HPE Zerto Software Reviews

We are using Zerto as a disaster recovery solution.

We utilize Zerto for three replication scenarios: on-premises to on-premises, on-premises to cloud, and planned cloud-to-cloud replication.

Zerto is easy to use and implement, especially when performing a failover.

Zerto's near synchronous replication is valuable for our SQL database.

The benefits of Zerto were immediately apparent. After implementation, we quickly realized we were protected against any disaster. Zerto also provides visibility into the health of replication, allowing us to identify and address any potential issues.

Since implementing Zerto, we have observed a positive impact on our Recovery Point Objectives, which have been reduced by half.  Zerto's ability to easily group servers by application and configure protection groups streamlined our processes. Moreover, Zerto's support for on-premises to cloud replication is invaluable. We've leveraged this capability to replicate all systems to the cloud, establishing a robust disaster recovery solution. Zerto has proven to be an effective cloud migration and disaster recovery planning tool.

Our Recovery Time Objective determines how quickly we can restore our infrastructure. Zerto has been instrumental in reducing our RTO by enabling rapid recovery in any disaster recovery scenario.

Zerto has significantly reduced our downtime. For example, some servers have a recovery point objective of just five seconds. During disaster recovery tests conducted last year, we recovered 60 servers within eight hours, including server delivery, startup, and operating system verification by our team.

Zerto is our primary tool for achieving all disaster recovery objectives.

Zerto is a flexible and resilient business continuity and disaster recovery solution. Its industry-leading replication technology enables seamless data protection across cloud, on-premise, and hybrid environments.

Another valuable feature is the failover capability. Unlike many other tools we tested, Zerto allows us to perform a disaster recovery test without risk to our production environment.

Zerto's current reporting capabilities are insufficient for our needs. We require detailed reports to analyze the performance of our environments. To achieve this, we have developed a custom reporting solution using Zerto and other tools to thoroughly assess VPG configurations and overall environment health against specified parameters. Unfortunately, Zerto does not natively provide this level of reporting functionality.

I have been using Zerto for seven years.

Zerto is highly stable, and I do not recall encountering any crashes.

Scaling Zerto is easy. We just need to add additional virtual/appliances servers.

Zerto provides excellent support, but response times to our issues can sometimes be a concern, possibly due to the size and complexity of our environment.

Positive

We currently utilize both SRM and Zerto, but SRM's replication capabilities are limited to data centers, while Zerto offers additional cloud replication options. Unlike SRM, which is exclusively designed for VMware infrastructure, Zerto is compatible with other virtual platforms, providing greater flexibility.

Zerto is easier to use than SRM.

The initial deployment is straightforward. We only need to deploy a few servers to build an environment and start to replicate.

Deploying Zerto in a single region required three months. One contributing factor to this timeline was the time-intensive process of collecting Virtual Recovery Appliances and deploying them across 500 ESXi servers. A team of ten architects and engineers was dedicated to this project.

The implementation was completed in-house by my team and me. As the architect, I oversaw the project's planning, construction, and deployment. We consulted with Zerto to identify potential areas for improvement.

Compared to other options like SRM, Zerto is a more expensive solution, making it primarily suitable for larger organizations. Smaller and medium-sized businesses might find Zerto's cost expensive. While Azure Site Recovery is free for users of Azure cloud services, Zerto offers a broader range of features.

I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.

Our organization takes a unique approach to disaster recovery testing, conducting 15 tests annually to meet policy and audit requirements. Zerto is the cornerstone of our DR testing strategy, enabling us to validate between five and seven applications in each test.

Zerto requires ongoing maintenance and a dedicated person monitors it daily. However, we must still test and deploy updates into our production environment.

Potential users should be knowledgeable of virtual environments and clearly understand their disaster recovery needs, including the required replication type, desired recovery strategy, and whether Zerto aligns with their specific requirements.

We do many data-related activities for various government ministries in India. We use Zerto to back up and recover data in many training and capacity-building activities.

We implemented Zerto to address challenges with data centralization in our complex platform environment. Previously, pulling data from a central source was impossible due to the need to feed it into an internal location before deployment. This limitation hindered customization and integration efforts. Additionally, integrating our primary data source, previously used with IBM, into the new platform proved difficult due to compatibility issues. Zerto's capabilities were seen as a potential solution to these problems.

The remarkable benefits of Zerto have yet to manifest fully. The software operates efficiently without significant bugs or issues, and Zerto's customer support has been responsive. While real-time reporting is a standout feature compared to other trial products, its impact on our ongoing projects remains to be determined. A full assessment of Zerto's potential will require an additional six months.

