Zerto Reviews

Disaster Recovery and quick file recovery.  We have used Zerto to recover from Ransomware three times.  Between the attacks we have recovered over 2 million files.  We have never paid a ransome.  Our users were only affected just under two hours with the attacks, majority of the time is actually figuring out in the office which pc actually had the crypto locker program running.

Zerto was able to use an EMC PROD SAN, and a HP DR SAN with no issues or compatibility problems which allowed us to avoid buying expensive hardware for a DR site.

Zerto has allowed us to feel comfortable our data is being replicated, and the data is not corrupted.

Zerto is packed full of useful features. The main feature is easy to manage, you will not need to be in Zerto day to day as it runs flawless.

Zerto has a plugin to integrate seamlessly into VMware VSphere tab.

I would highlight is the fact Zerto was used to migrate all of our VMs from one data center to another data center (two different physical locations) when we upgraded to new hardware. The migration was a breeze.

My second valuable feature is being able to click just a few points in the program to initiate a test vm recovery at our DR location. After testing, all test VMs are deleted along with the data. This is automated, you do not need to interact with deleting VMs.

In Zerto depending on your hardware and internet connection between your production site and DR site you can expect an RPO of 15 seconds.

As of the summer 2016, Zerto just created an extremely fast way to recover files from their journal. Instead of going to our long term backup program and taking a half hour or longer to find a file, Zerto is getting me the file in 4min. This is making my life easier and keeping users happy.

I would like to see Zerto come up with an emergency line for support. Support does get back to you quickly, but when your heart is racing because something happened the calmness of a pro on the other end would be helpful. The reports also need TLC, as I do not really find them helpful.

With these two minor negatives the product and support are great and they get the job done. I am an extremely happy Zerto supporter.

The only issue with stability was when I caused the issue by changing VM settings in the DR site. This was a great test for support, they took care of the issue quickly and got me back up and running.

I consistently see 8-18 seconds RPO. We test DR by adding a file to a server, then 1minute later launching the test failover to a site that is 6 hours (drive time) away. The file will be there in the DR bubble.

We added new VMs with no issues, the only issue to keep in mind is the more VMs you add, the more storage your DR needs.

Customer Service:

Outstanding! Pre-sale we had someone with Zerto actually come to our office and make sure this was the right choice for us. After we went live we had a few calls (initiated by Zerto) making sure we were happy and everything was running smooth. We still get periodic emails checking on us. I have not seen that with other companies.

On the Zerto team, Jennifer and Ciana helping us in our times of need.

Technical Support:

AWESOME!

Tech Support is all initiated by email, but then Zerto will call you if needed. This avoids phone cues. The person I talked to the two times I called in were awesome, they were very knowledgeable. Even though I caused one of the issues that needed fixed by support, they did not treat me with any disrespect even though I caused the issue. The tech did explain how to correctly do the tasks.

We had a very experienced consultant set us up.

My advice for someone thinking about Zerto is to do the trial run that Zerto offers, you will be impressed. If you are looking to get RPO's of 30seconds or less, Zerto can do it. I typically see 8-18 seconds RPO. Needless to say this depends greatly on your WAN link.

I highly recommend going to Boston in 2017 and meeting the staff at Zertocon!

We are primarily using it for migration and data protection. We use it for protection of the VM and data protection. 

It's the easiest way to support DR as it does the conversion for you. After converting, it protects again. If you don't want Azure, you can just go back on-premises, for example. 

We can monitor VMs more easily with Zerto. We can always check if they aren't properly syncing. The migrations are also easy. 

The overall impact on our RPOs has been amazing. The ease of using it is great. Everyone is embracing it in our company.

The ease of use is ten out of ten. It's the easiest to use. 

The speed of recovery is great, especially the failover/failback. It helps our company a lot. 

The most valuable feature is the GUI. It's very simple. 

Setting it up is very easy. 

Everything is automated using scripts. 

The solution saves a lot of time and there is no downtime based on how the product is designed. If there's any downtime, it's only a second or two if we move. 

The near-synchronous replication is great. It just works. I'm a big fan of Zerto.

Right now, the solution is perfect. They shouldn't try to do everything. Zerto is DR and needs to focus on that. Everything works for us. There is nothing to improve. 

They already released the features that we want. We aren't missing any features. 

I've been using it for almost five years now. 

At first, when Zerto was bought by HP, we thought it was just going to be HP. However, Zerto is really working out and the stability is great. I hope they continue what they are doing and refrain from making major changes. 

Zerto scales pretty well. They have a lot of customers. The word of mouth is helping with growth.

