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reviewer1952712 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Director, Private Hosting at a wholesaler/distributor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Does not rely on a secondary backend product and is easier and more straightforward to use
Pros and Cons
  • "I found VM level replication and being able to group the VM levels to be valuable. I like not having to worry about whether a particular VM is in the right storage group; some of those sorts of things would trip us up previously."
  • "There's one feature that SRM had that Zerto doesn't have, and it's one that we've been asking for. With the orchestration part of the failover, with our DR and our primary sites, the IP addresses are almost identical. The only difference is one octet. With SRM, we could say during a failover change. With Zerto, we keep hearing that it's coming, but we haven't received it yet. It's a feature that would be very beneficial. It would reduce the time a little bit more."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use it for DR, that is, for VM replication between two data centers, using it not only for replication but also for orchestration.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto provided better overall DR coverage and more consistency.

What is most valuable?

I found VM level replication and being able to group the VM levels to be valuable. I like not having to worry about whether a particular VM is in the right storage group; some of those sorts of things would trip us up previously. 

It's a lot easier and more straightforward for a VM administrator because he can know that this VM goes in this group or gets this tag, for example, and that it's now in a DR group and is taken care of. I don't have to worry about all the backend details. It's just simplified.

In terms of ease of use, the benefit of Zerto over SRM is the fact that it doesn't rely on a secondary backend product, with having to have the right storage groups with RecoverPoint or something else with multi-tier architecture.

It's still too early to compare the speed of recovery with Zerto versus the speed of recovery with other disaster recovery solutions. We've just started the DR tests to understand the time difference. However, from what I've seen so far, the speed of recovery is similar but more consistent with Zerto. We don't have situations where we've missed this or that.

Zerto reduced the staff involved in data recovery situations by a single person. Now, we don't have the backend storage person who has to keep an eye on it anymore. With a different solution, we would have needed two people.

What needs improvement?

There's one feature that SRM had that Zerto doesn't have, and it's one that we've been asking for. With the orchestration part of the failover, with our DR and our primary sites, the IP addresses are almost identical. The only difference is one octet. With SRM, we could say during a failover change. With Zerto, we keep hearing that it's coming, but we haven't received it yet. It's a feature that would be very beneficial. It would reduce the time a little bit more.

Buyer's Guide
Zerto
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
816,562 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with Zerto for about two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability seems fine. I haven't seen any issues with it thus far.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

For our organization, the scalability matched our needs. Between the data centers, we probably have somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 VMs.

How are customer service and support?

From what I have seen, the technical support has been very good. They've been very responsive to my team.

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

We previously used SRM. Zerto is a little bit more mature, has a better feature set, and is more aligned with the features and functionalities that we need.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI from the perspective of a reduction in hardware and a reduction in the number of people trying to focus on the tool sets.

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

It is less expensive than the full solution that we had previously, but at the same time, it's not an inexpensive product either.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Cohesity and other solutions.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, Zerto is a very good product for us, and I would rate it at nine on a scale from one to ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1952301 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Infrastructure Server Manager at a logistics company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Is consistent, agile, and reduces downtime
Pros and Cons
  • "We've seen a massive benefit from using Zerto in terms of time savings and consistency. You see a consistent outcome every time you do the conversions. We're moving from one platform to another, but the payloads in what we're moving are different. We see consistent delivery."
  • "Right now, our production environment runs on-premises, and we have a DR copy of everything that we run in production. However, our development runs on that hardware. In the case of a DR event, we would need to shut down development and bring up our secondary copy of production. We're hoping that Zerto is going to be the tool to help us do that."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for our conversion from Hyper-V to VMware. The DR purposes are being looked into as well.

We've got about 1500 to 2000 Hyper-V machines. These Hyper-V machines are used and converted to VMware, and these are the two environments that we work with now, both on-premises and in a hosted environment.

What is most valuable?

The ease of the conversion, moving from Hyper-V over to VMware, has been the most valuable feature. It's the primary reason why we chose Zerto.

We've seen a massive benefit from using Zerto in terms of time savings and consistency. You see a consistent outcome every time you do the conversions. We're moving from one platform to another, but the payloads in what we're moving are different. We see consistent delivery.

Time savings-wise, I see anywhere from 30 to 50 VMs be converted from Hyper-V to VMware on a nightly basis. We've seen some pretty good throughput on the nights that we do conversions.

Zerto has absolutely helped to reduce downtime. If we were to do this manually, the amount of time that we would have to shut down the VMs on Hyper-V to be able to do the conversions and move them over to VMware would be massive.

That amount of downtime would cost our company a lot. We've got a team of three or four guys that do the labor. If you take what they're getting paid and you compound the amount of time that it would take to do the conversion, there would be a drastic cost in labor for those conversions.

What needs improvement?

Right now, our production environment runs on-premises, and we have a DR copy of everything that we run in production. However, our development runs on that hardware. In the case of a DR event, we would need to shut down development and bring up our secondary copy of production. We're hoping that Zerto is going to be the tool to help us do that.

For how long have I used the solution?

Zerto is primarily being used this year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We're getting consistent results, so the product seems to be very stable.

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

From a DR perspective, we use multiple different facets. We have multi-site data centers in our environment, along with Cohesity. We use Cohesity from a backup and DR perspective.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup but have heard feedback that those involved loved the simplicity of it.

What was our ROI?

We've absolutely seen an ROI in terms of time savings with respect to downtime. When you convert a couple of thousand machines from one platform to another, the amount of downtime that it would take itself would have paid for Zerto many times over.

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

We get our money's worth with Zerto.

What other advice do I have?

If you're in the middle of a conversion between different platforms, regardless of whether you're moving from on-premises to hosted or from one environment to another, it seems to be very agile and able to move your workloads into different environments pretty easily. I would give Zerto a rating of nine out of 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.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Zerto
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
816,562 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Network Administrator at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Real User
Easy to set up and use with a nice GUI, good support, and the automated failover works well
Pros and Cons
  • "Zerto is extremely easy to use. You set it and forget it."
  • "The reporting could be improved in terms of the reports that you can show to auditors to prove that you have done the testing. I provide the reports that it generates now but, it would be great if, at the end of a DR test, it would generate a report of everything that Zerto did."

What is our primary use case?

Zerto runs on a Windows Virtual Server and we have it installed at two sites. There is the production site, as well as the failover DR site.

We use this product almost exclusively for disaster recovery. It is responsible for the automated recovery of what we deem to be our mission-critical servers.

How has it helped my organization?

In terms of its ability to provide continuous data protection, this is a product that I trust. We test it quarterly to make sure that what the dashboard is telling us is correct. But, I've used it long enough to know that when I see the dashboard telling me that the virtual protection groups (VPGs) health are all green, then things are working correctly. Our average RPO is usually somewhere between three and 10 seconds.

We used to perform a disaster recovery test once a year, and it was painful because everything was manual. Now that we do it quarterly, we're able to provide management with reports of the tests, which not only makes management happy but also makes various governing bodies happy. We're a financial advisory firm, so it's the SEC that oversees us. That said, I'm sure this holds true in many industries. It allows you to have the reports to prove that you've done the tests. We don't have to ask them to take our word for it.

When we need to failback or move workloads, Zerto has absolutely decreased the time and number of people that are required to do so. For example, if I just want to test and prove that the network is up, it's something that I can do by myself. If I want to have people log in and test applications and stuff like that, I would need additional people. However, it has a built-in test function, so it will create a complete test network that you can run workloads on to show that the tests are successful. Afterward, you can delete the network and you're back just running, waiting for the next time you want to do that. In a situation like this, using Zerto saves eight hours or more and I can set it up and test it on my own unless I want people actually testing applications.

Thankfully, we have not had to use this product to recover from a ransomware attack or other disaster, but it would absolutely work in that case. By replicating the data, if ransomware were to hit the production side, it most likely would not also lock the disaster recovery side. This means that we would certainly be able to bring it up from there. Alternatively, it lets us pick points in time, so we can just go back to the moment in time before the ransomware happened. In a situation like this, I can't say that it would take fewer people but it would take fewer hours.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the automated failover, as it allows us to get the essential servers up at our DR site with little intervention.

Zerto is extremely easy to use. You set it and forget it.

It has a nice graphical interface.

What needs improvement?

The reporting could be improved in terms of the reports that you can show to auditors to prove that you have done the testing. I provide the reports that it generates now but, it would be great if, at the end of a DR test, it would generate a report of everything that Zerto did.

This would include details like what systems were up. Currently, that's not how the report reads. You would have to be an IT person to read the current reports that it produces. I would like for them to be the type of reports that I can put in front of an auditor or the president of our firm that would make sense to them, without me having to interpret and explain the results.

For how long have I used the solution?

We are in our seventh year of using Zerto.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, this solution is rock-solid. If it fails, it's not going to be Zerto that fails. It's going to be either that your storage has failed or the bandwidth, or connectivity, is not there. I don't see a way where Zerto would be the culprit in a failure-type instance.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Our company is fairly small and the entire firm relies on it. That said, only one person actively uses it. We have three or four IT staff but Zerto has always been my responsibility.

In terms of scalability, I bet it would be no issue whatsoever. It's licensed according to the virtual machines that you want to protect. The only limitation of the scalability would be how deep your pockets are because it's going to be license costs.

We're a registered financial advisory firm, and we are growing. In the past year to 18 months, we have grown from approximately 52 employees to 70 employees. Everybody relies on it because if we have a disaster recovery type of situation, then everybody is going to expect to be able to work.

It is still a very small number of IT staff, so I can see that as we hire more IT staff to support a larger user base, we will certainly have more users.  At least, I hope not to be the only one responsible for this solution as we grow.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate the technical support a ten out of ten.

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

Prior to Zerto, we used VMware Site Recovery Manager (SRM). We switched because it requires a lot of manual upkeep, and there is no automation involved unless you write the scripts. There are lots of freeware sites where you can download scripts, but aside from that, we were spending a lot of time manually writing scripts and maintaining everything. This was really counterproductive for the amount of time we had available in a day.

Essentially, SRM was replaced because of better interface automation and ease of use. 

How was the initial setup?

The setup is very easily done because you tie it into your VMware vCenter. When you put in your credentials, it will recognize everything on your networks. It will recognize storage, whether it be cloud-based or as in our case, at another data center. Once you have those defined, it's just a matter of creating groups that you want to recover, server-wise.

The reason that you would want to do it in groups is that you can set it up in the automation such that it will bring up groups in a certain order. That way, you have a network where the domain controllers come up in the first group, and you can automate stuff from there.

Seven years ago, when I first started to use it, I found it more difficult. I wouldn't say that it was complex but they have certainly made improvements over the years. Where it stands now, if I had to set it up from scratch, I could probably do it in about an hour. Of course, that is because of the way I know the application but in terms of how they have changed the setup, it is certainly more user-friendly than it was compared to where it started.

I remember running into a couple of issues during the deployment, and I contacted their support. They were fantastic and helped me get through it. They made sure that all of my questions were answered, and that it was up and running how we intended it to be used. A lot of it probably had to do with me being a novice at that point, in terms of using the application.

It was a multi-site deployment, with a production site and a DR site, with dedicated storage for each. We have changed the storage that it uses over the years and if I had to do it again, I would use another vendor for storage. A lot of the issues that we ran into were related to the initial storage that we used, as opposed to Zerto issues, even though it was Zerto support that helped me fix them. 

Overall, the deployment was fairly easy. Not because everything went great, but because of the combination of the application being pretty well-written and the support. I would rate the deployment an eight out of ten.

What about the implementation team?

I deployed Zerto with the help of a consultant, contacting support as we needed to. The consultant was NetGain Technologies and they're based out of Lexington, Kentucky. Their service was phenomenal and I would use them again in a heartbeat for this type of deployment. Ultimately, any issues that we ran into boiled down to some issues with the storage we chose to run it on.

I am responsible for the maintenance. 

What was our ROI?

We have absolutely seen a return on investment in terms of the manhours that have to be put into maintaining and testing this type of product. Thankfully, we have never had to use it in a true DR situation. However, I can guarantee that if something were to happen, even beyond the manhours and ease of automation, that it would pay for itself.

Our network infrastructure runs pretty smoothly most of the time. That said, Zerto has helped us to reduce downtime by approximately 20%. It is difficult to equate this with a monetary value because we have to consider what happens when a client misses a trade or cannot get a hold of their portfolio manager.

If it were an outage of a couple of hours then the person might pay a little more or a little less for a stock that they were trying to purchase. Overall, however, it is difficult to estimate. We aren't a day trading-type firm, so ultimately, I'm not sure that a short outage has any effect on our revenue stream whatsoever.

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

As a small company, we own the smallest license that Zerto offers, which is 15 VMs. I've not had to contact them or my reseller about purchasing additional licenses or to find out how much they cost.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We spoke with VMware to see what their pipeline was for upgrades or changes to Site Recovery Manager and we also looked at both Cohesity and Rubrik.

I like the separation of the software and the storage, whereas some of those other products are all-in-one. You're buying the software and storage together on the same platform. This means that the scalability would be different.

Sometimes, this is a case of adding shelves for storage. In that situation, for example, you have to start taking the data center rack space into account. Whereas with Zerto, it lets us build upon hardware we already had, even though we use dedicated storage.

What other advice do I have?

Version 9 of this product is out. However, we have not yet upgraded. We're not leveraging the cloud the way a lot of companies do these days, and I know from the release notes that I've read that most of the new features are related to the cloud. There's not a lot of research and development being done on physical data centers anymore.

At this point, I'm very happy with where the product sits for my network. We are now just starting to move things to the cloud, which will take place over the next couple of years, so my assessment in this regard may change in perhaps a few years.

At the moment, we don't have plans to use it for long-term retention. We keep about three days' worth of data in Zerto and then it rolls off. We have other systems in place for long-term retention.

My advice for anybody who is looking into implementing Zerto is to do your homework. In the end, this product checks all of the boxes and it's the one that I would go with.

In the way that we use this solution, which I know is not how everybody uses it, we have storage that is specifically used for Zerto and two data centers. The way it works in that scenario, as long the bandwidth is there, meaning some sort of dedicated circuit between the two sites, it's flawless in my opinion.

The biggest lesson that I have learned from using Zerto is that disaster recovery doesn't have to be a giant pain. I certainly used to look at it that way in the past.

I would rate this solution a ten 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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PeerSpot user
Manager, Infrastructure at Vizient Inc
Real User
Easy to set up and configure, flexible, and gives us peace of mind for our critical applications
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Zerto is its overall flexibility, where it can be used for standard DR or you can also use it for server migrations, data center consolidations, etc."
  • "I wouldn't mind seeing Zerto sold at a cheaper price point, although the cost is comparable to VMware SRM."

What is our primary use case?

We use Zerto for disaster recovery of our tier 1 applications from our primary data center to our secondary data center. We have also used Zerto to successfully perform server migrations from one site to another for data center moves and company acquisitions.

Our administrators love the product and it has been proven to be easier to use than VMware SRM which we were using before going with Zerto.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto has given us the peace of mind to know that we have full DR protection for our critical applications.

Zerto is relatively easy to set up and administer.

We were able to create runbooks within Zerto to help with DR failovers, and testing DR failovers is pretty easy as well.

We used to use VMware SRM and it was very cumbersome to add in new virtual machines or storage volumes because they would basically "break" the SRM protection groups that were already out there. With Zerto, it takes on new additions to protection groups much easier and it saves our admins a lot of time having to care and feed it.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Zerto is its overall flexibility, where it can be used for standard DR or you can also use it for server migrations, data center consolidations, etc. You can also use it for data protection and physical to virtual migrations as well.

It is kind of a swiss-army knife.

What needs improvement?

I can't think of any major areas of improvement with Zerto. Make sure that they are building in cloud-friendly features in future releases because a lot of enterprises are starting to move workloads to the cloud and are seriously considering doing DR to the cloud as well. Our company may be moving in that direction also.

I wouldn't mind seeing Zerto sold at a cheaper price point, although the cost is comparable to VMware SRM.

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?

Zerto has been rock solid for us in terms of stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability of Zerto seems to be ok. This will depend on the size of your environment and how often you need your data replicated for BCP and SLAs.

How are customer service and technical support?

Zerto customer service has been great so far. No complaints!

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

We used to use VMware SRM and we switched to Zerto because it is less expensive and easier to administer.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Zerto was very straight forward. The rest of the configuration will be as complex as your environment's DR needs and application stacks are.

What about the implementation team?

We had an engineer from Zerto help us with the installation and initial configuration for thirty days.

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

It is good to do a full Disaster Recovery plan for your organization and doing a BCP plan as well. You need to figure out how many critical servers and applications you have in your environment so you will know how many Zerto licenses to buy, etc.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We only baked off VMware SRM and Zerto.

What other advice do I have?

It is good to implement a proof of concept of Zerto to test it out. I highly recommend it for data center moves.

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.
PeerSpot user
Data Analyst at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Real User
Fast, easy to use, and helpful for disaster management
Pros and Cons
  • "I like the automation of transferring data in the case of any disaster to our VMs. It is also easy to use and fast."
  • "Its price is a little bit on the higher side."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for disaster recovery and analytics.

We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. We are also using it for our Virtual Protected Group or VPG.

How has it helped my organization?

By implementing Zerto, we wanted disaster management, especially for our data. We did not want to lose data unnecessarily.

Over time, I keep seeing different benefits of using Zerto.

In terms of ease of use, Zerto is easy to use.

Zerto has near synchronous replication. It is okay. It has been easy for me to use.

Zerto is faster than other recovery solutions for real-time automation.

Zerto makes it easy for me to navigate and move my data to the cloud. It has had a positive effect.

Zerto has helped reduce downtime. There is about 25% reduction.

Zerto has improved the data recovery time. It has saved me time. It is faster than what I was using before. Zerto has saved me a lot of time, but I do not have the metrics.

Zerto has helped reduce our organization's DR testing by 30%. It has had a positive effect on our IT resilience.

What is most valuable?

I like the automation of transferring data in the case of any disaster to our VMs. It is also easy to use and fast. 

What needs improvement?

Its price is a little bit on the higher side. Other than the pricing, I do not have any areas for improvement. I am enjoying Zerto. Everything is working the way I want it.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for the past two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Its stability is okay.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Its scalability is okay. As we keep having more customers, we might have to scale it, but for now, it is good.

How are customer service and support?

I contacted them once, and I got a quick response. They are fast. I wrote to them, and I quickly got a response. The response was timely and effective.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I was using Microsoft Azure backup before. I migrated to Zerto. Zerto is faster.

How was the initial setup?

It is deployed in the cloud. Its deployment was not too easy and also not difficult.

Like every other team, it took us some time to get it going. It is not as easy as one, two, and three. It took us about one hour to get it going. That is why it is not too easy, but it is also not difficult.

After installation, we took the entire day because we were trying to make sure everything worked fine.

So far, I have not done any maintenance for Zerto.

What about the implementation team?

We had two people involved in its deployment.

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

Zerto is a little bit on the higher side in terms of pricing. It would be better if they had a pay-as-you-go package.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I got a review from a friend and decided to give it a try. She asked me to give it a try to see how I could recover data fast and do other things without wasting time. I was looking for these features, and I got them with Zerto.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise knowing what you want in the software and why you are going for this software. If you want fast data recovery software, you should go for Zerto. I have been using Zerto for two years, and I have not had any reason for regret. New users who are going for Zerto would not regret their decision.

I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
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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BartHeungens - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Specialist at Bitcon
Real User
Top 5
Our recovery time went from hours to seconds and our DR testing is all automated
Pros and Cons
  • "There are two main things that I like. One is the fact that my recovery time is now much lower effectively. It is also very valuable that I can test it. There is a possibility to test that failover."
  • "The native Zerto implementation requires quite a big environment. My environment is rather small. I do not have hundreds of virtual machines."

What is our primary use case?

I have a main data center with a few virtual machines running. I am protecting my mission-critical VMs on a disaster recovery server that I have outside of the data center. This ensures that I have protection. If something happens with my main data center at any moment, I have a copy, and that copy is at a remote and physically separated site for disaster recovery.

How has it helped my organization?

By implementing Zerto, I wanted to lower the RTO and RPO. Previously, the time to restore those mission-critical VMs with the traditional backup application took too long which impacted my business. That is why I decided to evaluate and then keep Zerto to protect my mission-critical VMs. It helps to lower the time to recover when something happens with one of my data centers.

Zerto is very easy to use. I did not have to attend a multi-day training. Online training is available from Zerto. It is very easy to use in my opinion as compared to other solutions.

Near-synchronous replication was the reason why I evaluated Zerto. I then decided to use Zerto because it works effectively. It is different from the other solutions in the market. Because I did not know that technology, I evaluated it, and I found out that it effectively works. That is why I decided to use it. I am a fan of Zerto.

We have a faster recovery time. I am lucky that until now, I did not have to use it in production effectively. That means that I did not lose access to my first data center, but it gave me peace of mind. I know that if something happens, at that moment, I know what to do to recover and to fail over to that second data center. There is peace of mind for sure.

We use Zerto to protect virtual machines from VMware to VMware. Our RPOs went from hours to seconds. That is a huge improvement.

Before using Zerto, I had an issue, and we had almost a day of downtime. I had to put a lot of energy and time at that moment, not being able to do my regular job. Since moving to Zerto, I never had a big downtime, but when I evaluated Zerto and ran the tests, failovers always worked. I have not had to use it in production so far because everything has stayed online until now. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Zerto has definitely helped to reduce our organization's DR testing. Previously, the procedure to do the testing took several hours, and now, it is all automated. The nice thing is that the testing is automated. It is a part of the solution itself, and it is very easy to perform.

Zerto has enhanced our IT resiliency a lot.

I do not have many regulations to follow because I am not in finance or health care, but it simplifies my work because it clearly shows me what I have, what is supported, and what is protected. Zerto definitely enhances my visibility.

What is most valuable?

There are two main things that I like. One is the fact that my recovery time is now much lower effectively. It is also very valuable that I can test it. There is a possibility to test that failover. At a regular moment in time, I can run that test and see if it effectively works when I have a major issue in the future.

What needs improvement?

I am switching to another HPE offering called HPE GreenLake for Disaster Recovery which is using Zerto technology in the backend but has a lower entry point. The native Zerto implementation is optimal for larger environments. My environment is rather small since I do not have hundreds of virtual machines. The initial Zerto offering was for a larger environment with more than 100 VMs. At that moment, it was not that easy to talk to HPE to get a good price. HPE GreenLake for Disaster Recovery uses the same technology, so it is a really good technology, but the entry point is much more interesting for me. They have lowered the number of protected VMs. That is why I am now evaluating HPE GreenLake for Disaster Recovery.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is always available. So far, I never had any issues. It is very good. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is definitely scalable, at least in my environment. I do not have the biggest environment, but based on what I saw when HPE initially presented the solution and all the new things that I see in it now, it is a very scalable solution. Why I prefer this solution compared to Veeam, for instance, is its scalability. I am convinced that the way it works with journaling makes it much more scalable than other solutions.

How are customer service and support?

So far, I never had to call support because I never had issues with the platform at all. Until now, everything worked fine, and I never had to contact support. This is through HPE, and I expect the HPE support to work like before and provide the same experience for Zerto.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

I am still using Veeam, but with Veeam, I was never able to go up to a few seconds of RPO. Zerto is much more scalable and flexible as compared to the Veeam solution, so I am using Zerto for the short-term retention and protection of my data, and I am still using Veeam for the mid- and long-term retention of my data.

How was the initial setup?

It is for on-prem to on-prem DR. I am not using the public cloud for DR.

It took less than a day to set it up. It was very easy to deploy. In less than a day, everything was set up in two data centers.

In terms of maintenance, it is self-maintaining, so I do not have to put a lot of time into it. It is part of my testing. Every two or three months, I do a failover test, and at that time, I also check if everything is working fine and if any new updates need to be applied. When there are new updates, which do not happen that often, it is very easy to deploy the updates.

What about the implementation team?

Only one person was involved in its deployment. It was just me. To set up and maintain it, there is just me. I do not need several people because it integrates with my compute and my storage. I can see my hypervisor. Technically, there is one storage person who is responsible for all this.

We are a small company. Zerto is being used by one team, but there are two physical buildings. Here on-site, we have our main data center, which is highly available with multiple servers, and on our DR site, there is just one server. It is one big server where we have copies of the mission-critical VMs that we are protecting.

What was our ROI?

It is hard to measure because I have not had a real disaster since I have been using Zerto. If I consider the time while testing the procedure, it went down from hours and days to less than an hour. I see large gains, but it is hard to say in the percentage. It is effectively much better.

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

I think the price is fair for what it is offering. It gives me the peace of mind that my data is protected. It is worth the cost.
It is like insurance for a car. You do not get the value until you have an accident.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I am now evaluating HPE GreenLake for Disaster Recovery, which is using Zerto in the backend.

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend Zerto. I have really low RPOs of seconds since I started using Zerto, and it works effectively. That is why I love Zerto. It does what it should be doing.

I like the tool because you can go from anywhere to anywhere. I am currently using it for on-prem to on-prem DR, but it can go from anywhere to anywhere. It shows the flexibility and the scalability of the tool. It is a no-brainer to evaluate Zerto because you can also go perfectly to the public cloud from your on-premises so that the public cloud is your DR site. I did not use it myself, but you can even use it as a migration tool for migration from an old environment to a new environment. It is a very flexible tool. That is why I was impressed with it and how HPE integrated Zerto into its portfolio. It was a smart move to do the acquisition of Zerto.

I recently started looking into the AI insights that was added in the latest version. Need to evaluate further but it looks very promising from what I can see now already.

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
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Systems Engineer at Shiftmovers
Real User
Top 10
Fast duplication, good ROI, and timely support
Pros and Cons
  • "Its user interface is excellent, and when it comes to data duplication, Zerto is very fast."
  • "Overall, Zerto is doing a very good job. We have experienced a few downtimes on networking. Most of the time, they come up with a solution immediately to sort out any challenge that may affect data flow or data migration. It does not happen frequently. We might experience it once in two months, but when we face any downtime, it does not impact the data."

What is our primary use case?

Zerto is our main application for curbing risks. We use it to protect our workflows on applications from threats that can come from the cloud and on-premises.

How has it helped my organization?

Before Zerto, our organization kept experiencing some attacks. Our data was not safe. There were frequent attacks on our data, and that is why we decided to deploy Zerto.

It helps to ensure that our organization's data is safe from any latest threats.

It ensures that our applications are protected. We have high-security firewalls that cannot be attacked or broken by ransomware attacks.

Zerto can block unknown threats and attacks. It has security measures in place to stop any threats that can harm our data.

When it comes to data capacity, Zerto provides an assessment of data replication that can be orchestrated to feed the data protection models.

We used to mostly have on-premises applications, but after the deployment of Zerto, we are able to move to the cloud and ensure that our data is secure from both sides.

When it comes to cloud recovery, Zerto ensures that data transfer from the cloud to our organization is safe. It cannot be easily attacked with malware or by cybercriminals. It is very important to us that our database is safe and the data on our cloud servers cannot be interfered with by external or anonymous users. It ensures that the data for the organization is channeled for the right purpose and through the right infrastructure.

We use Zerto to support DR on the AWS platform. The support has been very good, and I would recommend it. The performance has been good, and our data has always been safe.

I have not had any difficulties with data migration. Since we deployed Zerto, data migration has not been a challenge.

Zerto helps our organization to be in the right direction when it comes to data protection and recovery from both on-premise and cloud servers. When there is anything crucial or any challenge, their customer support team provides a timely solution, which helps with performance.

The recovery management has been efficient. We can use the tools to accommodate any form of data for future retrieval. Our data is safe.

Zerto has been excellent for our RPOs. When it comes to disaster recovery, the company makes sure that we have the right tools at the right time to ensure that we do not have any data recovery challenges across the enterprise.

Zerto has saved a lot of time. We used to take eight hours, but now, it takes us six hours to accomplish most tasks and projects based on the data flow.

Zerto has reduced the number of staff involved in a data recovery situation. We have 20% less staff.

Zerto has also reduced the number of staff involved in overall backup and DR management.

What is most valuable?

Its user interface is excellent, and when it comes to data duplication, Zerto is very fast.

Their customer support team ensures that we get timely updates and provides status or data on threats to help us ensure that our applications are safe.

The cost of deploying and running this platform is also good as compared to other platforms.

What needs improvement?

Overall, Zerto is doing a very good job. We have experienced a few downtimes on networking. Most of the time, they come up with a solution immediately to sort out any challenge that may affect data flow or data migration. It does not happen frequently. We might experience it once in two months, but when we face any downtime, it does not impact the data. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for the last six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable product. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.

How are customer service and support?

Their support is good. Their technical support team has been doing well. I would rate them a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We were not using a similar solution previously.

How was the initial setup?

It was not complex. It was simple. The deployment was simple and clear. It took a few hours.

What about the implementation team?

We had four people involved in its deployment. Overall, we have eight people who work with this solution.

What was our ROI?

We have seen positive returns on investment. We have achieved a lot, and our performance keeps on improving. We have seen an 80% ROI in the past six months.

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

Its price can be better, but it is not bad. Most small-scale organizations can afford it, but they can come up with more customer-friendly packages.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options. For now, we are okay with Zerto. 

What other advice do I have?

Overall, its performance has been good, and I would recommend it to other organizations. It is a good solution that can help any organization to achieve projects based on data management.

Overall, I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
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reviewer2266896 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Services Engineer at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Easy to use, fast, and good near-synchronous replication
Pros and Cons
  • "The ease of setting up replication, the speed, and the ease with which I can fail over and fail back are all excellent aspects of the solution."
  • "Some of the ability to automate selections and automate VPG creations could be better."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution mostly for disaster recovery, however, we use it a lot for VM migrations and data center relocations.

What is most valuable?

The ease of setting up replication, the speed, and the ease with which I can fail over and fail back are all excellent aspects of the solution. 

We've used Zerto for failing over and moving a lot of workloads from one location to another during v-center upgrades, during data center relocations, et cetera. We even had a case where we had a need to move over to our DR data center, however, in the middle of running there, our DR data center started having thermal issues, so we had to bring everything back. Zerto made that super easy.

Previously, we were using SRM. In the case of the thermal event, SRM would probably have taken, I'm guessing, an hour or two to do the failover. With Zerto, we were able to get everything moved over in about 15 minutes, and it was roughly 150 or 200 VMs that we did in that time period. 

The near-synchronous replication works. It's very quick. I like that I can fail something over and not lose any data. That's pretty important. We want to not lose data. As a healthcare organization, losing patient records would be a very bad thing. 

It's important to have DR in the cloud right now. We're looking at leveraging AVS for our DR site for the sake of not having to run our own data center. Leveraging the cloud is super important. It will help us to get away from on-prem and not even have to deal with a co-location facility. The reliability will be important. There is also the impression that there is going to be money savings around that.

It's had a positive effect on our RPOs. Overall, the RPOs have gotten better. Every aspect compared to where we were with SRM or prior to that, Zerto has improved. It's a lot easier to manage Zerto as it is hardware agnostic. It helps get things failed over and protected quickly. Every aspect has improved with Zerto.  

What needs improvement?

Some of the ability to automate selections and automate VPG creations could be better. We've been building out a lot of new V-centers lately, and new data centers. Whenever we create a VPG, we generally set some very specific settings. If there was a way to set a template or a blueprint, to say that if I'm replicating to a data center from here, these are always going to be my default settings. That would be ideal, instead of having to manually set everything every time. 

There are a few issues we've had with Zerto where it doesn't behave the way we want it to. I'm being told it's by design. Therefore, it's not an issue per se, it's by design. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Zerto for three or four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I've had no problems with the stability. There have been a few bugs along the way, however, Zerto has been very quick to work through them. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have 1500 to 1600 VMs protected with Zerto and most of our DR strategy is being built around Zerto.

I can't speak to scalability. We've been steady-state since we implemented it. It's been protected by the same workloads since then. 

How are customer service and support?

Zerto support has gone downhill recently. When we first started, they were great. However, after the HP acquisition, the quality of support is not as good. The knowledge has dropped and the time to respond is slower. I seem to now get people who ask basic questions that I already answered when I opened the ticket. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

Previously, we were using SRM. SRM was a nightmare. Zeerto has been drastically better. 

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

The pricing is expensive. However, I definitely see the value and my corporation sees the value. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did look at Veeam and were using SRM in the past and Zerto seems to be the most full-featured and the easiest to implement. It's also the most powerful overall. Veeam isn't even close to what Zerto can handle right now. 

What other advice do I have?

We're mostly on-prem, however, we've started doing DR into AVS - Azure VMware Service.

I'd rate Zerto eight 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
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Updated: October 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.