Zerto Reviews

We use Zerto for offsite disaster recovery. We have over 70 VM servers, several of which are our mission-critical servers that are replicated to our VMware hosts at an offsite location. 

We also replicate our Citrix environment and Disaster Recovery Zen App servers with Zerto to our offsite location as well. Most of our servers are Windows-based operating systems. However, this doesn't matter because we are replicating the VM servers. Further down the line, we may invoke extended retention for some of our more important servers.  

It gives us peace of mind that our data, servers, and environment are protected. We can easily restore VMs quickly and have confidence that the replicated data will be current. 

We are able to show proof in tests, reports, and live data to our owners, showing that our most sensitive data and servers are being replicated to an offsite facility, and we can restore it in case of a natural disaster or from our system being compromised by ransomware. 

Our IT staff can easily navigate through Zerto and test failover, see if there are issues with replications, and create offline copies of the data. 

Being able to test our VPGs and prove that our disaster recovery setup is in place and functional. 

Our business owners can be assured that our data is protected, and in case a serious problem occurs, they know that we will be able to recover easily. 

Zerto is fast to restore our mission-critical servers when needed. We also use Zerto to make copies of our VM servers for our offsite Citrix Zen App Servers. Zerto has helped simplify the process of disaster recovery setup and made the tasks more efficient for our IT Staff.

Zerto could add text alerts if there are critical problems and alerts if changes affect our replication. We do receive emails, and they will alert us to issues that we are having with VPG SLAs. 

I don't have any complaints about Zerto, and I hope they continue to develop new features. If they had classes on using Zerto, that would help with onboarding new IT staff. They may already have them, and I am not aware that they do. Overall, Zerto works out great, and they do a good job. 

I've used the solution for five years.

I am the global lead for infrastructure for the VMware and Windows Server environments. We are mainly using Zerto for disaster recovery. We have a prime site in Missouri, and we have plants in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, Italy, and Korea. We have 400 to 500 users in the environment. 

We have installed Zerto software on the DR site and the production site. We will be using Zerto for the production site for all the centrally used applications, such as SAP, file servers, and Exchange. Because this is a central site, a lot of other sites come to this site for various things. 

We also have Zerto on the DR site. In manufacturing, there are 60 or 70 tools, and each tool costs around $500,000. When the site goes down, you cannot transfer these tools very easily. It takes time. These are big tools, and it takes time for them to go somewhere else. You have to do a test again and go through the qualifications procedure, which takes time. As the IT department, we are interested in getting the applications that are used by all the sites centrally located, and if anything happens to the primary site, we want all the applications to be already there on the disaster recovery site. We just bring them up, and we are good to go.

Zerto will help to protect VMs in our environment. We have tried that in the test environment. That would be another reason for using Zerto.

We have used it for VMs. We know that it is a very good product. So far, we have only synced SAP and tested a few things. For SAP, there were two guys doing that, and they like Zerto very well. They have the test databases up there. It was smooth, and they liked it. The part that we still need to test is the Windows VMs where we can spin up a domain controller, change the IP, etc.

We can move data that is needed to keep our users collaborating with one another using Zerto because we are doing a continuous sync of the site. Once it is synced, we do not have to worry because everything happens in the background.

The replication feature where it constantly replicates and sees that data is always in sync is valuable. 

The ease of moving all the VMs is valuable. All we have to do is change the IP address and the VMs are all up and running there. There is a passive sync with all the VMs. That is what we like about Zerto. VMware has its own tool, but you need to do a lot of scripting. In manufacturing, we have a one-man team, so we do not have time for all the specialized work. We needed an application that is more GUI-based so that we can pinpoint and easily move VMs. We can bring up all the VMs and make sure the data is in sync, and we are up and running, so the ease of implementation is what attracted us to Zerto.

Zerto is very easy to use. It is very professional. We had no issues at all. Even for bringing up a new ESX host, they have a standard procedure. It is very easy. With a few clicks, you can do the ESX installation. 