It scales well with our environment with the conversion from VM to Azure and vice versa. It's so easy. There's no middle-man involved. It's just Zerto. 

The technical support is hit or miss. If it is a high-priority ticket, you get great Zerto support, however, if you just have a question, they redirect you to their documents. 

Positive

We previously used SRM before Zerto. 

The initial setup was not hard at all. We deployed a VM and had our team open the ports and we were all set. 

It only takes about an hour or two if you have the proper people helping you with the networking. 

We have witnessed a lot of ROI. Being technical, I always ask to make sure management is happy with the product we are trying to use. With the migration feature, it's way better now. We are able to migrate from the old data center without any disruption. That's a big win. 

The pricing is fair. The pricing is very competitive and it works well. You are paying for a product that is easy to use and just works. 

We've evaluated multiple DRs and some VMware products. Zerto was the winner due to the GUI. Also, it just works.

I have colleagues who are doing a POC with Zerto and will begin using it based on my recommendation. 

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. If I could give it eleven out of ten I would. 

Our main use case for this solution is the data center migration. We are in the process of moving from our legacy data center and all the VMs into our new data center.

In the future, we would like to look more into disaster recovery using Zerto but that's a much longer process and we are still looking into it.

The speed of recovery with Zerto is at least five to ten times faster. It helped us reduce downtime during migrations. There would've been a lot more downtime had we done a standard migration across data centers, powering everything down. This downtime would have cost our company millions.

The ease of use and simplicity in moving things without having to do a cross vCenter V-motions has been most valuable. It saves time and effort and it eliminates mistakes. This project would've been years if not for Zerto. We completed it in months instead of years.

The licensing is confusing and complicated.

I have been using this solution for two years.

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. We used it for our biggest data center and it handled it just fine. We haven't personally had to scale it up, but if we needed to, we definitely could.

Support has been pretty good. I would rate it a nine out of ten. 

I personally have not used other solutions other than just what's built into VMware. When comparing the VMware native solution versus Zerto, it's night and day. It's much simpler and straightforward to set up.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is streamlined with simple instructions. Anybody can do it as long as they understand their infrastructure.

We had a contractor that we brought in to help us with it. 

We have seen return in our investment with Zerto due to the speed and usability and being able to do this huge project with limited hiccups.

I would advise others that the cost of this solution is justified based on the value you receive. 

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten. 

We use Zerto to help our customers migrate and consolidate data centers, especially crossing different geo spaces or long distances.

I haven't used it for downtime, but our customers have it configured for all of their disaster recovery needs.

We work a lot with customers that need disaster recovery and the best possible migration approaches, and Zerto helps them minimize the amount of effort it takes to finish their upgrades or migrations.

Zerto helped reduce our customer's VR testing. It allows them to do disaster recovery tests a lot better and a lot safer without affecting the production environment. Last year I helped two customers migrate over 10,000 servers across the country and across Europe. Automating the process was extremely valuable in those migrations.

The near-zero downtime for migrating from one data center to another has been the most valuable outcome of using Zerto. When you are migrating half a petabyte of data from Texas to Las Vegas, and you're doing that with 3000 servers, you have a limited time to take down the application and bring it up. Our customers like having the downtime minimized.

The biggest improvement would be exporting VPGs and a configuration of VPGs, as well as increasing or improving their IP customization rule set.

I have been using Zerto for seven years.

This is a stable solution. We ran into a minimal amount of bugs and the bugs that we do run into, we have workarounds for.

This solution can definitely scale out very well. I'm looking forward to new improvements in Zerto for Azure. These improvements would definitely make scaling out Zerto much better.

I would rate the support for this solution a ten out of ten. I've called Zerto's support for almost every case that I've needed to. They've been able to resolve the issues in a timely fashion.

Positive

I've used many other options. Zerto is definitely the best of the bunch. Zerto is definitely a lot easier to install than products like Set Recovery Manager, and it includes the replication technology that is agnostic from any storage replication that would be required.

Our customers definitely see a return on investment, especially with time savings, by doing required compliance testing for disaster recovery with a minimal amount of effort.

The pricing is top tier but offers good value. 

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten. 

We have three locations. We replicate circularly around all those locations for all our VMs. This is for DR.

We don't have to spend a whole lot of time worrying about DR and whether or not we are covered. Zerto just works. As it is replicating, we don't need to spend a whole lot of time with it. That is a huge benefit as far as daily management.

Luckily, we haven't actually had to do a full failover. We have tested it many times, and it proves out okay, but we don't have to spend a lot of time managing it.

Our insurance companies provide assistance with staff or boots on the ground. Whereas, using Zerto has allowed us to act very quickly with just our current team. We can fail over and switch over to our disaster recovery site, instead of having to bring in a bigger team.

It is amazingly simple to use, monitor, look at, and utilize. It is great for that.

We would like more mobile options. If we are at a restaurant or out and about in our normal daily lives, we would like to be able to interface via our mobiles.

I have been using it for about five years.

Scalability is simple. If you just add more virtual managers, then you are good to go.

Our customer rep, success manager, and engineer are great.

Luckily, I haven't had to use the technical support that often. The times that I have, it has been fantastic. They quickly had me where I needed to be, which is top-notch and good.

I would rate them as eight or nine out of 10. Nobody is perfect.

Positive

It gives us peace of mind. Before we had disaster recovery and long-term retention protection against ransomware, it was one of those things that kept us up at night.

We previously used VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM) and Veeam for backup. Zerto is way better and more friendly. Zerto's interface, simplicity, and reliability are definitely better than SRM.

When we were using SRM, it didn't have a web interface. Zerto's web interface makes it easier to navigate. When we used SRM, it was an actual application. It was a bit clunkier and a lot more difficult to use. However, it has been awhile, so it might not be a fair comparison at this point.

The initial deployment was pretty simple. The implementation took less than half a day. It has been awhile, but it was very seamless, easy, and did not take very long. We were up and running pretty quickly.

Zerto was involved with the initial deployment. We paid for their Professional Services, who walked us through the whole thing. It was very simple.

Our technology committee established an RPO and RTO. We beat those times with Zerto. We have a 30-minute RTO and we can recover within seconds. We have far exceeded any expectations so far.

From the simple point of not having to worry about whether or not we are protected in the event of ransomware or disaster, it is worth the money.

The pricing seems fair.

We looked at other solutions around five years ago.

I would recommend buying it. It is easy and simple. It works. It is all the things that any administrator would want. You don't need to spend a lot of time messing with it and you can sleep at night.

I would rate this solution as eight out of 10 because nothing is perfect.

We didn't have any kind of disaster recovery solution in our environment, whatsoever. We're using it for disaster recovery.

The biggest benefit we get from using Zerto is due to the fact that we have to answer to our gaming authority and prove that we have a DR solution in place. With Zerto we can do it out-of-the-box: do a test restore and actually have documentation that we can provide to our auditors.

Also, before Zerto, we didn't even have a way to fail back or move workloads. Now we do, and we can do so with a few clicks.

When it comes to continuous data protection it does the job. With the RTOs and RPOs, it does exactly that. It's the only one that I've seen that you could call a continuous data protection solution.

And one of the most valuable features, something that I wasn't even anticipating, is the file backups. We weren't even considering Zerto to do restores, but it actually is able to do that. Eventually, we could just use this as our backup solution.

It's easy to use. Once I got it installed and going, it was less than a day until I was already confident about using it. I've done numerous upgrades since then without any third-party support.

The only issue I've ever had is that I wish that Zerto would work more closely with VMware. There have been a few times that Zerto has released an update but it wasn't supported with that version of VMware. I would like them to coordinate their updates with VMware's updates.

I have been using Zerto for going on two years now.

It's rock-solid. I haven't had any issues whatsoever.

From what I've seen, because I have four different vCenters coming into it, I'll be able to scale out as much as I can physically handle on the storage side.

We're currently protecting about 100 terabytes with Zerto and we plan to increase our usage of it.

We're not using Zerto for long-term retention right now, but we do have plans to do so once we get some hardware that we can use for that.

Their tech support gets to the point. They've really been on-task and I haven't had to wait for anything. They've provided me with what I was after or answered any questions that I had.

Positive

I did the initial installation, and it was very straightforward. I've never had a solution that is this intensive and yet this easy to deploy. It took a few hours to deploy.

And in terms of working with Zerto on a day-to-day basis, it's just me.

We haven't calculated an ROI, but just comparing what it's been able to do for us, versus not having a solution, there has been ROI. It has the potential to help reduce downtime. Fortunately, we haven't had any, but it puts something in place to help us if we were to encounter some downtime. We're a casino, so every hour that we're down we lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Obviously, I wish it were cheaper and more affordable. But I get what I pay for, so I can't complain.

I looked into the VMware solution, but it was just way too complex. It seemed like it would require a longer deployment and fine-tuning well beyond what it took me to deploy Zerto.

The fact that Zerto provides both backup and DR in one platform wasn't very important at the time. I've seen the benefit now and I'm happy that it does, but it really wasn't a factor in what I was looking for.

The only lesson I would pass on is that when we updated VMware, that version of VMware wasn't supported with the version of Zerto we were running. That could be a "gotcha," so make sure the hypervisor is supported under the Zerto matrix.

Request a trial. It's simple enough to install and configure on your own. My advice would be to see, firsthand, how easy it is.

Database replication is our primary use case. We don't use Zerto for backups. We use Zerto as DR at our sites.

It is deployed on-premises at several sites.

It is a good DR solution for a number of databases that we use. It is just a DR solution that works. It does that continuously. I like it. Once it works, it is set and forget.

We have used it as a test in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes. We haven't had to use the actual recovery. We haven't actually had to use it in an actual DR scenario, but we do DR testing. The switchover is pretty good.

Recovery is the most valuable feature. It has a good DR solution.

Zerto's ability to provide continuous data protection is good. It works. It has continuous availability.

It is pretty easy to use. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. Once you set it up, it just works. So, it is great. 

I like that it's low maintenance; it's set and forget.

As far as replication technology goes, it is a pretty good product.

It has some quirks. We have quirks with appliances. Some things don't really work as expected, but it is minor. It doesn't really affect the overall functionality.

I have been using it for a couple of years.

The stability is good. There have been no major issues.

I have 12 engineers on my team. We maintain/administer Zerto to our organization.

It scales pretty well.

We have a large environment, but this actual deployment is pretty limited. It has a targeted use. We are protecting some production databases.

The support is good. I would rate them as eight out of 10.

We had another version of Zerto that we decommissioned, then we built a new one.

Zerto was already present in the company when I came onboard. We just renewed the support and built several new instances.

I was involved in the initial setup from the start. It is very complex as far as requirements go and what needs to be set out for Zerto. Once you set it up, it is fine. It works.

Back and forth, our deployment took a couple of weeks. It was deployed on different sites. We needed to set up, provision, have networks open, firewalls, and allocate dedicated storage. We also needed to install it, build it, deploy the agent on the host, and configure it.

I deployed the solution myself.

I am pretty sure my company has seen ROI.

It is a good solution. It doesn't work for everything, but for certain use cases. You can't restore your entire site with it. However, if you need to restore or replicate a certain number of production and mission-critical applications, it is a good solution for that.

I like Zerto. We have big databases, so it does take a lot of storage to replicate it, but I think it is a good solution. I would recommend it.

I would rate it as eight or nine out of 10.

We have Zerto as an emergency backup if we were to lose electricity or compute.

I purchased Zerto because I wanted to get a return to operations and to minimize the downtime.

The return to operations is the most valuable feature because it decreases the amount of time it takes us to recover. 

Zerto is the best of breed when it comes to providing continuous data protection.

It has a number of features rolled together. So when we need to failover, it does it successfully without a lot of stuff that we have to tune underneath the scenes. We use Zerto for the short-term retention of the data.

I would rate its ease of use as an eight out of ten. It has made it a lot easier for us to failover. Usually, in the past, we had to manually go and bring things up and this automates it.

The solution decreases the time it takes and the people we need when we need to fail back or move workloads. It saves around eight hours and one person. We had started off with two to three people.

It could save us time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes but we haven't used it for that.

We haven't had something where we had to recover data using this product, but I assume it would reduce the number of staff involved in data recovery situations.

It has helped to reduce downtime in testing but we haven't had a serious issue where we had to switch over and use it.

The documentation needs improvement in terms of the setup, getting enough detail, and getting that up to speed.

I have been using Zerto for about a year. 

We found Zerto to be pretty stable.

We haven't had problems with scalability.

We don't really have users. We just have data that we move over which is basically the size of the campus.

We need at least one full-time employee to run it.

It's used for all of our failovers so it's in 100% usage.

I have had a little bit of experience with their technical support. I don't have any issues with them.

The ease of use, compared to other products, is much better. Zerto is all-encompassing. 

We had to work on it for about a week to get it running the way we wanted. It took so long because of the fine-tuning. We could have set it up within three hours or something just as a test to see at work, but not necessarily do everything we wanted to do.

The time it took to sync the data up took a little bit longer.

We'll probably see ROI in around three years. 

The pricing is more expensive, but the functionality is what we wanted.

There are no additional costs to standard licensing.

We also looked at Druva. We liked the flexibility that we get with Zerto. 

You'll be happy with Zerto.

The biggest lesson I have learned from Zerto is to be patient. 

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten.