, it crashed due to a lack of resources. I consulted with tech support, and we determined the solution was to move the main workload to a resource-available ESX box. After double-checking, everything has been running smoothly. Having good equipment ensures stability.

Scalability is tied to our vSphere environment. By adding more hosts and installing VRAs on each, tasks can be efficiently managed. Increasing the number of hosts allows for more VMs, depending on licensing. The bandwidth is also strong.

I would give their support a ten out of ten. I deal with support often, and online ticket creation yields a quick response. They understand what they need, and I provide it. They analyze the logs, suggest changes, and everything works well.

Positive

We used Veeam, which is more in-depth and requires extra steps for recovery. With Zerto, I just log on to the GUI and click what I need. For a live VM backup or replication, it takes just a few clicks, which led us to choose Zerto over Veeam.

Zerto is the easiest one that I have used. In terms of pricing, it is way better than Veeam.

Our MSP used Zerto to do a project for us. I was in the meeting looking at what they were doing. It seemed so simple to use. I asked them if they could compare this to Veeam, and they said that this is way easier than Veeam. With Veeam, you have to log on to the actual backup program. You have to go to the job that you are looking for and right-click it. There are about six steps after that, whereas in Zerto, when you go down on the bottom left, with just two clicks, a menu pops up, and then you are done with another three clicks.

It is on-prem. It is VM to VM. We are also thinking about a third solution, which would be on their site. Right now, we have VM to VM, but we have two NAS for hot and cold storage, so we are using everything that they offer at the moment, but we probably might head down more in the future.

The installation process was new to us as we started from scratch. After that, it was simple. Installing the VRAs involved pointing to ESX boxes. The NAS storage connection is simple; I just enter the IP address and credentials, and it links via SMB. I just create the job, point it to its destination, and it is ready.

Deployment was handled by one representative and me. I am also responsible for managing it.

In terms of maintenance, it requires manual updates.

Its pricing is way better than Veeam.

My advice to new users is to become more familiar with it. Once you start using it, it is easy to pick up and manage.

I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten.

Right now, I am using it for disaster recovery and file recovery, with all the different components of it. It is just site-to-site replication from one site to another. I have done server moves, and I will also do server moves in a couple of weeks.

I use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. That is 100% of my use case. It helps us to commit to the recovery point as per our standards. Our RPO is under five minutes for everything I have got in there unless there is a sync happening at that point in time. It has greatly reduced RPOs and made them stable and knowable. 

Our RTOs are even better. We are also a Cohesity customer. Our tier one, two, and some tier three are in Zerto. For everything else, the plan is to bring it out or restore it from the backup in case of a DR or an event where there is an issue with the server. We know that bringing something online in Zerto is dramatically faster. It is a night and day difference. Restoring everything from the backup would take days or a week, whereas with Zerto, as soon as I make the change, everything will automatically come online at my other location. For example, I have a file server that is 50T. Restoring that from the backup took three or four days, whereas in Zerto, we can flip it over, and it would be up and running in seconds. 

Zerto helps us reduce downtime. If something happens and we need to bring a server up that is in Zerto, it will only take the amount of time required to commit and make sure that everything is functioning as expected, changing or updating IPs and names, and making sure that is good to go. It takes five to ten minutes. 

For auditing and other things, we can do a controlled VR test where we bring up all the necessary components in an isolated bubble with networking for just that bubble and bring it online. We can test SQL Servers, Exchange Servers, Active Directory, connectivity, authentication, and applications. We can bring it all online in that bubble while production is still going on without impacting anybody. In the event that we flip the switch and have to go, everything is going to work. In addition to meeting auditing needs, we have been able to refine the process so that in the case of an unfortunate event, we know we will be able to do it. We will be able to do it quicker than coming in cold and having never tested it or done it. 

Zerto has had a big impact on IT resiliency strategy. We know that as long as our boxes are protected by Zerto, we are covered. We will be able to spin a box up at our remote DR site and bring it online. It will be functional, and all the data will be there. It is not just about fulfilling an audit request; I sleep better at night knowing that we are protected, the data is there, and there are not going to be any issues. Zerto has near-synchronous replication. It works very well. I have been fortunate enough not to have to use it in a production environment, but I have used it to restore files. 

From the server moves, I know that I can cut over in a couple of seconds and all the data is there and ready to go. There is no lag. There is no waiting. I just have to update the IP and register that in DNS if the IP changes, and it is good to go. It is fantastic.

What I like most about Zerto is that it makes my job much easier. I have peace of mind knowing that it works. The replication time and the minor amount of time it takes to sync a new server outside of any of my huge 40-terabyte boxes is ridiculously quick. When I add a server, it is there in 15 minutes. I know it is protected. It is fantastic. There is peace of mind knowing that the workloads I put in there are protected. It is very easy to use. In day-to-day usage, it is very simple and easy to set things up or monitor it. I check it every morning and keep track throughout the day of what is going on and if there are any issues.