There should be an automatic installation in a cluster. When I add a virtual client or ESX source to the cluster, it should automatically install that. There should be automatic installation. Currently, I have to do that manually.

They can give us a few training classes.

We installed Zerto just three months back. We have not yet started using it properly.  

Zerto is a very stable product. We have no issues. So far, it is working as planned. It is very stable. We will soon be working on it full-fledged. 

It is very scalable. We buy new licenses, and we just add another ESX or VM. We manually install it, and then we are good to go. It is pretty easy.

We have not contacted support yet. So far, so good. Everything is working as planned.

I tried VMware replication, but it was too hectic with all the scripts, so I gave it up. 

We implemented it recently. There was the ease of implementation. It was easy and straightforward. 

In manufacturing, we have to make sure that everything is on-prem. The data has to be on-prem because all the tools write immediately to the servers. There are two types of manufacturing. For the type of manufacturing where your tools are constantly writing, cloud applications are not good. For example, when we scan wafers, there is a set of data, and when we go through another tool, there is another set of data. This has to be instantaneous. There is nothing called a cache or buffer on those tools. It has to be instantaneous. We cannot say that the cloud is down, and we lost the data. We cannot stop the tool because this is a manufacturing facility with 24-hour operations on 365 days. We cannot have any downtime where the full site has gone down because this site is used for central applications.

I am the one who implemented it. Overall, there were just two people involved from our side. There was me and one more person. Because it was a new product, we also had a representative from Zerto as a standby. He would just watch our screen while we were implementing it. When we got stuck somewhere, he would help us. Because this was a DR site and it was a little far off, we wanted to make sure that everything went smoothly.

In terms of maintenance, so far, it did not require any maintenance from our side.

Having a solution like this is similar to having insurance. When you have a car accident, that is when you know the value of your insurance. Similarly, you cannot put a definite value on a solution like this till something happens, but there is peace of mind in knowing that the software is there, the VMs are there, and we can test it anytime. That is the true value.

It is economical as compared to other brands. 

We are an HPE shop. Zerto was procured by HPE, and we were looking for a DR solution. We went for Zerto because of its simplicity and ease of installation. We did an on-site proof of concept of Zerto for a year. We liked it and purchased it.

The only other product that we looked at was the VMware one because of the orchestrator. We did not look at any other products. I know that Veeam also has the same features that Zerto has. We had some discussions, but we never looked into it. Once we had a product that was easy to install, we did not feel the need to compare. It was doing what we wanted it to do.

Another factor for going for Zerto was that its price was economical. My boss, who is the CTO, liked its licensing scheme. It was much more economical as compared to VMware, and that is why we went ahead with Zerto.

Before implementing this solution, in terms of preparation for disaster recovery, you have to identify the business applications that are critical to your environment. You have to scope that out and make sure you have your VMs accounted for because licensing depends on the number of VMs. With a product like Zerto, you have to know the number of VMs and the size of data you are going to sync. These are the two factors that you have to look into for disaster recovery. 

Zerto is way better than other products. Installation is done with the click of a button. Everything happens in the background. You do not have to worry about it. As a product, we have not had any issues so far. However, we have not yet done a full-fledged disaster recovery. We have done minor testing, and we want to do major testing. As of now, I am very happy with the product. It does not need any further modifications. It is simple. It is nice. It is easy to execute, so I would keep it that way.

We have not yet used Zerto for immutable data copies. I have been playing around to migrate a VM and see how it works. So far, we have only used it to sync up the SAP side. Our SAP stuff is already synced up, and we have done some testing of it, but we have not done any disaster recovery.  

I have not had a chance to assess Zerto for blocking unknown threats and attacks. We are mainly interested in using it for disaster recovery.

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

We use it for disaster recovery. We were looking for faster recovery time objectives. Our primary use case is protecting virtual machines in our environment.

It's improved our testing frequency, and that has definitely helped.

And the effect on our RPOs has been very good because of the continuous replication; you get more checkpoints. Compared to other disaster recovery solutions that we've used, it's much more efficient when it comes to recovery. It's much more resilient and provides a better experience. It's a better product than the traditional backup and recovery methods we were using.