Zerto has significantly improved our Recovery Time Objective, particularly regarding project timelines. The expedited turnaround during critical project phases has been instrumental in streamlining our processes. By accelerating these stages, we've reduced the need for additional developer resources and eliminated time-consuming tasks associated with establishing essential parameters and metrics. As a result, projects that previously took six months can now be completed in as little as four. This accelerated timeline has enhanced profitability and optimized resource allocation, allowing us to maximize project revenue.

Zerto has significantly reduced our disaster recovery testing efforts. By consolidating software and streamlining processes, we've dramatically decreased the required manpower. Multiple teams efficiently utilize a single platform, eliminating the need for disparate services and reducing costs. This centralized approach has markedly decreased the time and resources invested in disaster recovery testing and pre-testing activities.

Zerto's greatest strength is its speed. We never encountered lag or interruptions, even when working remotely from home or other locations with potentially limited internet bandwidth. The software's streaming performance was exceptional, without buffering or connectivity issues. This was a primary factor in our decision, as Zerto emphasized its ability to operate effectively on lower bandwidth connections during the initial demo. Deploying the software in any remote location is straightforward and hassle-free.

The primary concern expressed by all server users is the lack of robust integration features. While Zerto offers some integration capabilities, the smooth and efficient data flow between portals remains a significant challenge. The support and technical teams know this issue and actively seek user feedback, but progress has been slow. The current process, involving multiple platforms and a database management system bottleneck, is time-consuming and inefficient. Additionally, while reporting and dashboard features exist, real-time reporting and mobile functionality require improvement. The user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly. Customization, a critical requirement for government clients, is another concern. Implementing requested changes is often time-consuming and expensive, hindering adaptability. Addressing these integration, reporting, user experience, and customization issues is essential for improving customer satisfaction and retention.

Currently, Zerto only offers an annual subscription, but it would be beneficial to provide quarterly and semi-annual subscriptions to help retain clients.

I have been using Zerto for one year.

I have not encountered any performance issues, such as lagging or crashing. The system operates efficiently and reliably under various conditions, even with significantly lower bandwidth. Zerto has consistently demonstrated stability and high speed, ensuring uninterrupted application performance.

Approximately 50 to 60 individuals within our ecosystem utilize Zerto directly or indirectly. Given its operational efficiency, which I estimate to be between 95 percent, I confidently assert its scalability. While we haven't encountered a scenario within our ecosystem that necessitates testing its scalability limits, its exceptional performance thus far strongly suggests its capacity to handle increased demands.

Zerto uses a ticketing system and offers support through a help desk accessible via chat or phone. A dedicated technical team is assigned to address customer issues, which are typically resolved within 24 hours. We have not experienced any significant delays in issue resolution.

Positive

We find the Zerto pricing fits our budget.

I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.

Maintenance is required quarterly. The Zerto technical and business teams collaborate with us on the backend to remove all the repeated queries that make the system sluggish. This service is charged additionally.

I strongly recommend that anyone considering purchasing Zerto begin with the 30-day trial, which can be extended to 60 days. This ample timeframe allows a thorough evaluation of all features and functionalities. Understanding Zerto's customization and integration capabilities to align with specific business needs is crucial. Had I followed this approach and shared my feedback earlier, the outcome might have been different. Therefore, it's essential to fully explore the trial version before committing to an annual subscription. Close collaboration with the Zerto technical team is vital to ensure successful implementation. While sales teams often present an optimistic view, real-world experiences from existing users provide the most valuable insights. I encourage potential customers to connect with other Zerto users through industry networks to gather honest feedback before purchasing.

A lot of use cases involve how we effectively manage our DR and make sure there's not a lot of manual effort. On the business side, we proved the solution worked and showed the analytics on the DR report afterward. Those are the requirements.

At one of the banks I worked for, we used it for our merger and acquisition to replicate a legacy application that was no longer supported. Rather than try to rebuild it, which would have taken days or weeks, we could use Zerto to replicate it to our data center and join it to our domain. That was one of the biggest use cases we have had. 

Another use case is for disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) and to migrate service to a public cloud.

Zerto's near-synchronous replication is great. Not a lot of solutions can do that, and most organizations don't know that Zerto can do it. Once you have that near-sync capability, you can see how much more you can recover and be more resilient. 

At the end of the day, we're trying to protect our data and not put the company at risk, whether it's from a cyber attack or just any sort of DLP data loss. 

In financial services, data is paramount: protecting it, making sure you don't lose it, and integrating it. Having that near-sync ability is useful to any organization.

Zerto helps protect VMs in our environment. It really increased how many points in time we can recover, and not only the time to do it but where we want to do it too. 

Generally, we choose a point in time because they're simulated tests and controlled. In the event of a true disaster, I'm sure I'd utilize one of the closer points to have more recent data, but it's good to have that option. Luckily, I haven't had to use that option.

It's night and day. With other solutions, you're locked into specific RPOs and RTOs based on how that solution works. Zerto gives us the flexibility to choose which we want to use and recover effectively.

The main valuable features are the fast RPO and RTOs we could achieve and the analytics behind that. 

In my role these days, I have to make sure I can prove to the executive team as well as the business lines why we chose this solution and how it can help us.

One of the projects we're working on is DRaaS service. Once that's implemented, we'll test that solution. The whole premise of using Zerto is to replicate one-to-many and then test that scenario.

Zerto should continue adding new features. When I used it at the other bank, it wasn't good with replicating VDIs and automation. They've made a little more advancements in automation and scripting since then. 

At one point, it was custom, requiring professional services. Now, Zerto has more built into its engine that will help with the failover of virtual desktops.

I was an early adopter. I worked for a managed service provider in New York City back in 2009 and was introduced to Zerto near the end of 2010, early 2011. That's when we started implementing it for our clients. I've been bringing Zerto wherever I go ever since.

Stability is great. Sometimes you have network blips, and you can be out of sync, but it'll catch up eventually. There are very minor issues, if any.

It is very scalable. For example, there's a tertiary site that we're building for the DRaaS service. 

We just go to initiate the one-to-many and replicate up there. It's easy.

The customer service and support are responsive initially, and then they help you solve your problem. There was only one time with the custom scripting for the VDI that they wouldn't help because it was custom, and they wanted more money for that. They incorporated that into their solution a few years later.

Positive

In the past, I have used a different solution. I've worked with SRM, Double-Take (which is terrible), and BMC Recovery Point. Ever since I got hooked on Zerto around 2011, it's been pretty much Zerto.

The installation itself is very easy. Any problems I've run into, either when I was managing it or doing the installation myself, support has helped every step of the way and has been very easy to work with.

It's on Expedient's cloud, which might be AWS. I'm not sure. I just know we're doing it through a third party.

A lot of the ROI is with engineering hours. If it took eight hours of overtime to pay one or two engineers to do a DR test, now we can do it in one hour. 

We can factor in how many DR tests you do and calculate the cost savings. That alone is a good ROI.

The pricing is pretty fair. It increases with the number of VMs you have. When we had about 600 VMs at my last bank, we did an enterprise licensing agreement that helped cut down the cost. It required signing on long-term, but it was the most effective.

I would rate it a ten out of ten. I've used this solution for so long and have seen it mature. It's just easy. In IT, especially in a managerial role, we want things to work. We don't want it to be complex. If it serves the business goals of data resiliency, then that's all I need.

Definitely do a proof of concept (POC) and make sure it fits your use cases. On paper, it will, but every company is different. Sometimes, for some reason, it won't work. Or not that it won't work, it just doesn't fit what the business is trying to achieve. So do the POC and see for yourself if it works.

We use Zerto for the disaster recovery capabilities that it provides us. It is for our Tier 1 applications. 

Zerto allows us to protect individual VMs. With the other solutions, we are protecting the storage that the VMs live on, which is costly, so Zerto does save us money.

Zerto has near-synchronous replication. It works very well. Our RPO or recovery point objective time was 20 minutes, and we were doing thousands of VMs. We not only met the RPO; we exceeded it. There were many times when it was just seconds behind.

We have used Zerto to help protect thousands of VMs in our environment. Zerto has had a good effect on our RPO. It has helped to exceed our RPO. Our RPO on some of our critical systems is 20 minutes, and we exceed that. Most of the time, we are under 2 to 3 minutes.

It is very easy to migrate data. We ended up migrating from one data center to another data center, and we moved 20,000 virtual machines with Zerto. It was great.

Zerto lowered our RTOs as well. As a part of the solution analysis that we did for the RPO and RTO, Zerto's interface to do a DR test or a DR recovery was the fastest. We had a 24-hour window to recover 5,000 virtual machines, and we were doing them in three to four hours.

Zerto has helped us to reduce downtime multiple times. We had one incident where we used it to do a recovery. The downtime was roughly about 20 minutes. We do not have a value on that because it is customers' health information. I do not know how it affected the end users or customers outside of our company, but it does affect them.

Zerto has saved us time. When files were deleted, we were able to recover the files quickly. While doing OS patching on the servers, when the servers failed on the reboot, we were able to recover all good things when it came to quick recovery on it. As opposed to pulling it from our backup, it has cut our time probably in three quarters.

Zerto has helped to reduce our organization's DR testing. A DR test or a recovery used to take us days, whereas now, it takes us hours. The system that we were using before took multiple engineers to do the DR test, whereas today, a single engineer can do the DR test, and then we need just a couple of engineers to do checks on it, so it saves us a lot.

Zerto has reduced the number of staff involved in a data recovery situation. Instead of a group of people, we now just need one.

We used Zerto for immutable data copies. It was good, and they were on a course, but they shifted their focus. They were doing DR specifically, and then Zerto started shifting over towards doing backups. We were very excited about their long-term backups, but when HPE bought them, HPE stopped that part of it because they were directly competing against their solution. At the time they were doing it, we were very excited about it.

The DR testing capabilities that it has are valuable. 

Its ability to roll back if the VM or the server that you are recovering does not come up right is also valuable. You have the ability to roll back a few seconds or a few minutes. The rollback feature is great.

While going in, we were looking at the backup tool so that we had a DR tool and a backup tool, but they stopped developing their backup solution built into it. That was a bummer for us, so now, we have a DR solution, and we have a backup solution.

For the actual application itself, we have put in our request for certain features, and so far, they seem to be adding those features. In their latest one going to version 10, they did an appliance, which we had asked about 6 years ago. It is great to see that they are doing an appliance. There would be even more savings for us now because we do not have to pay licensing for a Windows VM.

I have been using Zerto for about 7 years. I have used Zerto a few times at different companies.

We have seen very few issues. It is one of the few solutions that actually runs. If you do your leg work and implement it right and go through all the design and other things, you do not have to babysit the solution. Care and feeding is what it amounts to. That is all you have to do, whereas with a lot of the other solutions, you have to babysit them.

Its scalability is very good. It scales very easily.

They could do better in regards to escalating an issue. I would rate them an 8 out of 10. In defense of support, I know it is hard because they are talking to somebody who has got 28 years of IT support. When I get on the call, I am probably dealing with someone who is just starting out. He has to go through his standard process. However, somebody like me is looking for faster support and would like to get to a real smart guy quicker.

Positive

For disaster recovery, we were using VMware Site Recovery Manager, and it was not able to provide the recovery, the RTO, or the RPO that the company required. I went out and did a discovery for different DR solutions, and that is where I came across Zerto. Zerto replaced VMware Site Recovery Manager, and it saved us millions.

Our deployment model is hybrid. I was involved in the initial deployment. It was straightforward. It was a lot easier than VMware Site Recovery Manager. It took us a week to deploy it.

In terms of maintenance, other than typical patching and upgrades, it does not require any maintenance. VMware Site Recovery Manager required a lot of ongoing maintenance.

We implemented it in-house. There were just three of us involved in its implementation.

The pricing is based on virtual machines. They need to do better in regards to their tiering pricing rather than one price per VM. A lot of times we have VMs that are lower tier, such as Tier 2 or Tier 3, but we pay the same price as for Tier 1. I know they are developing this out, but it would be nice if they could provide a little better pricing in regards to their tiering protection.

We tested four different solutions, and Zerto was the only one that was able to meet our requirements. We did PoC on Zerto and two other solutions. Zerto was by far the leader when it came to disaster recovery.

To those evaluating this solution, I would recommend doing a PoC on it. Deploy it in your environment and test it. Most of the problems you are going to see are due to the replication, and that is the site-to-site connection. One of the problems that I have experienced with Zerto has been related to replication, not the solution itself.

We have not used Zerto for blocking unknown threats and attacks. Thankfully, we have not had that. We do not have experience of that, thankfully.

We have used Zerto to do DR to both AWS and Azure, but the ability to do disaster recovery (DR) in the cloud is not something critical for us because the health insurance requirements for certification do not allow us to put our Tier 1 data in the cloud. Also, because our applications are multi-tiered where they reach out to the mainframe, Solaris, and other equipment outside of the virtual environment, it did not make sense to go to the cloud with it, but we do have it. We have a development environment there. A lot of times, we will use it to refresh the development environment. So, it is important, but in our case, it is not critical for us. 

We have not had any issues utilizing Zerto to support DR on AWS, but AWS is on the slower side. The reason is that for the connection to AWS, even though it is a direct connection, the speed does vary for us.

I would rate Zerto a 10 out of 10.

We utilize Zerto as part of our disaster recovery toolset. We employ a multi-tiered model, catering to a select group of customers, primarily hospital clusters. These customers maintain on-premise networks with cloud-based disaster recovery. In this managed service offering, we leverage Zerto to facilitate their cloud recovery.

The replication is quick. We encountered some challenges replicating the data during the first full copy. Since we weren't using Zerto, I suspect the bandwidth requirements for replication were a bottleneck for us. However, once the initial copy was complete, the process became seamless. The recovery was near zero after the first replication. Zerto worked perfectly.