I am an advocate and a fan of the product, and I have had great success. The only negative I would give is that with the latest version of the appliance, setting up authentication was a bit of a challenge, but that is just a matter of using Keycloak and how things have changed. Other than that, I have had no complaints.

I have used the solution for seven years.

I have had no complaints. It has been running very well.

I have contacted customer service many times for various issues. Overall, they have been good, and I would rank them in the higher percentile of the support I have dealt with. Sometimes, I have had to get through a couple of techs or work solidly with somebody, or I have not fully explained the issue correctly. Once we get on the same page, the issue has been quick and easy to resolve. Nothing has hung up for too long. 

I would rate them a ten out of ten. I have never had an issue that was not resolved, and I have never been in a situation where they did not respond. They are very responsive. They do get back very quickly. That is another very nice thing. It is not like Microsoft where things go into a queue and disappear for weeks at a time or a week at a time. They are also knowledgeable.

Positive

The initial setup was very easy. The documentation was good. I am a stickler, so rather than giving Zerto full rights, I went through the vCenter and allowed just the rights that were specified by the documentation. Those have always been correct, and I have not had an issue. 

The actual implementation of the software went smoothly, bringing everything in. I remember upgrading it. We had a major revision from Windows to the Linux appliance, which was not a full redo, but it was a pretty major changeover. Things are done differently there, and documentation for everything, except authentication, worked very well, and we have had no issues. 

It does not require much maintenance from our end. We mainly need to take care of upgrading and verifying any issues. The software itself runs fine. Every once in a while, I may have too many servers on the same host causing an issue and overloading the VRA. I just separate things.

Overall, I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten. The software has been awesome. It has made my life easier and my sleeping at night better.

Currently, my main use case for HPE Zerto Software is for failover. We have a site in Salt Lake City and another data center in Oregon. We fail over from this site to that site, verify, and fail things back. This is its main purpose as of today.

The feature of HPE Zerto Software that I appreciate the most is the ability to pick and choose what to fail over and when to failover. It is really easy to build a new zone and add servers, as well as remove them.

An example of how the features of HPE Zerto Software have benefited my organization was when we lost a circuit. We have a primary circuit from Salt Lake over to Portland and a backup one that runs through several different sites. We actually lost the main one and had to failover. Because most of the servers are in Salt Lake City, we had to replicate those back over to Portland because that is where they make the money. I had a few minor hiccups, but it was not our fault. It was just bandwidth, but we now have a larger pipe. That was a happy accident when we discovered why it was not going any faster - we were maxed out.

I find HPE Zerto Software to be pretty intuitive as it is, and I have nothing to suggest for improvement.

I have been using HPE Zerto Software for about four years now.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I would rate the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software at about 20. It just works.

HPE Zerto Software scales with the growing needs of my organization. The only issue I have ever encountered was when our developers grew busy and expanded their applications too quickly for licensing. That was resolved with a simple phone call. We received the new key by end of day after discussing how many additional licenses were needed.

I would evaluate customer service and technical support for HPE Zerto Software as exceptional. They listen first, then ensure they understand the problem before providing multiple solution alternatives. Having been in computing for almost 35 years, they are one of probably two or three companies that truly listen first.

I was using another solution to address similar needs prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, but I am not sure what it was.

My experience with pricing, setup, costs, and licensing for HPE Zerto Software has been positive. The installers were knowledgeable and completed the installation correctly the first time. When we upgraded from VMware 6 to version 7, we needed to install a new agent. When it did not work initially, technical support quickly resolved the issue with specific instructions in just one call.

I have seen an ROI with HPE Zerto Software through faster recovery. We are getting closer to the five nines. Having the confidence that if something happens, our documented steps will work is invaluable.

I have personally used Veeam before selecting HPE Zerto Software, but having only been with the company for five years, I am not sure what solutions were used before that.

HPE Zerto Software is important to my organization because when performing replication, both systems remain functional during failover until the final switch. This results in virtually no downtime.

HPE Zerto Software has helped reduce downtime by at least 25% through faster recovery. For instance, if we lose an image, we can quickly recover it and power the VM back on, which is much better than retrieving a golden image that could take hours.

The solution has impacted my RTOs and RPOs significantly, saving me approximately two hours per day. It has also reduced our DR testing frequency from every other month to twice a year.

Regarding Cyber Vault solutions, the most important capability would be the ability to isolate a server immediately after a ransomware attack to investigate the incident.

My advice to other organizations considering HPE Zerto Software is to consider its ease of integration. It integrates seamlessly with various networks and works especially with HP infrastructure. The support from both HP and HPE Zerto Software teams is excellent.

I rate HPE Zerto Software 10 out of 10.