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reviewer1639146 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Administrator at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
More user-friendly than other solutions because of its GUI
Pros and Cons
  • "Since we are at a bank, there are certain protocols in place where we need to have RPO and RTO times of two hours or less. Zerto does a great job of setting those times and alerting us if those can't be met. We have our help desk actively monitoring that. It is extremely helpful that Zerto lists what is falling out of compliance in regards to RPO and RTO. It has been great in that regard."
  • "It has a file restore feature, which we have tried to use. We have had some issues with that, because the drives are compressed in our main file system. It is a Windows-based file server. So, it compresses the shares and can't restore those by default."

What is our primary use case?

We mostly use it just for disaster recovery. We also utilize it for our quarterly and annual DR test.

It is on-prem. We have a primary location and a DR location.

How has it helped my organization?

Since we are at a bank, there are certain protocols in place where we need to have RPO and RTO times of two hours or less. Zerto does a great job of setting those times and alerting us if those can't be met. We have our help desk actively monitoring that. It is extremely helpful that Zerto lists what is falling out of compliance in regards to RPO and RTO. It has been great in that regard.

If we need to fail back or move workloads, Zerto decreases the number of people involved by half versus companies of similar size who don't have Zerto.

We have had patches that have broken a server. We then needed to have it right back up and running. We have been able to do that, which has been a huge plus. 

What is most valuable?

The real-time data protection is the most valuable feature. We are able to quickly spin up VMs instantly. 

We have also utilized it, from time to time, if our backups didn't catch it at night. If something was deleted midday, this solution is nice because you can use Zerto for that. 

I would rate Zerto very high in terms of it providing continuous data protection. We have had multiple instances that took days with our old DR test (before I was at my current company) and DR tests from other companies where I worked that didn't have Zerto. Now, we can realistically do DR tests in less than 30 minutes.

Zerto is extremely easy to use. If 10 is absolutely dummy-proof, I would give the ease of use an eight.

What needs improvement?

It has a file restore feature, which we have tried to use. We have had some issues with that, because the drives are compressed in our main file system. It is a Windows-based file server. So, it compresses the shares and can't restore those by default. However, we have done it with other things. It is pretty handy.

I would like it if they would really ramp up more on their PowerShell scripting and API calls, then I can heavily utilize PowerShell. I am big into scripting stuff and automating things. So, if they could do even more with PowerShell, API calls, and automation, that would be fantastic.

Buyer's Guide
Zerto
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,369 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it at my company for almost four years. My company has been using it for six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate stability as eight and a half out of 10.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate scalability as eight out of 10.

We monitor and use it every day. Our current license count is 150 VMs. I could definitely see us increasing that license because we keep adding more VMs.

As big as our company is, we don't have a very large infrastructure sysadmin group. I wouldn't say that Zerto has reduced our staff in any kind of way, but it definitely has helped the small amount of people that we have.

We have around 20 people using it: 

  • Our core admin group is four people, including me. To put that in perspective, we have a $10 billion bank and our core infrastructure team consists of just those four people. The core admin group does administration, creates VPGs, and executes the main day-to-day operations. 
  • We have a few users who are just monitoring it only. This is a read-only role. 
  • We have our help desk, which is basically read-only, but they actively monitor RTO and RPO every day, all day long. They leave up the dashboard on a huge TV and just keep an eye on things.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate the technical support as nine and a half out of 10. I thoroughly enjoy the fact that they are located in Boston, and you feel like you are talking to someone just like you. They do an excellent job of following up and escalating anything that is needed. I rarely have to call Zerto support, but I am confident that anytime I need to, then it will be resolved.

We stay in close contact with our main local rep.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

My company never used anything quite like Zerto. We still use things for backup and recovery, such as Dell EMC Avamar, which used to be NetWorker. We also use RecoverPoint for applications, but it is not at all the same. There is actual real-time recovery. It is kind of a different animal.

How was the initial setup?

I have had to redeploy it a few times with data center changes and such. We went from your typical data center to Cisco UCS Blades to VxRack, a VMware Dell EMC product. With that, I had to deploy it from scratch.

It was pretty straightforward. There is plenty of very easy to follow documentation when it comes to implementing it. There is also a lot of training provided so you can understand it before you implement it. Those two things make it pretty easy.

Just to stand it up and get everything going, that took an hour or two. The overall implementation was over the course of three days, because our core is heavily utilized.

We had a ZVM Virtual Manager on our production side and another on our DR site. Most of our data is replicated from production to DR. We do have some that are in the DR replicating back, but not a lot. Our main concern was between both sites, because we don't have a very large pipe. Even though Zerto's compression is pretty good, we didn't want to send that data all back over. Our main priority, when we set it up again, was that we were able to retain a lot of the data at our DR location and remap it by using preseeded disks, which was huge.

What about the implementation team?

At least two staff members are required for deployment and maintenance. Whenever an update is released, we try to do that fairly quickly. For quarterly updates or major releases, we try to stay on top of them. Then, whenever we deploy new systems, applications, or servers, depending on the RTO and RPO, we add Zerto to those. That is daily, depending on how much workload we have and how many servers we are deploying. Those two people add those groups and such configuration into Zerto.

From an implementation standpoint, just follow the guide and check their support page for things. Worst case, reach out to support if you have already paid for it. It is pretty straightforward.

What was our ROI?

Zerto has helped reduce downtime. We have had servers go down and could easily spin them back up at our DR location almost instantly. Instead of taking an hour, it took a minute.

On average, it saves us three to five hours a day.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We pay for 150 VMs per year. It is not cheap.

Having backup and DR is somewhat moderately important to us. The problem with us, and a lot of companies, is the issue with on-prem Zerto. It utilizes whatever you have for a SAN. Or, if you are like us, we have a vSAN and that storage is not cheap. So, it is cheaper to have a self-contained backup system that is on its own storage rather than utilizing your data center storage, like your vSAN. While it is somewhat important to have both backup and DR, it is not incredibly important to have both. I know Zero is trying to heavily dip their toes in the water of backup and recovery. Once you see what Zerto can do, I don't think anyone will not take Zerto because they don't necessarily specialize in backup and recovery 100 percent. They do replication so well.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Zerto did really well with presenting their solution to the management here, really getting people involved, and helping them understand what and how it could be used. At the time, their real-time recovery was pretty far above anybody else available, and even still somewhat.

Other solutions would take an entire workday to recover our core infrastructure. With Zerto, we are done within an hour for all our major systems.

As far as the GUI goes, Zerto is more user-friendly than a lot of other products, such as Avamar and Commvault. It is fairly easy to use, but I think the GUI interface of Zerto is pretty far above the rest.

We use Avamar, and I don't see Zerto replacing Avamar for the simple fact of retention and how expensive the storage is. Using an RPM storage is pretty pricey, especially to try to rely on that for a long retention of seven years, for instance. 

What other advice do I have?

When it comes to purchasing, I highly recommend Zerto all the time to friends that I have at other companies. 

It is just for DR. We keep an average of three days of retention, e.g., journal history of three days. However, it is not always the same for all products. We don't really keep it for backups. That is more of a convenience thing.

Currently, we don't utilize the cloud. It may be an option in the future. The cloud was a bad word for our bank for a long time, and that is starting to change.

Biggest lesson learnt: DR tests don't have to be so painful.

I would rate Zerto as 10 out of 10.

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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reviewer1508472 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Information Officer at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
We have reduced the amount of workloads being handled
Pros and Cons
  • "We have seen ROI. The biggest way that we have seen it is in avoided downtime. We have had outages before, and we count downtime in terms of dollars spent. We have cut that down so dramatically, which provides us a very quick ROI. We have drastically reduced the amount of time it takes us to recover workloads, from an average of two hours to an average of 10 minutes."
  • "My only business complaint is the cost of the solution. I feel like the cost could be a tad lower, but we are willing to pay extra to get the Premium service."

What is our primary use case?

We are using it to protect all our on-premise virtual workloads, which includes mission-critical applications, line of business applications, and several unstructured data type repositories for disaster recovery.

It is our sole disaster recovery solution for what it does. It is protecting all the workloads at SmartBank. 

Both of our data centers are on-premise and in colocations. Our plan over the next year or two is that we will very likely be shifting to DR in the cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

We had a ransomware event on one of our file servers. We detected that event very quickly using other methodologies. However, because we had Zerto in place on that server, within about 30 minutes from seeing the problem, we were able to go back and recover that machine before that ransomware event had happened. This is a great example of the solution's ability to restore so quickly that it really helped us.

Because of its ease of use, it has increased the number of people in IT who can failback or move workloads. This used to be something that was done only by our infrastructure team, because it was manual processes and complex. We now have the virtual protection setup so effectively, and Zerto does it so effectively, that we have now been able to get another three or four people from other groups of our IT company trained on how to do recovery operations. This helps us tremendously when we are doing recovery because there are just a lot more people who might be available to do it. On average, we have saved two hours per workload, and we have hundreds of workloads. We have taken about a two-hour process down to about 10 minutes in terms of recovery. Zerto is really good at what it does. It has been tremendous.

We can have a single person restoring scores of machines as well as doing DR. Backups are still managed separately. In our case, we did not reduce staff. Our staff was already kind of a limiting factor. We put Zerto in to enable our staff to do more, not to reduce our staff. Therefore, we have tremendously reduced the amount of workloads being handled by specialists.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the ease of use, i.e., the relatively low complexity of the solution, as well as the speed and effectiveness of the solution. This allows us to protect our workloads with extremely small latency, making it very easy for us to monitor and recover. So, we are very happy with it.

In terms of Zerto providing continuous data protection, I would rate it as a nine out of 10. It is incredibly effective at what it does. I really have no complaints.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see more managed service= options. While Zerto isn't doing this a lot, there are a ton of third-parties who are doing managed services with Zerto.

For how long have I used the solution?

For this company, we have only been using it for about six months. However, I have used it at two other companies for a total of about four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For our current needs, the scalability seems excellent. The scalability of the solution is really more of a function of your bandwidth and the amount of virtual resources you can point at it. I don't think there is any conceivable scalability limit.

Probably 10 people on my team touch Zerto in a meaningful way: 

  • Four of them are infrastructure and data center engineers. They support the storage, users, communications, the software, and the configuration of most of the back-end system as well as monitor the solution. They do a lot there. 
  • The other six people are our technical support director, enterprise applications team, and information security officer. Those people also get into Zerto. They generally do failover testing and monitor certain VPGs for parts of our system that they are responsible for, and they do some protection configuration. 

The heavy lifting is done on the infrastructure side, but the other teams monitor, maintain, and most importantly, test it. This is a big deal because we previously had the infrastructure team do all the testing for us before Zerto. Now, the business unit managers directly in IT can do their own testing, which is a big change for us.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is excellent. They have a great support portal, which is easy to use. They are very responsive and generally able to help us with any configuration or performance issues that we run into.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Our previous product was VMware Site Recovery Manager. We switched to get a less complex system that could protect our workloads better and enable faster recovery. Those were kind of the main reasons why we switched. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We deployed Zerto initially with a VAR. They explained the process very well. It was just an initial installation service which included some training. Then, we took over the management of it and have been managing it in-house ever since.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI. The biggest way that we have seen it is in avoided downtime. We have had outages before, and we count downtime in terms of dollars spent. We have cut that down so dramatically, which provides us a very quick ROI. We have drastically reduced the amount of time it takes us to recover workloads, from an average of two hours to an average of 10 minutes.

We measure our downtime in thousands of dollars per minute. While it depends on what is down and who it is impacting, we take in an average of $1,000 a minute at a minimum. So, 120 minutes of downtime at $1,000 is $120,000 per workload that is down, and that can add up very quickly.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My only business complaint is the cost of the solution. I feel like the cost could be a tad lower, but we are willing to pay extra to get the Premium service.

Zerto does a per-workload licensing model, per-server. It is simple and straightforward, but it is not super flexible. It is kind of a one size fits all. They charge the same price for those workloads. I feel like they could have some flexible licensing option possibly based on criticality, just so we could protect less important work. I would love to protect every workload in my environment with Zerto, whether I really need it or not, but the cost is such that I really have to justify that protection. So, if we had some more flexibility, e.g., you could protect servers with a two-, three-, or four-hour RPO at a certain price point versus mission-critical every five minutes, then I would be interested in that.

The costs are the license and annual maintenance, which is the only other ongoing fee. I would imagine a lot of customers also have an initial project cost to get it implemented, if they choose to go that direction, like we did.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We do not currently use it for long-term retention. We have another solution for long-term backup retention, but we are in the second year of a three-year contract, so we will evaluate Zerto when those contracts are up. We will probably test it out. It is certainly something that we will look at. We will also plan to vet having backup and DR in one platform.

The incumbent was Site Recovery Manager, so we evaluated them as an incumbent. We also evaluated Veeam Disaster Recovery Orchestrator. We use Veeam for data backup, and they have a disaster recovery piece. It would have been an add-on to our Veeam, so we evaluated that while also looking at Zerto.

It would be ideal to integrate your backup and disaster recovery into a single solution, so that is a pro whichever way you go with it. Zerto certainly has an answer for that, but so did Veeam. Zerto's replication is superior to anyone else's out there. It's faster, simpler, and effective. I don't think I could get as low an RTO and RPO with any other solution other than Zerto.

When comparing this solution to Site Recovery Manager, pay special attention to the fact that Zerto is hypervisor-agnostic and hardware-agnostic. It is a true software-based solution, which gives flexible options in terms of the types of equipment that they can recover on and to. Ultimately, it is very flexible. It is the most flexible platform for system replication. 

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely advise them to give Zerto a chance and PoC it, if they desire. It is the best solution in the marketplace currently and has maintained that for quite some time.

I would give them a nine (out of 10). I really love the solution. I want more Zerto, but I can't afford more Zerto. I would love to protect everything in our environment, but we do have to make a business decision to do that because there is a requisite cost.

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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Buyer's Guide
Zerto
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,369 professionals have used our research since 2012.
SatyendraSingh1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Recruiter at Digital Janet
Real User
The non-destructive testing enables businesses to test their disaster recoveries without impacting production
Pros and Cons
  • "It's good for reliability, timing, and simplification. For reliability, it's a logical construction that behaves productively. It's a critical system where timing and coordination are necessary. It also offers simplicity to design and analyze the system by clearly defining the relationship between events and conditions."
  • "Sometimes we require extra storage for Zerto."

What is our primary use case?

We use Zerto to recover cloud services hosted on Azure and AWS and on-prem servers. We also use it to protect VMs. Our company has a small data operation, so we can upload all the data to the server. 

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto helps recover documents and protect data. It has excellent security and is easy to set up. We can make multiple backups and replicate different public or private cloud sites. It gives you versatility and confidence. It's because it's easy to manage and configure. There are no challenges using this tool.

We have near-zero data loss, and it has manual recovery checkpoints. We can create frequent recovery checkpoints in business for in-time backups. The second one is automated and non-destructive testing. 

The recovery time is very fast. I don't think another tool can deliver a recovery team that fast. When we ran a DR test on Zerto, it migrated quickly and efficiently. It has drastically reduced the time we spend on DR testing. We're less dependent on Hypervisor for storage resources. Our recovery time has been reduced to 30 minutes on average. It depends on the data. Sometimes, it may take only 15 to 20 minutes, but if we're uploading all of the company's data, it will take 35 to 40 minutes.   

What is most valuable?

The HR recovery is valuable because I work with the HR manager to recover the HR system first. The data will synchronize with the cloud. I also like Zerto's non-destructive testing, which enables businesses to test their disaster recoveries without impacting production. 

It has a user-friendly interface, so we can manage data protection and recovery tasks quickly. It's also cost-effective because it reduces the infrastructure cost. It's easy to integrate. Sometimes, I integrate it by myself when the manager isn't there. 

The onboarding is simple because when we're backing up, we have a copy of production running on the secondary side. We have real-time DR, meaning we can automatically remove and replace the data on the server.

It's good for reliability, timing, and simplification. For reliability, it's a logical construction that behaves productively. It's a critical system where timing and coordination are necessary. It also offers simplicity to design and analyze the system by clearly defining the relationship between events and conditions.

What needs improvement?

Sometimes we require extra storage for Zerto. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have used Zerto for five to 10 months. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Zerto is highly stable. We've never had any performance issues. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Zerto is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

I rate Zerto 10 out of 10. Sometimes, we encounter errors, my manager talks with the support. They are helpful and always resolve our issues quickly.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What other advice do I have?

I rate Zerto nine out of 10. I would recommend Zerto. My sister company also plans to implement it. To those considering Zerto, I would suggest using the trial version. The UI seems complex the first few times you use it, but after you work with it a little, it's easy to understand. 

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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Brian Bean - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive VP, Product & Technical Services at Thrive
MSP
Superior compared to the other vendors
Pros and Cons
  • "The product is superior compared to the other vendors."
  • "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."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

Thryv has been using Zerto for about twelve years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

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.

How was the initial setup?

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.

What was our ROI?

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.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

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.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

The product is superior compared to the other vendors. 

What other advice do I have?

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. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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reviewer2507049 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Faster and more cost-effective than other solutions
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution's most valuable features are its user interface, ease of implementation, and ease of execution."
  • "In the future, the tool's user interface needs to be refreshed since it seems to be becoming somewhat antiquated."

What is our primary use case?

I use the Zerto in my company for all of our applications built on it. There are around 1,600 applications.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto has enabled us to move and replicate systems much faster than we ever had before. We could move entire data centers in six months versus what would have taken three years.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable features are its user interface, ease of implementation, and ease of execution.

Zerto's near-synchronous replication works. I work in the healthcare industry, where systems have to be up and working and are mission-critical, and Zerto is a part of that journey.

I have used Zerto to help protect VMs in your environment.

Zerto is an effective tool for bringing systems back at a pace. The limiting factor in Zerto is sometimes the application, but it has certainly allowed us to deliver more streamlined SLAs to our business.

In terms of comparing the speed of recovery of Zerto versus the speed of recovery with other disaster recovery solutions that I have used, I can say that my company moved from an old Commvault-based solution to a Zerto-based solution since the latter was far superior to the former.

Based on my usage or evaluations of other solutions, I would compare the ease of use Zerto provides with a product named Commvault. Compared to Commvault, Zerto is faster and more cost-effective.

What needs improvement?

Zerto can reduce its price.

In the future, the tool's user interface needs to be refreshed since it seems to be becoming somewhat antiquated.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto since 2017.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The tool has been 100 percent stable for our company. In reality, the tool has been up since 2017.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have not seen any problems with the product's scalability, especially since we run 1,600 applications with it. There don't seem to be any problems with scaling up.

How are customer service and support?

The solution's technical support is excellent. The tool's technical support team is responsive, easy to get a hold of, and kind, and the team also listens. I rate the technical support a nine out of ten. For me, to rate the support team ten out of ten, in a perfect world, there are more SLAs at fixed times.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have used Commvault. My company chose Zerto because it was modern and easy to implement, and the demonstrations we saw indicated that it should be part of our organization's future.

How was the initial setup?

The product's ease of setup made things straightforward, especially with good customer support, and backup when trying to get it all implemented.

My company uses the hybrid cloud services offered by GCP but hasn't added Zerto to it. My company also uses AWS and Microsoft Azure, but we haven't added Zerto to it.

What about the implementation team?

For the setup phase, my company bought some professional services because, obviously, my team hadn't had training, but now they are trained. My company bought some professional services, and my team got some hands-on training, so we now run the system in-house. I believe that Zerto's team should receive more training about the tool. I rate my experience with the tool's system integrator, WWT, as seven out of ten.

What was our ROI?

It offers more cost-avoidance than the return on investment, although the return on investment is possible to a certain extent.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

At the time I had purchased the product, the pricing was fair and reasonable. Over the years, costs have certainly gone up, which makes it hard for healthcare companies to use the solution.

What other advice do I have?

I believe that Zerto's team should have more training.

I rate the tool a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Google
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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reviewer2506590 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Vice President and Chief Information Technology Officer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Always works, is good for our business use case, and is easy to set up
Pros and Cons
  • "The customer service and support are very good. Every time we have problems, they're ready to help us."
  • "There is room for improvement in the upgrades."

What is our primary use case?

We use Zerto for data and disaster recovery replication. 

How has it helped my organization?

From time to time, we have to go look at the DR environment. Every time we go there, Zerto application always works. That's a benefit. 

Zerto's near-synchronous replication works. The value for our business case is okay. 

Zerto's near-synchronous replication is important for healthcare, but not as much because we have time to recover data.

Zerto helped protect VMs in our environment, just for the DR.

Our RPOs are not very aggressive. So, Zerto works just fine for us. 

What is most valuable?

It's very easy to set up. Up until now, even with an old version, it always worked fine.

What needs improvement?

There is room for improvement in the upgrades. We are planning an upgrade now, and it seems that it's not straightforward.

In future releases, I look forward to the security feature.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Zerto for more than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is very good. We have complaints about stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven't had issues with scalability. When we add VMs, we just buy additional licenses.

How are customer service and support?

The customer service and support are very good. Every time we have problems, they're ready to help us.

They're always available and very knowledgeable. 

They need to be on-site. That would make them a ten on ten. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have only used Zerto. 

How was the initial setup?

It was very easy to deploy. There wasn't a lot of configuration needed to get the syncing working.

It is an on-premises deployment.

What about the implementation team?

We used HPE Services. Our experience with them was very good. 

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI. Several times, we needed to recover, and we were able to go to Zerto.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing, setup, cost, and licensing are comparable to other solutions. Zerto is not more cost-effective.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Veeam. They're very similar. We already had the skills for Zerto, so we decided to stay with it.

We decided to stay because we have not had any problems with it, and moving to another solution doesn't make sense for us. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it an eight out of ten. The version we have doesn't have security yet, so maybe the next version will get a ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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reviewer2507004 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Good migration capabilities, fast and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The migration capabilities are very good."

    What is our primary use case?

    We plan to use Zerto for migrating our external customers from their private data centers to our data center and Zerto's application services or other cloud services.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Zerto has improved our migration capabilities. Before Zerto, we used other applications, but they had some limitations in terms of platform compatibility. With Zerto, we have platform freedom and can migrate any customer to our data center.

    What is most valuable?

    The migration capabilities are very good. The platform flexibility allows us to migrate customer resources and virtual machines from any platform, like Hyper-V or VMware, and it's fast and reliable.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We're in the process of a proof of concept. It's been about three or four months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability is strong and reliable. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It's scalable.

    How are customer service and support?

    We will provide support with the help of HPE or Arlanje. We are just preparing that model.

    The customer service and support are very helpful. Whenever we ask something, they respond very fast and quick. Their technical knowledge is really good.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Zerto is faster and more reliable. In the POC process, we compared it with other technologies and brands, and Zerto is very nice.

    We compared it to Veeam. 

    We still use our previous solution. In fact, we are not replacing that solution. We are just enriching our replication products with Zerto.

    Zerto is more user-friendly.

    How was the initial setup?

    It was easy and fast. The point is, it's really easy.

    What about the implementation team?

    We used a consultant. The experience was very nice. They were very helpful.

    What was our ROI?

    It's very new for us, so we don't have that information yet.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We evaluated Acronis, Veeam, and Commvault. We chose Zerto for two reasons. 

    • First, our customers want it. They always ask if we do replications with Zerto. 
    • Second, we compared it with other products. 

    Zerto is user-friendly, fast, and reliable. We wanted to improve our replication cycle. 

    It's also platform-free. I can migrate resources from my customers' on-premises data centers, public clouds, and other cloud service providers' data centers to my data center. That's the biggest advantage for us.

    What other advice do I have?

    Up to now, I would give it an eight out of ten. It's platform-free, which is the most important thing for us. 

    It's also easy to use, fast, reliable, and the replication process is really nice.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Hybrid Cloud
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    Manager, Server Operations at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Speed of recovery is simple and amazing compared to other disaster recovery solutions
    Pros and Cons
    • "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."
    • "The new licensing model didn't work out for us because we used one-to-one replication."

    What is our primary use case?

    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.

    How has it helped my organization?

    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.

    What is most valuable?

    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.

    What needs improvement?

    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.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Zerto for five to six years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

    What do I think about the scalability of the 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.

    How are customer service and support?

    The solution’s technical support is very good.

    How was the initial setup?

    The solution's deployment is very easy.

    What other advice do I have?

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

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: December 2024
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.