We implemented Zerto because it supports a multi-tenant model, which was a critical requirement for us. We have five tenants located on-premises across five different data centers. However, we only have a single disaster recovery site in the cloud. Zerto's solution enabled us to consolidate our disaster recovery needs. Previously, managing five separate data protection solutions for each data center and five different cloud recovery subscriptions would have been incredibly expensive. Zerto significantly reduced our costs. Additionally, Zerto provides a single-pane-of-glass dashboard, allowing us to manage our infrastructure efficiently and effectively. This comprehensive view offers full control over our applications and complete visibility into all our tenants. As an infrastructure manager, I believe these features are the most valuable contributions Zerto has made to our organization.

Zerto has helped save around 30 percent of our time.

Zerto has helped achieve significant cost savings.

In the VMS portal, we had a relatively small amount of data overall. We also had multiple tenants, each with a maximum of 20 to 30 virtual machines on-premises. These VMs weren't particularly large. As a result, recovery was quick, typically taking less than a minute. My Recovery Time Objective would be less than a minute for any VM, even for a complete migration of all on-premises VMs to the cloud.

While I wasn't privy to the details of the client's previous DR solution before implementing Zerto, our discussions revealed significant time savings with Zerto's recovery process. Compared to their prior on-premises DR approach, Zerto offers a substantial reduction in recovery time – at least 15 to 20 minutes faster. This improvement stems from eliminating the need to coordinate with personnel and the time required for on-premises recovery procedures at their dedicated DR site. Previously, they relied on manual, on-premises to on-premises recovery, which inherently took longer. However, a direct comparison between their old solution and Zerto wouldn't be entirely accurate. Zerto offers significant efficiency gains, boasting up to 200 percent improvement.

Migrating data through Zerto is straightforward with careful planning. Our first experience involved Zerto's support throughout the process. While initially challenging due to our lack of experience, we were able to navigate the initial setup. One hurdle we faced was optimizing network traffic for the initial data replication from on-premises to the cloud. However, we embraced the learning curve, documenting everything as we gained control of the environment. This ensured a smooth integration for subsequent tenants. While the first migration presented some difficulties, as is to be expected, Zerto's excellent support made the process manageable. Their responsiveness in explaining and resolving issues made it a positive experience overall.

The RPO was very close to zero, meaning there was minimal data loss between replications. However, this could be impacted by the specific database being hosted and other factors. For application servers or virtual machines replicated on-premises to the cloud, I believe there was negligible lag or delay, assuming no network issues. Bandwidth and network traffic did play a role – we observed instances of slower RPO due to traffic spikes or network events. However, with Zerto providing the recommended data bandwidth, we encountered minimal challenges. In most cases, I'd say 90 percent of the data was synchronized almost constantly. The only exception was when network issues arose.

Our data center experienced an issue, necessitating a disaster recovery procedure. Fortunately, data loss seems minimal, and the impact on our clients appears negligible. This is partly due to the managed service we provide for a tenant, who fortunately didn't perceive any significant data loss. The success of the recovery is also attributed to our user-friendly, always-in-sync system. Upon receiving alerts and notifications, we promptly informed the client, who then quickly authorized the recovery process. From our perspective, the recovery went smoothly with minimal challenges. In the actual scenario, we believe data loss was negligible. While some data loss might have occurred technically, it wasn't significant enough to cause any noticeable impact on the client. It's important to note that our monitoring team maintained complete control of the situation, allowing for swift decision-making and a speedy recovery.

In a data recovery scenario, we'll still have our database administrator, Linux administrator, storage administrator, and Zerto operator available. While Zerto can automate disaster recovery and VM restoration, it's important to remember that it's not a foolproof solution. Even though Zerto streamlines the process, a well-prepared organization will always maintain backups and ensure a dedicated team is in place for data recovery. Zerto doesn't reduce the number of personnel involved; rather, it enhances their productivity by freeing them up for other tasks during a recovery event. During a recovery, it's still recommended to have everyone on call. While Zerto handles most recoveries, there may be situations where manual intervention is necessary. By being fully prepared, our organization can effectively address any data recovery situation.

It is easy to manage and monitor the DR plans using the Zerto GUI. 

Zerto's most valuable features include its user-friendly interface, multi-tenancy capabilities, and near-zero downtime recovery. Zerto is easy to learn and use, even for those with limited technical experience. Additionally, Zerto's failover testing functionality allows us to run tests in real time without impacting production systems.

We encountered some issues during Active Directory recovery. When we implemented Active Directory, we provided feedback to Zerto regarding the challenges of recovering AD from the on-premises environment to the disaster recovery site. Unlike other virtual machines, AD recovery presents unique difficulties due to its active-active nature. It's unclear whether these challenges stem from Zerto itself or limitations within Microsoft Active Directory. However, in our experience using Zerto for AD recovery compared to other technologies, we faced data discrepancies that necessitated workarounds to bring AD online at the DR site.

Certain applications we migrated from production relied on Active Directory authentication. To ensure successful application functionality at the DR site, a functional AD environment was a prerequisite to application migration. Therefore, our initial step involved copying and guaranteeing a running AD instance on the DR side before application recovery.

However, upon attempting application authentication on the DR side, data inconsistencies prevented successful authentication. To address this, we created an isolated clone of the AD environment and conducted tests. Through trial and error, we were able to develop workarounds to resolve the issue. Notably, these challenges were specific to Active Directory; other VMs didn't exhibit similar problems.

I have been using Zerto for over 3 years.

Zerto has been very stable for us. We do apply patch releases and upgrades whenever necessary to ensure continued stability. Fortunately, we haven't encountered any major bugs or issues that would cause significant downtime, unlike what we've experienced with some other tools. Zerto has been a reliable choice for us.

I would rate the stability of Zerto 9 out of 10.

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

The technical support is fantastic. They offer same-day assistance, and their documentation is clear and comprehensive.

Positive

Before implementing Zerto, the client's disaster recovery relied on an on-premises to on-premises failover strategy. Seeking a cloud-based solution, they chose Zerto to leverage its expertise in this area.

We previously used another tool for DR orchestration. While Zerto can also perform recoveries, it focuses on virtual machines and doesn't extend to the operating system or database level for starting and stopping applications within those VMs. Despite these limitations, Zerto excelled in its support. The Zerto team provided excellent assistance whenever we faced challenges, joined calls to help us troubleshoot, and offered clear timelines for resolving issues. Their documentation was also thorough. In contrast, the previous DR tool lacked comparable support and documentation. This stark difference in support quality is why we favored Zerto and ultimately removed the other tool from our project. Currently, we rely solely on Zerto for our existing tenants, and we plan to continue using it for future ones as well.

We encountered some challenges during the initial setup. Zerto offers several data replication options, I believe 2 or 3. These include copying data to our hard drive or storage box, copying it to the DSR site, and replicating it over the network. However, only network replication worked for us.

The issue might have been related to bandwidth requirements. It's possible that either Zerto itself or our network infrastructure wasn't up to par. We faced some challenges during that initial phase.

However, after the initial setup and the application of delta copying, which happens daily, we rarely experienced any replication issues. Most of the time, network glitches and fluctuations caused brief disconnections, but overall, replication ran smoothly.

We went into the Zerto deployment with a clean slate. Both team members were new to Zerto, so we were all learning as we went. This initial deployment was challenging, but it gave us valuable hands-on experience. Once we had a firm grasp of the environment, onboarding subsequent tenants became seamless. We developed a clear plan and approach, which streamlined the process for future deployments. Technically, the challenges weren't ongoing. The main hurdle was understanding how to integrate Zerto with our existing infrastructure. While that initial learning curve was steep, Zerto's excellent support helped us navigate it successfully.

The deployment time for Zerto varies depending on the complexity of your environment. More complex environments will require a longer replication process. However, on average, we can onboard a new customer within 1 month. This timeframe encompasses the entire process, from the initial planning phase to the deployment of up to 30 VMs within a tenant.

Our project involved 2 separate IT teams at 2 different locations. One team acted as the managed service provider, while the other represented the client side. The client-side team, located on-premises, provided us with essential information about their data centers. This included details on virtual machines, such as their size, quantity, and basic data collection metrics. They also helped us identify their storage requirements. Based on this information, we planned our cloud storage procurement and other necessary actions. The project team comprised approximately 10 to 15 people, including project managers, IT personnel, storage specialists, network engineers, and development experts.

I would rate Zerto 10 out of 10.

Our organization uses Zerto to manage the replication of data centers from 7 on-premises locations to the IBM cloud for our midsize clients.

Our environment consists of VMware, data storage, and a network, with Zerto deployed for disaster recovery. While VCDM and VMware are managed by our cloud provider, we maintain 5 additional technologies with a team of 8 people.

We experienced a brief on-premises outage. Fortunately, we were able to recover quickly using Zerto. The software triggered an alert, notifying our monitoring team. These features proved to be very helpful. Additionally, we were able to promptly contact our clients and explain the situation. They responded quickly and effectively, minimizing the impact on their end. Our clients were pleased with the response.

I recommend Zerto to others.

We provide disaster recovery with Zerto in two scenarios. One is for our customers using on-premises deployments, and the other is for using the multi-tenant cloud. They're buying the cloud as a service, and we're also protecting that with it.

Zerto is primarily well-recognized as a leader in disaster recovery. It makes it easy for us to talk to our clients about the solution we provide them. Since it is Zerto-powered, we don't have to answer many questions about how it works, its reliability, or its capabilities. Thus, having name recognition, a positive company reputation, and technology benefits us.

The platform's ease of deployment and the ability to isolate failovers are key features for our customers who want to perform testing without interrupting their production environments. Those are the two primary use cases.

Our operational teams have discussed the ability to integrate multiple Zerto cloud platforms more seamlessly. For example, we have acquired 22 companies over the last seven years. Some already had it deployed, and integrating those existing deployments into our primary deployment is more challenging than it could be. We have provided our feedback to them.

Thryv has been using Zerto for about twelve years now.

As a product manager, I haven't received any feedback indicating issues with platform stability, which our engineering team would certainly inform me about.

We've had no issues with the product scalability so far, whether it's individual customers or even as an aggregated group.

The size of the environment varies. We have some small customers with only a handful of virtual machines and others with two, three, or four virtual machines.

In our previous company, we used VMware Site Recovery Manager and Veeam. However, over the last 12 to 14 years, we have primarily used Zerto.

We have our private cloud, and that's where we primarily use Zerto. We also manage some Microsoft Azure environments where we have sparingly used the service, mainly because the same functionality is not present as it is when using it in a private cloud.

Disaster recovery as a service is a significant component of our overall cloud services. So, the ROI lies in Thryv's profitability, as we offer a managed service that adds value to our customers and generates a profitable revenue stream.

The product's pricing is the one area where it is less competitive. However, we understand why it costs slightly more comparing the features and capabilities. Customers prioritizing price might choose a solution offering different RPOs and RTOs for a lower cost. We have provided feedback on whether there could be a lighter option or alternative that's more cost-effective for the customers while balancing cost and performance. It would help Zerto and us win more business.

The product is superior compared to the other vendors. 

We offer disaster recovery as a service powered by Zerto. We have multiple disaster recovery targets in the US and the UK and are expanding into Canada and Hong Kong.

I am happy that they've reconsidered the decision to stop supporting Hyper-V, especially with all the changes happening in the Broadcom world and customers looking at it as a solution. Zerto's continuous support is key.

The near-synchronous feature is a differentiator. Other platforms compete with Zerto, with Veeam being the primary one, trying to get the same capabilities. It is a key factor for clients who need low RPOs and the ability to protect their data with minimal potential data loss. It cannot eliminate the potential for data loss entirely and has a minimal impact. If the customers have a production-impacting event, their data is as close as possible to a mirror of what they had at the time of the production loss. So, it is a significant factor.

To some extent, we have implemented DR with Microsoft. It is less feature-rich and has a different implementation. We offer the service but don't offer much in the public cloud. Replicating out of the public cloud adds a whole other set of challenges. We can replicate it to a VMware-based cloud. However, no VMware tools are available if we want to replicate it outside of Microsoft Azure. It makes for a different recovery and is a bit more labor-intensive.

It has greatly impacted the RPOs. As long as our customers have enough bandwidth to transmit the changes across the network to our cloud, the RPOs generally take a minute. However, if the customer has bandwidth constraints, it can take up to five minutes.

With Zerto, recovery is much cleaner and faster. It's orchestrated better, and the testing capability within the cloud is a valuable differentiator. Unfortunately, we don't have many customers experiencing disasters, so our experience is generally around the testing component and making simulated or even full recoveries for customers seeking that. It has always performed well.

I would give it a nine for everything around capabilities and the product itself. The only drawback is the pricing. If we could get a better pricing model, especially in larger deals where we need to be more competitive for price-conscious customers, that would be beneficial.

Overall, though, I'm happy with Zerto as a partner. My reaction would have been different if the Hyper-V decision hadn't changed, as that would have caused complications for some customers. 

We use Zerto to replicate critical VMs between data centers. We also use it to do local replication whenever the servers do not have shared storage. We have recently used it to migrate some workloads from Azure down to our on-premises data center.

Zerto has improved our organization by simplifying everything because the storage is agnostic. We used SRM (Site Recovery Manager) from VMware, and it's very tied to the storage, and it has to be the same storage on both sides. The whole replication is at the storage level unless you use vSphere in the middle, which defeats the purpose. This is data storage, and you can use it if you can see it, which is very convenient.

We use the solution for one-to-one replication from data center one to data center two, from server one to server two, or from the cloud to on-premises.

We have used Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment, and its overall effect on your RPOs has been fantastic.

The speed of recovery with Zerto is simple and amazing compared to other disaster recovery solutions.

I have previously used Site Recovery Manager.

We chose to use Zerto because of the RPO and because we wanted to eliminate the dependency on storage. Everybody on my team is familiar with the tool, and it's easy to use.

The new licensing model didn't work out for us because we used one-to-one replication. The other problem is that the Linux appliance is not available for everybody, and you must have a certain license. It's very important for us that if, at some point, those servers get compromised, or that server gets patches, I don't want to rely on Windows to protect Windows.

You want this hardened appliance to protect our critical workloads. If they can make that available from version one, it shouldn't matter what license you have. This is the best way to do it, and we are going to deprecate Windows support.

I have been using Zerto for five to six years.

Besides running it on Windows, Zerto is a stable solution.

If they need more space, they grab it. If you move the SLA or want to keep more logs or history for the DVR function, you have to check everything before making your claim.

The solution’s technical support is very good.

The solution's deployment is very easy.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

It was a pilot. We did a bake-off between Zerto and RP for VM, which was an EMC product. It was to fail over 130 Oracle databases.

We wanted to handle disaster recovery for our data center. Zerto was mainly a failover product. We did not use any security layering.

When we tested it, it had more functions than what we used it for, but it was a very good BCDR product. We liked the reliability and availability.

Zerto enables you to do disaster recovery (DR) in the cloud, but we did not use that feature. We used Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. It was strong in that aspect. I would rate it an eight out of ten there.

Zerto's speed of recovery was comparable. There was no synchronous and asynchronous replication. If I had to give it a number, it would be a seven out of ten. It was the same as others. There was not much difference.

It was easy to migrate data. There was some initial configuration in syncing, but it was easy. I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of the ease of migration.

Zerto’s ability to keep our users collaborating with one another during a data migration was good. I would rate it a seven out of ten in this aspect as well as in terms of its impact on RTOs.

Zerto helps reduce downtime in any situation. We can bring up a database in minutes. It probably takes five minutes for the final sync. The cost of downtime depends on the database. It may be 50,000 if you have call center people sitting around. Normally, most of our small outages like that ranged in the tens of thousands.

Zerto did save time in a data recovery situation. We did not have ransomware, but there were times we had database corruption where the users would corrupt the database, and the database would not start. It would do snapshotting. It was not necessarily ransomware, but it was testing upgrades or Oracle upgrades. The data recovery happened within five minutes, if not sooner. A normal restore would probably be four to eight hours if we had to restore from a tape and apply logs.

Zerto helps to reduce an organization's DR testing. You can spin off an extra database pretty quickly and have users test against the third or fourth copy. It saves one to three days of testing depending on test cycles. You could do sequential testing. I would probably measure it more in days than hours. All of that time can be used by a DBA to do something else.

Zerto reduces the number of staff involved in a data recovery situation. One person could probably orchestrate it now versus one to three people.

It did not reduce the number of staff involved in overall backup and DR management because we are pretty thin. We would not have gotten rid of anybody.

Zerto offered a very good front-end GUI for orchestration. The graphic interface was very good.

The replication layer can probably be improved.

We ran the pilot for about nine months. 

I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of stability.

I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of scalability.

In terms of our environment, we had 130 databases, 35 prods, and 2 data centers. In terms of end users, in our call centers, we had probably 10,000 users who accessed the databases.

They are good. 

Neutral

We used VMware SRM. We used Veritas clustering, which was a Veritas/Symantec product. We then went virtual, so we went from physical to virtual infrastructure, and we went from HP-UX to Red Hat infrastructure. Zerto was probably 50% easier than others.

Zerto has not replaced any backup solution.

It is a private cloud deployment. It is all VMware vSphere.

Its initial setup was straightforward. It was not as complicated as any other product. It took two to three weeks.

In terms of the implementation strategy, we wanted to reduce our synchronous synchronization. We wanted a better RTO, so we went to an asynchronous replication on private network infrastructure for faster syncing. There were a few technical aspects, but we took our time to lay out the network infrastructure.

In terms of maintenance, you have to patch it and upgrade it. We have a team of four for backup and storage.

Zerto helped us. They had very good staff. We got great support. I would rate them a seven out of ten.

We had two people working on that project, primary and secondary. We did use some of the networking team, maybe a half-person worth of time, because it is a little network intensive.

It is hard to measure an ROI. It is more like an insurance policy. You may or may not use your insurance policy, but it provides comfort to management. There may also be some soft cost.

It was a little higher. We were in a corporate agreement, and we had a software package that included RP for VM. It is easy to compare pricing when you are already in a corporate agreement. Zerto lost on the pricing scorecard.

We evaluated Zerto and RP for VM, which was an EMC product. They were different in replication logic and how they did journaling.

In Zerto, the replication is done through vSphere, and they did not license that product, so at any point, they could have probably lost it. We licensed RP for VM. We felt more comfortable with an EMC replication product because it was Dell and VMware combined or merged. The replication in Zerto was good, but it was using VMware hypervisor replication.

To those evaluating this solution, I would recommend doing an architectural design and implementing best practices. Involve your network team early and use Zerto's expertise.

I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten.