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IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs Zerto comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 11, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Spectrum Protect Plus
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
23rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zerto
Ranking in Backup and Recovery
2nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
284
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Migration (4th), Cloud Backup (3rd), Disaster Recovery (DR) Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Backup and Recovery category, the mindshare of IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is 0.9%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zerto is 2.9%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Backup and Recovery
 

Featured Reviews

Atif Najam - PeerSpot reviewer
Has very good integration features and can quickly backup data and optimize storage
I would like to see continuous data protection (CDP). If there is machine failure, you don't have to go to the backup copy that you took 12 hours ago. You can actually go back to the backup copy made half an hour ago. That is, it would be good to have certain-point-in-time recovery. I would like them to add global deduplication. With deduplicate backups, deduplication will work only with the data of a certain machine or a certain backup set. Usually, the data is repeated across the data of the backup sets. However, if IBM Spectrum Protect Plus provides a global deduplication option it will ultimately result in better storage savings.
Sachin Vinay - PeerSpot reviewer
Leverage disaster recovery with reliable support and cost-effective future-proof features
Zerto is straightforward to implement because it only requires the installation of an agent on the VMs designated for migration. A service, typically a VM, must also be deployed at the disaster recovery location. This entire process is simple and can be completed within three days. Zerto's near-synchronous replication occurs every minute, allowing for highly granular recovery points. This means that even if interruptions or malware disruptions occur within that minute, Zerto can restore to the last known good state, effectively recovering the entire setup to the latest backup. This capability ensures high data security and minimizes potential data loss. One of the main benefits of implementing Zerto is its data compression, which significantly reduces the load on our IPsec VPN. Zerto compresses data by 80 percent before transmitting it across the VPN, minimizing the data transferred between geographically dispersed locations. This compression and subsequent decompression at the destination alleviate the strain on the VPN, preventing overload and ensuring efficient data synchronization. Zerto simplifies malware protection by integrating it into its disaster recovery and synchronization features. This comprehensive approach eliminates the need for separate antivirus setups in virtual machines and applications. It streamlines our security measures and removes the need for additional software or solutions, resulting in an excellent return on investment. Zerto's single-click recovery solution offers exceptional recovery speed. Through the user interface, a single click allows for a complete restoration from the most recent backup within two to three minutes, enabling rapid recovery and minimal downtime. Zerto's Recovery Time Objective is excellent. In the past, if a virtual machine crashed, we would recover it from a snapshot, which could take one to two hours. With Zerto, the recovery process takes only five minutes, and users are typically unaware of any disruption. This allows us to restore everything quickly and efficiently. Zerto has significantly reduced our downtime. When malware affects our data, Zerto immediately notifies us and helps us protect other applications, even those not yet implemented with Zerto. By monitoring these applications, we can quickly identify and address any potential malware spread, minimizing downtime across our systems. Zerto significantly reduces downtime and associated costs during disruptions. Our services are unified, so in the event of a disruption without Zerto, even a half-day disruption would necessitate offline procedures. This would lead to increased manpower, service delays, and substantial financial losses due to interrupted admissions and other critical processes. By unifying service processes, Zerto minimizes the impact of outages. Zerto streamlines our disaster recovery testing across multiple locations by enabling efficient failover testing without disrupting live services. Traditionally, DR testing required downtime of critical systems, but Zerto's replication and failover capabilities allow us to test in parallel with live operations. This non-disruptive approach ensures continuous service availability while validating our DR plan, even in scenarios like malware attacks, by creating a separate testing environment that mirrors the live setup. This comprehensive testing provides confidence in our ability to handle real-world incidents effectively. This saves us over 60 percent of the time. Zerto streamlines system administration tasks by automating many processes, thereby reducing the workload for multiple administrators. This allows them to focus on other university services that require attention and effectively reallocate support resources from automated tasks to those requiring more dedicated management. Zerto is used exclusively for our critical services, providing up to a 70 percent improvement in our IT resilience.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Virtual snapshots that offer incremental backups."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The feature I find most valuable is the offload to Spectrum Protect for long-term retention. I think the deduplication and replication are quite nice on Plus."
"Reliability, recovery features, and stability are valuable to me."
"A full-featured data protection solution that is reliable and stable."
"Some of the features we find very valuable and use a lot, are retention sets."
"The solution is scalable and can be fitted for any customer."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that the product works and helps with restoration areas whenever there is a need to restore something."
"For us, the most valuable features are the quick upload time and how the sync works... We have VMware SRM and Veeam, and they have been pretty slow and sluggish."
"Another advantage is the ease of use. You can click through instead of typing in the code. It's all already scripted down to the network adjustments within the VMs and the timed delays for servers that need to come up in sequence. Overall, it's a good package for us to use. We started using it in about 2018 and haven't looked back."
"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 is extremely easy to use. You set it and forget it."
"The most valuable feature is the disaster recovery capabilities. The fact that we can have a clinic across the country backup in as little as 45 minutes is incredible."
"Live replication and up to the second type of failover are valuable. The fact that we can do test failovers and failbacks is important for our ISO certification."
"Real-time replication is a valuable feature, ensuring that changes made to the production site are immediately reflected at the recovery site."
"I like the less than one-minute RPO, the ability to IP customize during failovers, and the cloning feature that I can use to clone VMs over at the target location. As part of the automation failover, if we need to change an IP when it fails over to the other data center, Zerto will handle that; there's no need for manual intervention. As far as the cloning, we use that to do quick testing of a VM in the remote data center for lift-and-shift processors."
 

Cons

"The solution should allow for backup of iOS snapshots."
"It requires much more automation features."
"It still needs to grow and add new features. IBM Spectrum Protect Plus, I believe, requires time to become competitive due to a weakness in the other software products."
"There could be better integration with Spectrum Protect and Spectrum Protect Plus, it should be one solution."
"The backup support for IBM Power Virtualization needs to be added."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus could improve security."
"Not particularly user friendly."
"Their first level of support can be improved. Often they are too junior to understand the issues we are having, and it takes too much time to get from them to the next level of support, which is what we actually need."
"While Zerto's current version supports VMware environments, I'd like the added flexibility of using Hypervisors as well."
"The native Zerto implementation requires quite a big environment. My environment is rather small. I do not have hundreds of virtual machines."
"There should be an automatic installation in a cluster. When I add a virtual client or ESX source to the cluster, it should automatically install that. There should be automatic installation. Currently, I have to do that manually."
"I would like to request better reporting in Zerto. I can see the data that I need in the console, but if I need to put the data or the history into a report, it is difficult. It is something that auditors might require, so reporting is something that needs to be improved."
"There needs to be more flexibility in the licensing."
"They could improve their online documentation."
"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 don't like the evacuation process. The host evacuation process could be a little simpler too. It takes our maintenance a bit longer, when we are doing host maintenance, because we still need to evacuate the vRAs manually. I know they tried to make it more automatic, but it is not quite there yet."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is an annual license required to use IBM Spectrum Protect Plus. The cost of the license could improve, it is expensive."
"The initial cost of the product is perpetual but the support fees are billed annually."
"There are a few options available for purchasing the solutions. Overall, the price of the is high."
"IBM Spectrum Protect Plus is a little expensive."
"We have a perpetual license for the tool since it is deployed on-premise."
"Unlike some other solutions, such as Veritas NetBackup where you have to pay for different licenses to use different features, there is a single license that allows you to use all of the features."
"In addition to the standard licensing fees, we paid for implementation and training."
"The price is lower than that of some competing products."
"I would like to see different service levels. They're good, but it still takes a lot of our budget in ops."
"All of my customers are happy with how this product works and they like it, but unfortunately, in the market that I represent, Zerto is expensive when compared with the competition."
"As far as I know, the pricing is around $1,000 per VM, but Zerto is changing the pricing model to more of an enterprise-class license. I don't know if there are any additional costs or fees."
"There may be less expensive solutions on the market but with Zerto, you get what you pay for."
"From a customer perspective, the price is okay. From an investor's perspective, however, it is a little bit high."
"The licensing cost is fair."
"The solution is very cost-effective and very easy to set-up but does not compromise on features."
"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."
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Comparison Review

it_user159711 - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 9, 2014
VMware SRM vs. Veeam vs. Zerto
Disaster recovery planning is something that seems challenging for all businesses. Virtualization in addition to its operational flexibility, and cost reduction benefits, has helped companies improve their DR posture. Virtualization has made it easier to move machines from production to…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that the product works and helps with restoration areas whenever there is a need to restore something.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
We have a perpetual license for the tool since it is deployed on-premise. We pay a fixed fee per year for support.
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Protect Plus?
The security must be improved. We face a lot of cyber threats like ransomware. It impacts data availability and protection. The tool must provide a mechanism to make resilient backups. The tool mus...
What advice do you have for others considering Oracle Data Guard?
Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1...
What do you like most about Zerto?
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 feat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zerto?
I would rate the pricing, setup cost, and licensing around a seven on a scale of one to ten. The pricing model could be more flexible to accommodate startup companies with lower budgets.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Zerto Virtual Replication
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

PT Wings Surya, Tectrade, State of Ohio
United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Spectrum Protect Plus vs. Zerto and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
832,138 professionals have used our research since 2012.