I use Zerto for disaster recovery and data protection.
Storage Administrator at Adonis Manufacturing
Has had a positive effect on our RTOs and RPOs
Pros and Cons
- "Zerto is easy to use and user-friendly."
- "Its price should be improved."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
It is very easy and user-friendly. You do not need too much knowledge about it before you navigate around it. It is not complex. It is easy for users to use.
We can see its benefits from time to time. Every time we use it, we keep seeing the benefits of Zerto.
We have seen a positive effect on our RTOs and RPOs. We will keep using Zerto. We do not have any plan to change the brand.
Zerto helps me save time. It helps do things slightly faster.
Zerto has helped me with my time management. It helps me save time. It makes my work easier. It is easy to navigate through.
I find it to be the best. It has had a positive effect on everything I do in my daily activity.
What is most valuable?
Zerto is easy to use and user-friendly. It is not complex, so I find it easy to use. I do not need to have much knowledge about it before using it.
What needs improvement?
Its price should be improved.
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For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have had a crash once or twice.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I feel it is very good because it supports virtual machines.
How are customer service and support?
I have not contacted their support.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used any other solution. Zerto is the first one.
How was the initial setup?
It was easy. I have not tried any other product, so I cannot compare it with others. This was my first time using Zerto, and I found it to be easy.
It did not take much of my time. It probably took two to three days, but I am not sure because it has been three years.
What about the implementation team?
I had a little assistance with the deployment. It was not just me. We had three people involved in its deployment.
It needs to be maintained. You need to check whether any user or anything else requires attention.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
They should adjust the pricing because I feel its price is too much. If they reduce the price, there will be more users and customers.
What other advice do I have?
If you have not deployed it before, you should seek assistance before the deployment.
I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Last updated: Aug 25, 2024
Flag as inappropriateSenior Infrastructure Consultant at Azeemi Technologies
It is flexible, stable, and user-friendly
Pros and Cons
- "Continuous protection is Zerto's most valuable aspect."
- "Zerto can improve by offering bare metal recovery for our physical infrastructure."
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto for disaster recovery and cloud migration.
We are an MSP, so we have Zerto deployed on multiple public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises.
We implemented Zerto because its continuous data protection significantly reduces data loss and downtime costs. In the event of a production issue, we can quickly recover using the user-friendly Check Point feature. Zerto also offers flexible support for storage models, primary and disaster recovery, and hypervisors.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto's user-friendly interface simplifies data protection tasks. It allows users to create virtual protection groups easily, configure failover and recovery processes, and manage licenses.
Zerto's near-synchronous replication can replicate our primary data center services related to PR, which is essential. But somehow, we are facing some pros and cons on this. If we face any challenge like a ransomware attack on our PR site, with the synchronous mode, it is also replicated on DR. That can affect us. So, if we use an asynchronous model, our data will not be replicated continuously from the PR site to the DR site. There is a specific time bracket where the data has been replicated after a particular time frame. So, there are different types of business cases and business requirements. However, we are comfortable with the near-synchronous model.
Zerto helps us set up any disaster recovery site on a cloud-based model and establish an on-premises-to-cloud migration plan. The continuous data protection feature protects our infrastructure services from ransomware and other bugs.
Our virtual protection groups safeguard virtual machines across various models, including hypervisors and virtualized environments. When configured to route to our disaster recovery site after synchronization between sites A and B, VPGs achieve our desired Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective, meeting our Service Level Agreement. Flexible protection models range from 250MB to 350MB, with varying time slots to facilitate data recovery between the PR and DR sites.
Zerto provides two functionalities: live migration and test failover. Live migration allows a seamless transition of our primary machine to the disaster recovery site within ten minutes.
Zerto has reduced our RTO from 30 seconds to three to nine seconds and has helped reduce downtime.
Zerto has helped save time in a data recovery situation and helped reduce our DR testing.
It has improved our IT resiliency strategy by 90 percent.
The ability to perform disaster recovery in the cloud is helpful because it can reduce our DR footprint and time.
What is most valuable?
Continuous protection is Zerto's most valuable aspect.
What needs improvement?
Zerto can improve by offering bare metal recovery for our physical infrastructure.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Zerto is stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Zerto is scalable, and if we need to scale down the line, we know it can handle it.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used VMware's Site Recovery Manager. We switched to Zerto because it is easier to use and requires less set-up time.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment of Zerto is straightforward. We must set up a VM server and install the VR agents, followed by the PR site.
The deployment times vary depending on the business model, but for someone with full knowledge of Zerto, it can be completed within 30 to 90 minutes.
What about the implementation team?
The implementation was completed in-house.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Zerto ten out of ten, but I would like it to offer bare metal recovery as well.
No maintenance is required for Zerto.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Last updated: Jul 17, 2024
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The near-synchronous certification has positively impacted our operations
Pros and Cons
- "It's very stable. It doesn't require a lot of intervention."
- "Maybe the reporting for the failover test could be a little better."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is for disaster recovery. We replicate up to Azure, and that's essentially disaster recovery as a service.
Overall, the effects of RPO have been great. They are never more than a minute or two, even throughout the production day.
What is most valuable?
If we can replicate from our native VMware environment up to native Azure, it converts the machines for us. We don't have to maintain another VMware environment somewhere. It's really given us the ability to eliminate the entire data center.
Moreover, there are cost savings tied to this. We don't pay for the rack space, power, or hardware; all of that is gone. Because the machines aren't active, all we're paying for is storage in Azure. So it has saved us quite a bit of money.
Zerto's near-synchronous certification has positively impacted our operations. Any recovery point that's too far in the past, we'll lose transactions when we fail over. We really don't want to do that. Real-time replication gives us a much better sense of security for the enterprise. It simplifies things for us and reduces costs. It makes management feel really good, too.
Using DR in a cloud environment has been a positive experience. We're saving money. We don't have to maintain the hardware. We don't have the rack space at the other data center. It just simplifies things for us and reduces costs. It's been a positive experience overall. It's pretty easy to use. Once it's up and running, it stays running. We have had a few times when we called support and the support has been very, very good.
What needs improvement?
Maybe the reporting for the failover test could be a little better.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto since 2020, so it's been three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's very good. It's very stable. It doesn't require a lot of intervention.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We haven't had any problems with scalability. We have 75 machines protected by Zerto and it does a fine job.
How are customer service and support?
Support has been very good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used to use Site Recovery Manager when we had two data centers, and it was VMware to VMware. We were using EMC storage. Zerto is a lot easier to use than Site Recovery Manager. It requires less care and feeding.
Site Recovery Manager occasionally would lose virtual machines, and it was kind of a pain, but Zerto just kept running. So overall, we're really happy with the switch to Zerto.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy.
Since we don't have to maintain all of the hardware and the second data center, one person can manage the entire Azure environment by themselves. As a result, Zerto has helped us reduce staff.
What about the implementation team?
We did an assisted setup with Zerto tech on the line, and It was really painless. It was simple and straightforward. The initial process including getting the servers and everything set up, was pretty short. The process included getting the VMs all added to the recovery groups and things like that.
The whole process from start to finish took less than a week.
What was our ROI?
It has proven to be a cost-effective solution for us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It could always be less money.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate the solution a ten out of ten. It requires little care and feeding. Not a lot goes wrong with it. It just works.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Converged Infrastructure Engineer at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees
Is fast to set up and has valuable replication features
Pros and Cons
- "It reduced the time for DR tests from the infrastructure side. Being able to get our work done in a matter of a couple of minutes so the app teams can get to work and can do their testing has been significant."
- "We would love to have a native management pack for vROps and to be able to view a dashboard and metrics for BPGs within vROps. We would like to have a single view for monitoring and provide customers with dashboards so they can see their own BPGs."
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto as a DR tool. Instead of having to have a duplicate DR server, we can add a system to BPG and point it to whatever our DR site will be and replicate it for customers.
We also use it for migration planning. If we need to move VMs from on-premise to Azure or back, or it was built in the wrong place, we can easily move it over.
How has it helped my organization?
It reduced the time for DR tests from the infrastructure side. Being able to get our work done in a matter of a couple of minutes so the app teams can get to work and can do their testing has been significant.
Before we would have to use a backup recovery tool to restore it to a LAN, which could take hours at times, depending on the solution that was being used.
What is most valuable?
The replication features are most valuable. It's fast to set up a BPG and get a system added. This aspect is very important to our business. Being able to provide customers with a very fast DR experience, whether it's for a test or live case scenario, and being able to provide the ability to move systems to Azure for cost savings or migrations, saves our ops teams a lot of time.
What needs improvement?
We would love to have a native management pack for vROps and to be able to view a dashboard and metrics for BPGs within vROps. We would like to have a single view for monitoring and provide customers with dashboards so they can see their own BPGs.
We would also like to have a native plugin for VRA built by either VMware or Zerto. That way there's actual support for it and we're not on the hook for trying to figure out what happened if it breaks.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using Zerto for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The only problems we've had stability-wise come from upgrades.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable solution. The only challenge is that there's no way to manage it centrally at the moment. If you have 30 vCenters, you now have 30 appliances and you have to remember where everything is, which can become a pain point when it comes to trying to find where this VM is being replicated and what BPG it's in.
How are customer service and support?
The support for this solution could be improved. It is challenging for staff who actually understand the product. We had issues where we ended up spending hours and sometimes days on the phone, only for us to figure it out on our own.
They're very personable and fine to work with. It seems like technical expertise is lacking. I would rate them a five out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I haven't used too many other disaster recovery tools. We used standard backup solutions and Zerto is significantly faster.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
System Engineer at National Indemnity Company
An intuitive, easy-to-use solution that protects us in the event of a disaster
Pros and Cons
- "With Zerto, all you have to do is deploy the executable and start setting things up. So, it was very easy."
- "I need to get up to the latest version so I can move my journals to a particular LUN, saving them with a particular storage altogether, rather than with the virtual machine. This is not available until I upgrade, and I need to upgrade all my hypervisors. This would be something that would be nice to have if it could be used on older versions."
What is our primary use case?
We are replicating all of our production VMs to a DR site. We also have another offsite vCenter that we are replicating to a DR site for protection and eventual testing.
How has it helped my organization?
It makes me feel more comfortable that we have something to fall back on in case of a disaster. We are a large insurance company, so we have a lot of different applications and SQL Servers. We never had a disaster recovery site before, so this will protect us in the event of a disaster.
What is most valuable?
A good, valuable feature is using the preseeded LUNs, when deleting a virtual machine. Then, I put the VPG back to keep track of where I was at, so I don't have to replicate everything. Instead, I just preseeded LUNs since it needs less replication time.
It is fairly intuitive and easy to use.
You can go back fairly quickly. You push the button and there you are.
What needs improvement?
I need to get up to the latest version so I can move my journals to a particular LUN, saving them with a particular storage altogether, rather than with the virtual machine. This is not available until I upgrade, and I need to upgrade all my hypervisors. This would be something that would be nice to have if it could be used on older versions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for almost three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It has been stable. We have had glitches between our site and DR site. When the MPLS comes back up, Zerto just kicks right back off, doing what it needs to do.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As we have been growing more VMs in production, I have still been adding to Zerto. So, I haven't had any problems with the amount of VMs and everything that Zerto can handle.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't really had any problems with support. Most of the time, when calling support, I find the answer before they call me back. Or, they will send me an email, and say, "Here, try this."
I would rate the technical support as nine or 10 (out of 10).
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We didn't previously use another solution.
What was our ROI?
It provides us with a safety net.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated RecoverPoint, which was very difficult to set up. Even as a test, it was hard to set up. With Zerto, all you have to do is deploy the executable and start setting things up. So, it was very easy. Then, I insisted that the company buy Zerto for me.
RecoverPoint was difficult to set up and use. It wasn't as menu-driven as Zerto.
What other advice do I have?
We really haven't done any recovery or rollbacks. We are getting there. Later this year, we will be doing those types of failover tests, rollback tests, etc.
We haven't done DR testing. That will probably be done in the next three months.
I would rate Zerto as 10 out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Manager of Architecture and Network Operations at EMPLOYEE HEALTH INSURANCE MANAGEMENT, INC
Makes us feel more secure, and we used it a couple of times for failover, so it's an essential part of the business operation
Pros and Cons
- "Real-time or near real-time replication has been the most valuable feature. Our RTO is generally between six and eight seconds. The impact on our RTO is essential."
- "It would be nice to have the option to do automatic failover, but right now the only option is manual."
What is our primary use case?
We use Zerto primarily for disaster recovery replication between two sites.
We started to use this solution to help with disaster recovery planning and fast recoverability.
The solution is deployed on-premises. We have two different SANS by EMC, VMware as our DOS network operating system, and we have a mixture of Windows, Linux, Red Hat, and Cisco switches.
We haven't done DR in the cloud because we don't do anything in the cloud.
We haven't used Zerto for immutable data copies because everything is on-premises. We just use it in a VM environment for the VMDK replication.
How has it helped my organization?
It's made us feel more secure, and we used it a couple of times for failover, so it's an essential part of the business operations.
Zerto's overall effect on our RPOs has been business critical. It's almost as important as a running production server.
It reduced our downtime. We can recover in five to six minutes versus 12 hours. That amount of downtime would have cost our organization $30,000.
The solution saved us time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware. We got infected, noticed the infection within seven minutes, and restored it to a point in time. We failed over to our disaster site, deleted the infected server, and 24 hours later we replicated back to our corporate site.
It helped to reduce our organization's DR testing. It's easier to plan, and the procedure is the same no matter the operating system or the applications installed.
It reduced the amount of staff involved in data recovery. It also reduced the number of staff involved in overall backup in DR management, but we have not reduced our workforce because of it.
What is most valuable?
Real-time or near real-time replication is the most valuable feature. Our RTO is generally between six and eight seconds. The impact on our RTO is essential.
The ease of use is great. You just have to be familiar with it, know how to set up your virtually protected groups, and know what fits your environment the best.
I love the solution's near synchronous replication. It's business critical to our organization.
We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment.
What needs improvement?
It would be nice to have the option to do automatic failover, but right now the only option is manual.
Zerto hasn't replaced all of our legacy backup solutions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for about nine years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability 10 out of 10.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I haven't had any issues with scalability. We don't have any plans to increase usage and buy more licenses, but we will if we need to.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is really good. We've used the solution for more than eight years, and we've only needed to call them three or four times.
I would rate technical support 10 out of 10.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We previously used VMware DRS. We made the switch to Zerto because of reporting and ease of use.
How was the initial setup?
There was a learning curve, but the setup was pretty easy. For our deployment model, we have one VPG per server, so it's one-to-one.
For maintenance, there are quarterly patches, and we set up testing of our VPGs every six months.
What about the implementation team?
Deployment was done in-house.
What was our ROI?
We've seen ROI in active disaster recovery and failover.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I wish it were cheaper, but I would purchase it again at the same price.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We haven't reviewed any other product in the last eight years, but if I can say that I can get six to eight seconds RPO and RTL, that's incredible.
Compared to other solutions, Zerto is just easier to use, it's not as cumbersome, it's straightforward, and training is easy.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution 10 out of 10.
For those who are interested in this solution, my advice is to evaluate it, test it, and buy it.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Network Engineer at PRICE TRANSFER, INC
Allows rapid RTO and great customer support, in the simplest DR solution I have ever deployed
Pros and Cons
- "The whole package is valuable. The most useful feature for the company is the rapid RTO, which offers a faster return to operations and brings us back online quicker. The last time we had an issue, we recovered within about 36 minutes, which was probably the most valuable thing for us because, previously, it took four to seven days."
- "There are quite a few elements in the long-term retention areas that I wish were better. The bio-level recovery indexing of backups is the area I struggle with the most. That's probably because I desire to do tasks that ordinary users wouldn't do with the solution. The standard medium to large customer would probably never ask for anything like I ask for, so I think it's pretty good the way it is. I'm excited to see some of the new improvements coming in the 9.5 version. Some of the streamlines and how the product presents itself for some of the recovery features could be better."
What is our primary use case?
We're currently doing a two-tiered on-site and off-site replication, with one long-term retention being displaced into a cloud and one long-term retention being displaced to a third data center. We were looking to make our recovery solution more streamlined and efficient, that's why we implemented this product.
We're not as huge as everybody else. We just have large devices. We have four SQL servers running, each of which is about six terabytes, so our continuous replication is a lot larger than others. We also have multiple secured file storages in the two-terabyte range, so we replicate around 140 terabytes continuously, utilizing about 60 VM servers. Our primary and secondary production is VMware, and our third-tier backup area is a hypervisor.
How has it helped my organization?
The most significant improvement is the reduced stress of running our operation. Before deploying the solution, we had two people on-call 24/7, one on-shift and one off-shift. Now our workload has been reduced, and we only have to give support over the phone, which rarely happens.
For this deployment, I realized the benefits very quickly. I already knew how the solution would provide a reliable safety net and offer a better risk-reward profile for our cybersecurity insurance. I knew this three deployments ago. The main selling points I presented for this deployment are the continuous replication, plus the reduction in man-hours and cybersecurity risk.
What is most valuable?
The whole package is valuable. The most useful feature for the company is the rapid RTO, which offers a faster return to operations and brings us back online quicker. The last time we had an issue, we recovered within about 36 minutes, which was probably the most valuable thing for us because, previously, it took four to seven days.
I've worked with Zerto since the beginning; I think it was when we were still on version one. Having that continuous replication, as we call it, where we have just a small delta point is paramount to being able to create that multiple mine backup solution or recovery solution. It's absolutely the product's selling point.
Zerto is the simplest disaster recovery and data recovery solution I've ever deployed, and I've been doing this for 30-plus years.
We have used Zerto to protect VMs in our environment. That's the entire solution for us; it's all virtual. They can even calculate a number now, and I have 30-day testing documentation that gives them real-time data that shows a 15 to 40-minute recovery. It's astronomical because they now have a number they can guarantee to the stakeholders.
There isn't much comparison with other disaster recovery solutions, though it depends on the configuration. A more dramatic or complex multi-tiered recovery would expand the time, but we went from four to seven days down to under an hour. For that reason, it's almost incomparable to other solutions. Depending on the deployment, even the VMware Site Recovery Manager takes four, eight, or even 12 hours. We can bring things back online in under an hour. I don't know any other solutions that can do cross-breed virtual environments or multi-hypervisors with VMware, with different types of cloud. We can go with Microsoft Cloud, VM Cloud, or Google Cloud. It's not even a comparison. If you have a good product seller and a buy-in from your network engineer and your software engineer, it's an easy sell.
We currently have over 600 days of saved downtime. It's almost two years now without a single moment of downtime, because we utilized the failover to do maintenance cycles.
Our last collapse was when we were hit by ransomware just about two years ago. It took out 80% of our systems, and we were back online in 36 minutes.
I use the orchestrator for DR testing. I run a simulated test every 30 days, and we do two live tests a year. Before my arrival, they had never done a test, but that's what we do as a standard now. It only takes two members of staff, me and one other, for the entire test. It's very low-volume in terms of staff requirements.
The solution dramatically reduced the number of staff involved in recoveries. Before my deployment of Zerto in this organization, they had one disaster recovery and had to hire 19 people to do it. When we had the ransomware attack, two of us recovered the entire solution within an hour without having to hire anyone. The previous recovery costs were around $20,000 for the staffing alone, not counting the loss of revenue. I implemented the recovery during my regular work shift.
What needs improvement?
There are quite a few elements in the long-term retention areas that I wish were better. The bio-level recovery indexing of backups is the area I struggle with the most. That's probably because I desire to do tasks that ordinary users wouldn't do with the solution. The standard medium to the large customer would probably never ask for anything like I ask for, so I think it's pretty good the way it is. I'm excited to see some of the new improvements coming in the 9.5 version. Some of the streamlines and how the product presents itself for some of the recovery features could be better.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the solution for two and a half years, and I've assisted in the deployment at three other companies. I personally have close to ten years of experience with it.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I've been using Zerto for close to 10 or 11 years, and the stability is probably in the 95% to 98% range. That's pretty good, and I give it an A.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is the smallest solution I've ever deployed. It scales very well across multiple platforms and at a long-range. It's very scalable; I've implemented substantial deployments and deployments over huge areas. I'm impressed with the solution's scalability, especially the integration with vCloud environments.
How are customer service and support?
I dealt with them recently, and they're pretty solid. The process is mainly automated, they connect remotely, and I don't have to explain much as they can look at the logs. With that capability, it does work very nicely.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I replaced the VMware Site Recovery Manager and a Symantec backup solution when I came in. I also replaced the third-tier snapshot replication, which they had never successfully tested or recovered from.
We switched because I begged them to. I've used Zerto extensively, and the amount of fluidity and flexibility it offers is necessary. It gives me peace of mind and allows me to sleep well at night knowing it will be alright, which is uncommon in this business. I said as much to the company and was able to convince them within about six months.
I used Veeam and some other bare-metal backup solutions before. Since virtual servers have been in place, Veeam and SRM are pretty much the two standards, with Symantec being the tape backup solution or virtual hard drive backup solution. Since Zerto came around and I saw what the product could do, it's all I ever push for when I get called in for a company that needs a DR plan.
How was the initial setup?
I designed it all and already knew what I wanted to accomplish and what the product could do. Once we knew what direction we were going in and where the critical applications aligned, it was just a point of picking things up and putting them into placeholders already in the required image I designed for our purposes. It was pretty easy. It might take a little longer without prior experience and an idea of what I want to accomplish. It would still be pretty easy as Zerto provides excellent documentation. This is one of the most straightforward designs out there. End-to-end, with testing and approvals at each step, I think it took two and a half weeks.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented the solution on my own.
What was our ROI?
I can't give an exact figure, but I would say that protection from Ransomware tech alone paid for the initial startup process and most of the maintenance needed.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I wouldn't say I like the licensing pricing structure. Every year, it increases exponentially, which bothers me a little. It's worth it in terms of the value, but I worry the price will increase even more often after the Zerto merger. I still think it's worth it and that the solution is cheaper than the others.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We evaluated Symantec, and NetApp, and we brought in Veeam.
The main differences between Zerto and the other solutions are the continuous replication capabilities and the ability to have two continuous replications simultaneously. These were major selling points for the company. With snap replication from NetApp or even Veeam, there isn't that consistency between multiple divisions. I showed the company we don't have to have VMware at the low MBR; we can have a hypervisor at a much-reduced cost, as the price was the last hope for the other solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. I don't give anybody a ten, as nobody is perfect. The best score I give is an eight, and they get that.
We don't necessarily use Zerto for immutable data copies as it's never been a requirement. I know it's there and what we can do with it if we need to.
We only use the physical solution because of the nature of our business, but we do long-term retention in the cloud. It is nice to have that long-term cloud retention, as it gives us another tier of data available for worst-case scenarios.
I wanted to replace our legacy solutions, but we still have old-school solutions for legacy data recovery. We use Symantec for backup exec. on our bare metal, but I don't think it's critical because it's more for our legacy data recovery. After all, we're not like most companies. We have to keep our data for 24 years.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Cloud Hosting Operations Manager at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Reduced the backup recovery time of our main backup solution by several hours
Pros and Cons
- "It reduced the backup recovery time of our main backup solution by several hours. It's reduced our time because before we have to build a system and restore the data, we install the application and restore the data that took us at least a good 24 hours to do that. And now it's really minutes for us to recover our backup solution."
- "I'm not sure if it has throttling, meaning, what's going over the wire and how we can throttle that to reduce the amount of data that's going across the bandwidth. I can't remember if that's something that's in this product. It might be in the more recent version."
What is our primary use case?
We're replicating mainly some of our critical applications. One is our backup solution and then also some critical applications that we don't want to have to recover from tapes. That's been working very well for us. We actually just recently went through a DR rehearsal, where we ran a quick test and that ran for about a week and then completed that test. Then we were able to report that we were able to successfully recover our critical ERP system inside of the remote location successfully.
How has it helped my organization?
I don't have to worry about Zerto so much. It definitely continues working. We definitely have monitoring and everything like this to make sure things are working just fine, but I can't complain about it in any kind of way. I know we are a little behind on the version that we're using and we need to be on the latest and greatest. Right now we're on version 7.0.
It reduced the backup recovery time of our main backup solution by several hours. It's reduced our time because before we have to build a system and restore the data, we install the application and restore the data that took us at least a good 24 hours to do that. And now it's really minutes for us to recover our backup solution.
Zerto reduced the number of staff involved in data recovery or in a data recovery situation. It's now only one person while it was four previously.
What is most valuable?
Comparing it to VMware SRM, Zerto is by far the best that I've used before for providing continuous data protection.
Different parts of the company use VMware, we use Zerto, and then we saw where they were taking us. Ours really takes less than an hour just to do a quick failover. So it didn't make any sense to go with VMware one, so we ended up going with Zerto.
An employee had actually introduced us to it and we looked at it and wanted to try it. He was working for a bank that does quite a bit as far as doing disaster recovery. So if a bank used it then I would definitely use it.
It is fairly easy. It's not as technical to get around it or anything like that.
It's a fairly easy tool to use.
What needs improvement?
I know that Zerto can definitely improve some functionalities. I know some of the cloud pieces probably enable that. At the moment, it's doing what we want for us, and what it's doing for us right now is plenty. I can't say there's any improvement that I can see that needs to be done at the moment.
I'm not sure if it has throttling, meaning, what's going over the wire and how we can throttle that to reduce the amount of data that's going across the bandwidth. I can't remember if that's something that's in this product. It might be in the more recent version.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Zerto for three to four years.
How are customer service and support?
Their support has been very good. I can't complain about them.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was straightforward for the admin that deployed it. It was not complicated. That person left and then another person came in who didn't know anything about this product and he picked it up fairly easily and he's able to manage it with ease.
He's a VMware administrator and he also maintains Zerto.
The deployment was done within a day.
We don't have plans to increase usage because we are at the point where we're closing out. We're migrating some of our data centers and right now I know it's going to continue utilizing what we have. We haven't even hit the capacity of what we've got right now. Because I think the license we have is around 75 servers. We haven't even hit that. The only thing that's stopping us from right now is just that we need to increase the storage at the remote location to handle additional workloads. We have around 14 servers.
What was our ROI?
We have seen ROI from Zerto.
It has reduced downtime. It went from 24 hours to four minutes. It could even be seconds. It's fairly quick.
The dollar amount would equate to something in the millions. For an environment to be restored it means restoring our ERP systems. Then in that ERP in that system, it also has some manufacturing as well.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing is fair. I don't see a big issue with the pricing for what we are trying to do. The things that we're replicating, if it were to go down it pays for it in itself there.
What other advice do I have?
We don't have any plans for long-term retention. They talked to us about it. But at the moment it's not in our forecast to look at that.
We don't have to failback because we just fail to a bubble, in other words. We don't want to bring down production because we're going through migration of our ERP. So we fail it over into this bubble. And that's what we're using. It is the test failover that we're using in that environment. Then in that environment, everything is isolated. That's how we use it today. We have never had to failback back to our main site.
I would rate it a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Updated: November 2024
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Quick Links
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