Zerto has also helped reduce downtime in some situations. We can recover systems in minutes, versus hours. There has been a significant improvement in our RTOs.

It has also definitely helped us to reduce our DR testing on the order of hours and days.

The ease of use is one of the most valuable features when it comes to making changes and configuring. It's very easy to set up and configure. It's a great product.

Another very important feature, because I work in a very high-transaction environment, is the near-synchronous replication, and it works well.

They just came out with improvements for ransomware protection last week. I haven't used them yet but, overall, security and preventing ransomware is really a hot topic these days. I would like to see it detect when the ransomware occurs and provide more information on it.

I have been using Zerto for approximately five years.

It's very stable.

It's scalable. I plan to increase our usage of the solution.

I have not contacted their tech support.

We were using typical backup recovery from tape or disk. Zerto is far easier to use, simpler, more efficient and reliable, and more effective than traditional disaster recovery tools.

It has not replaced all of our backup solutions. It's another tool to prevent a disaster.

Our deployment is on a private cloud. We have compute, storage, and network that we replicate to. The initial deployment of Zerto was straightforward. It took less than 30 days to get it fully operational.

We used it in our test environment first and, once we validated that everything was functional, we included our production environment.

The maintenance involves keeping the versions up to date and there are agents that have to be updated as well.

We had a managed service provider set it up and deploy it. On our side there were one or two people involved.

I can't quantify the ROI because we haven't used it in a disaster. It's more of a cost-avoidance solution, protecting the organization.

The pricing is very reasonable. There are no costs in addition to the standard fees.

We looked at Symantec, Veritas, CommVault, and Rubrik.

Have clear requirements on what your RTO/RPO requirements are, and which applications will be involved. You need to have clear business requirements and align Zerto with your business continuity plan.

Zerto is very innovative and they're constantly making improvements. It took some time to realize some of the benefits but it's been a great journey.

We purchased Zerto for our business continuity and DR approach to make sure that workloads are available. We have 1,000 servers but are only protecting 250 of them because they are our core servers. The ones we don't currently protect are Tier three applications.

We have had many instances where VMs were corrupted by an application owner, where they were installing something and did not create a snapshot in VMware for it. Instead of tapping into our backups, with just two clicks, we were able to restore the VM back to its original state. It helps a lot in the day-to-day running of our business.

In some instances, there is data within transactions that I need to recover that might be lost. When using Zerto, I might be losing five seconds worth of data instead of losing ten minutes. That helps a lot. Zerto also helped us reduce downtime and we have been able to recover VMs fairly quickly by just clicking two buttons. Within a minute I would have a VM up and running and ready to go with no issues at all.

The RTO and RPO are the most valuable features. I get six-second snapshots for every single time that data gets replicated. I can go back six seconds past whatever happened. The frequency of the snapshots depends on your latency. It could be as frequent as every two seconds.

The overall management plan could improve. If something happens with the VM on the vSphere side, the error codes are pretty weak. If there was a way to click on something within the UI that takes us to a support page or article, that would be very beneficial.

We have been using Zerto for six years. 

This is a stable solution. Most of the time, the issues that we have had with our ZVM going down are caused by us. 

This is a scalable solution. We deployed it in eight different locations. 

The support could be better. Overall they do have the answers for me when I need them but it takes them some time. The Level 1 support team that I contact first when I call in could be more knowledgeable about products and be able to resolve an issue instead of having to wait for a Level 2 or Level 3 person to assist.

I rate their support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

I've seen and looked into the VMware SRM. We also use another company, Cohesity, for our backups. They also have a solution for replication. When comparing these solutions, the RTO and RPO times are fairly reduced when using Zerto to get to a point where we need to be functional right away in an event of disaster recovery.

We have experienced ROI using this solution. It helps a lot when we use Zerto to test out certain applications. It offers a lot of value for our upper management to see how this product helps us in the event of a DR.

The pricing for this solution could be cheaper. They have two licensing tiers. When we purchased it, they didn't have a license for the cloud model. Certain things that I used to get with the basic licensing are no longer available. They are only available in the Cloud. Overall, the licensing model could be simplified. 

I would advise others to test drive the solution themselves. They should play with it, see how it works themselves and try to break it. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

We're solving the issues of disaster recovery with it. So, our main use case is disaster recovery. We use it to do real-time replication of our data so that if we needed to failover for whatever reason or we had a disaster at our primary data center, we would be able to spin up in our colo disaster recovery location with minimum downtime. Our delay is about five seconds. So, if something negative were to happen to our data center, our DR copy would be within five seconds of the original copy, which is pretty good. We are also using it for testing.

Our setup is on-prem. It enables you to do DR in the cloud rather than in a physical data center, but we didn't go that route. We went the route of creating our own colo location. So, instead of leveraging Azure or AWS, we decided to maintain our own facility. Our primary data center is on-prem, and our disaster recovery location is a colo location that we control.

The current version that we're using is 9.5, which is the latest. When we installed it, it was probably version 8.

The mere fact that we're able to do live testing has definitely helped us with deployment times. It has helped us with troubleshooting as well.

It saves effort, time, and money. It saves us the effort of having to make sure that information is replicated. It saves us the time that would be required to build that ad hoc, and it allows it to be more of a point-and-click operation than something for which we have to dedicate more time and effort. Especially in our use case, we're not replicating a crazy amount. We're only replicating about 40 virtual machines and about 13 terabytes of data. It's not a small amount, but it's not a crazy large amount either. To be able to load all those 40 machines at one time with one click and then bring them up either in production failover or production test is fantastic. We haven't really been able to find any competitor that can do that at least as easily as Zerto. That was the driving force.

It has helped to reduce our organization's disaster recovery testing. We can now do it in minutes, whereas previously, we could never do a valid test. We could only test that our backups were copied. We could never spin them up and run them all. Barracuda would do point-in-time backups, but we didn't have any place where we could actually deploy and test them all. That's not necessarily a hundred percent on Barracuda, but from basically not being able to do it, we are now able to do it within a few minutes. 

It has saved all the time that would've been spent validating copies of virtual machines. It can now be used to actually test that everything is connected, everything is spun up properly, and everything is connecting and speaking properly. So, there has been a tremendous amount of time savings. People who were responsible for doing it have saved time because they don't have to spend an entire day testing to make sure that the backup is copied properly so that they can be recovered. Now, we can do a test failover in a few minutes and be able to validate it like that.

It helps to protect VMs in our environment. It has been great in terms of RPOs. Prior to using Zerto, depending upon the level of disaster, it took us hours, days, or weeks to recover. Now, the average recovery is nine seconds. That's pretty big. We went from hours, days, or weeks to seconds and minutes to recover.

Its overall impact on our RTOs has been fantastic.

Its main feature is continuous replication. We are able to have continuous replication, and we are able to have the information available as per recovery point objectives (RPOs) and how much data to retain. The real selling point was to be able to have those statistics and be able to test and show that the replication is occurring properly and then to be able to do live passive testing.

We can spin up our environment in DR without affecting production, which is probably the biggest feature for us. We have the ability to do passive testing. We can even test scenarios, such as installing software or changing software. We can make modifications without affecting our production environment. So, the test functionality of being able to test the failover solution and being able to bring up our virtual machines in a test mode is the biggest benefit.

In general, the solution is pretty good, but because it is geared toward simplicity, sometimes, when things go wrong, the answer is not very detailed so that things can be solved quickly. If things do go wrong, it does require a little bit deeper troubleshooting to resolve the issues. That's the only area where improvement could occur. There should be a little bit more details about if things go wrong, how to remedy them. 

Everything is meant to be simple. When something doesn't work, even though what you were trying to do appeared to be very simple, there are probably a lot of pieces behind the scenes. So, to be able to narrow down where in those 100 steps something went wrong can be a little tricky. When there is a failure, there should be a more detailed explanation of what the error is and how to remediate it. Currently, it's a little vague. A part of that could be because we use Zerto on top of Hyper-V. VMware still has a very large market share over Hyper-V and a lot of the information and a lot of the deployment plans are geared towards VMware. So, sometimes, there are new features that first roll out to VMware and then come to Hyper-V.

I have been using this solution for about three years.

It's a very stable platform, but sometimes, we've had instances where we've upgraded versions and went from version 8 to 8.5 or to version 9 to 9.5, and there were issues. When you deploy, depending upon how many host machines you have, something might go wrong with the deployment to a host. In that case, you have to do a decent amount of work so that you can remove your virtual machine and restart the underlying host, which is something that you try to avoid doing, but sometimes, that's required in order to resolve the issue so that you can do the upgrade properly and allow that. When there is a problem like that, it can affect the performance of the system, but that falls more under maintenance and upkeep. In general, it does run pretty smoothly. It comes down to the fact that whenever there is a problem, it's a problem. That's the same with anything. Everything works until it doesn't, but in general, it works more than it doesn't, which is what you want. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of stability.

Their tech support is pretty good. We've had issues where we have reached out to them, and in general, they're pretty responsive and helpful. A few times, we've had them jump on to do screen shares and pull information and do deeper dives into some of those errors that didn't have detailed inputs about the area we need to look into, and their tech support has been pretty good. Based on the help that they provided for the issues we had, I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

Positive

We were using point-in-time backups provided by Barracuda. The issue with that was that we were taking point-in-time backups, and we were saving them in the cloud, but if we didn't have a location to restore the data to, the backups weren't very useful. They were useful from the backup standpoint but not from a disaster standpoint. In such a case, our primary data center would be wiped out. We would have our cloud copy, which would probably be a day old, and then we would have to take that cloud copy and download it somewhere where we don't have machines. So, we would have to buy servers or buy something to download our backup copies to and then spin them up. That could potentially take weeks. Now, we already have the hardware in place, or if it was a cloud, we would leverage the cloud, but we already have the hardware in place. So, at any point, it's a matter of enabling, going live, and saying failover, and then basically, having our DR copy become live. So, the time to recover was the main reason for going for Zerto.

We still have the Barracuda solution in conjunction. A lot of that is due to the fact that we already have a long-term contract. We have a five-year contract with Barracuda. We probably don't need to renew that, but there are benefits of both. We have kept both solutions because they do slightly different things. The way we use Zerto is that it's focused mainly on disaster recovery. Barracuda gives us more of a long historical recovery for easily recovering things such as files. We have backups of virtual machines that might go back four or five years. You might argue that it is not worth it because a lot of the data that is multiple years old might not be of value.

The way it would work with Zerto is that we could keep a live copy within Zerto for 30 days. After that, we would have to take that data and throw it somewhere else for long-term storage, which would incur additional costs and adds a little bit. Because we already had Barracuda, we leveraged Barracuda for long-term retention. We don't use Barracuda for disaster recovery anymore, but we use it for point-in-time recovery. We take a backup that gets shipped to the cloud to have an extra copy that is just there, which then becomes part of a historical backup where we could go back six or seven months, whereas Zerto is only for recovering files up to a few days. Anything older than those few days would be recovered via Barracuda.

Zerto can do a backup for or recover data longer than that period of time, but it becomes a little bit different process. When we looked at Zerto three years ago, the ransomware, journaling, and being able to go back a few hours and restore your entire environment back to a point in time were nice features, but they weren't the selling point. The selling point was disaster recovery. So, that's the main thing for which we're using it. We are not looking at the ability to go back 30 days to recover a file. I definitely see it as a plus, but because it wasn't the initial selling point, and the way that we architected things, we don't necessarily use that right now. However, when our contract with Barracuda ends, instead of renewing, we could consider just buying long-term retention through a cloud provider and then maintaining a longer history with Zerto.

There is a lot that goes into setting it up. So, the planning has to be done. We were pretty much able to have it up in a few hours, but it also depends on your use case and the complexity of your deployment. Like anything, there are a thousand ways to skin a cat. So, it depends upon how you want to have it set up. It depends on:

• How complex groundwork do you want to put in?
• How isolated do you want your test case to be?
• How isolated do you want different things to be set up?

There could be a little bit more complexity, but in general, it's pretty simple to get going. Obviously, there is a lot that goes into it, but the actual work of setting it up, once you have those decisions made, is pretty straightforward. It's pretty easy.

We definitely did a lot of planning, but we did the actual deployment or the actual configuration of it before we engaged with the professional services aspect of our deployment plan. When we bought the software, we had a project management plan and support from Zerto directly. We pretty much did all the setup ahead of time by ourselves. So, in our case, the setup was very simple and very easy.

It does require some maintenance. There are always service updates that are available, and occasionally, there will be little bumps in the road that require maybe reinstalling or updating something. In terms of general maintenance, as compared to other solutions, its maintenance is probably a little bit less than other solutions. Maintenance is still required, but it doesn't require an extreme amount of maintenance to keep things running smoothly.

When we went to locate this software, we worked with ePlus. They made several recommendations on different solutions, and from those recommendations, we narrowed it down and picked Zerto.

I liked them a lot at the time. The sales rep that we had there was fantastic. Unfortunately, a few months after our project was purchased, our sales rep left the company, and then we just never really connected with any of the new people. That has not necessarily something to do with ePlus. They're a large, great company, but what really separated them and made that project beneficial was the account manager that we had during that time period. He was fantastic.

In general, it's pretty fair because it is software. In our case, we built our own colo. So, the cost of the colo was very expensive, and that's where a lot of the equipment is. The same thing is there if we were going to spin up in the cloud, but as a solution, in general, it's pretty fair for what you get out of it and how it works. It's not cheap, but at the same time, you get what you pay for, and it's definitely worth the cost. You just have to understand that the cost of the software alone is not the total cost of the project of doing ransomware protection or disaster recovery. It's a piece of the pie, not the entire pie.

We did look at other similar solutions, but what made Zerto the solution that we went with was the fact that it included the recovery of the actual virtual machine. Other solutions had the ability to do the same kind of synchronous or near-continuous data replication. However, if we had the underlying data replicated but our virtual machine's copy or our virtual machine configuration was different or was not at that target location, we would have to then configure those machines to load the underlying data. The feature that made Zerto useful was that it handled that and replicated the virtual machine information as well. So, we didn't have to do that. Once we configure and specify it to replicate a virtual machine, all the data that's associated with it and its configuration is replicated. We don't have to deal with additional steps.

Three years ago, when we were looking at disaster recovery options, a lot of the solutions were targeted at replicating the underlying data but not necessarily how to get that data usable. Getting the data usable part is often the trickiest and the most time-consuming part. So, when you don't have to take that into consideration because it's already being copied and it's current, your downtime associated with a failure event is reduced. That was definitely a selling point for us.

We looked at Veeam, and we looked at how we use Pure Storage for our underlying data storage. They have the capabilities of doing synchronous, real-time replication, which has improved a lot in the past three years. So, the limitations that made it less appealing a few years ago might have been removed now, but at the same point, that's only the underlying data. We would still have to recreate virtual machines that will spin up that data. There is no other real solution that I'm aware of that does this as nicely. Even some of the other Microsoft native solutions aren't as nice and user-friendly. They definitely don't give you the ability to do testing. We couldn't spin up a replicated copy without causing issues. Zerto allows us to spin up a test version of our production software or our production VMs without affecting the production copy.

There is a lot that goes into setting it up. So, the planning has to be done, but once it's running, it's very simple. If it's set up right, it literally involves a few clicks. Testing and failover can be done in a few clicks, which makes a very complex thing simple. So, if you set it up and you have the groundwork done, then with one or two clicks, you could do major testing, and you could do major failovers. From that standpoint, it's extremely simple to use once it's up and running.

They have a lot of other features that we don't really leverage 100%. We use it only for disaster recovery, but it also contains features for ransomware where you can recover files. Although we don't use that feature, that's definitely a benefit. We have recovered files from time to time but not because of ransomware. We maintain a history of up to 30 days for each of the virtual machines that we have. We have a different solution to recover files older than 30 days.

We don't really use Zerto for immutable data copies, which goes into the ransomware where you expect not to be corrupted by ransomware. We use it, but we've never had a case where we had to recover from a ransomware instance or anything like that. We use Zerto only for disaster recovery and continuous replication. We have a separate backup tool that takes point-in-time backups. In terms of the 3-2-1 rule for our organization’s recovery strategy, our separate point-in-time backups give us three locations. At a point, we have three copies of the data in different stages.

It hasn't reduced our downtime in any situations because we didn't need to do disaster recovery. So, from that standpoint, we don't have any baselines before or after.

It hasn't directly reduced the number of staff involved in data recovery situations, but the amount of time required per person or the time required by people for validation has greatly reduced. We never had anybody dedicated to it as their only function, but the amount of time that's required to do testing is significantly less. So, there has definitely been a saving of time. Similarly, there has been no change in the number of staff involved in overall backup and disaster recovery management. In theory, it wouldn't because, in most IT organizations, a lot of people wear different hats at different times. We didn't have a dedicated person or a dedicated team only to validate backup and recovery.

Compared to other solutions, I would rate it a 10 out of 10.

We do many data-related activities for various government ministries in India. We use Zerto to back up and recover data in many training and capacity-building activities.

We implemented Zerto to address challenges with data centralization in our complex platform environment. Previously, pulling data from a central source was impossible due to the need to feed it into an internal location before deployment. This limitation hindered customization and integration efforts. Additionally, integrating our primary data source, previously used with IBM, into the new platform proved difficult due to compatibility issues. Zerto's capabilities were seen as a potential solution to these problems.

The remarkable benefits of Zerto have yet to manifest fully. The software operates efficiently without significant bugs or issues, and Zerto's customer support has been responsive. While real-time reporting is a standout feature compared to other trial products, its impact on our ongoing projects remains to be determined. A full assessment of Zerto's potential will require an additional six months.

Zerto has significantly improved our Recovery Time Objective, particularly regarding project timelines. The expedited turnaround during critical project phases has been instrumental in streamlining our processes. By accelerating these stages, we've reduced the need for additional developer resources and eliminated time-consuming tasks associated with establishing essential parameters and metrics. As a result, projects that previously took six months can now be completed in as little as four. This accelerated timeline has enhanced profitability and optimized resource allocation, allowing us to maximize project revenue.

Zerto has significantly reduced our disaster recovery testing efforts. By consolidating software and streamlining processes, we've dramatically decreased the required manpower. Multiple teams efficiently utilize a single platform, eliminating the need for disparate services and reducing costs. This centralized approach has markedly decreased the time and resources invested in disaster recovery testing and pre-testing activities.

Zerto's greatest strength is its speed. We never encountered lag or interruptions, even when working remotely from home or other locations with potentially limited internet bandwidth. The software's streaming performance was exceptional, without buffering or connectivity issues. This was a primary factor in our decision, as Zerto emphasized its ability to operate effectively on lower bandwidth connections during the initial demo. Deploying the software in any remote location is straightforward and hassle-free.

The primary concern expressed by all server users is the lack of robust integration features. While Zerto offers some integration capabilities, the smooth and efficient data flow between portals remains a significant challenge. The support and technical teams know this issue and actively seek user feedback, but progress has been slow. The current process, involving multiple platforms and a database management system bottleneck, is time-consuming and inefficient. Additionally, while reporting and dashboard features exist, real-time reporting and mobile functionality require improvement. The user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly. Customization, a critical requirement for government clients, is another concern. Implementing requested changes is often time-consuming and expensive, hindering adaptability. Addressing these integration, reporting, user experience, and customization issues is essential for improving customer satisfaction and retention.

Currently, Zerto only offers an annual subscription, but it would be beneficial to provide quarterly and semi-annual subscriptions to help retain clients.

I have been using Zerto for one year.

I have not encountered any performance issues, such as lagging or crashing. The system operates efficiently and reliably under various conditions, even with significantly lower bandwidth. Zerto has consistently demonstrated stability and high speed, ensuring uninterrupted application performance.

Approximately 50 to 60 individuals within our ecosystem utilize Zerto directly or indirectly. Given its operational efficiency, which I estimate to be between 95 percent, I confidently assert its scalability. While we haven't encountered a scenario within our ecosystem that necessitates testing its scalability limits, its exceptional performance thus far strongly suggests its capacity to handle increased demands.

Zerto uses a ticketing system and offers support through a help desk accessible via chat or phone. A dedicated technical team is assigned to address customer issues, which are typically resolved within 24 hours. We have not experienced any significant delays in issue resolution.

Positive

We find the Zerto pricing fits our budget.

I would rate Zerto nine out of ten.

Maintenance is required quarterly. The Zerto technical and business teams collaborate with us on the backend to remove all the repeated queries that make the system sluggish. This service is charged additionally.

I strongly recommend that anyone considering purchasing Zerto begin with the 30-day trial, which can be extended to 60 days. This ample timeframe allows a thorough evaluation of all features and functionalities. Understanding Zerto's customization and integration capabilities to align with specific business needs is crucial. Had I followed this approach and shared my feedback earlier, the outcome might have been different. Therefore, it's essential to fully explore the trial version before committing to an annual subscription. Close collaboration with the Zerto technical team is vital to ensure successful implementation. While sales teams often present an optimistic view, real-world experiences from existing users provide the most valuable insights. I encourage potential customers to connect with other Zerto users through industry networks to gather honest feedback before purchasing.

We've used it for disaster recovery. We also use it for file recovery. We extended our journal to more days, so we were able to back up a more detailed timeline. We recently did migrations. 

One of the biggest benefits is the migration. We had to move out of a data center very quickly. We were able to failover to our disaster recovery site and run our full production there for almost two months. We then fail back over to the production site using Zerto. 

The ease of use and the ability to quickly recover our workloads is very simple and easy.

The near-synchronous replication is great. It allows us to failover and run production.

Zerto helps protect VMs in our environment. Zerto's overall effect on our RPOs has been excellent. 

The speed of recovery with Zerto versus the speed of recovery with other disaster recovery solutions is night and day. We use Veeam for backups and the amount of time that it takes to recover is so much quicker mounting with Zerto. That's why we extended the journal so that we could capture a few more days and make it easier for us to recover files.

The amount of storage that it takes up for the journals could use improvement. Outside of that, it's been great.

I have been using Zerto for five years. 

They're very stable. We had been with them for a while before HPE acquired them, and they're still going strong now. We haven't seen a lot of big changes in the way they operate, so that's always a good sign.

Support is great. Every time we have an issue, which isn't very often, they're very responsive. We get in touch with somebody very quickly and they help us through it.

Positive

We use Veeam and we've used Datto. We chose Zerto for its ease of use. It was simple, and then we found out once we got it in-house how valuable it was. We just extended it from there.

We used Veeam, and we switched because Zerto was a lot easier. From implementation to actually protecting our VMs, it was so much easier.

Zerto is on top. Zerto is the best out there. 

The initial setup was easy. 

We worked with Zerto on the deployment. 

We have definitely seen ROI.

We had to move out of a data center very quickly. The data center we were in filed for bankruptcy, and we had two months to move out. The ability to flip over to our recovery site in one day, and then being able to ride that until the next time we came back up, then move all of our data back to the new data center was huge for us. That would have cost us a lot.

The initial pricing seemed a little high, but once we got into it and found out what it could do and how it benefited us, it proved itself. We didn't feel that it was too far out of the ordinary. We've increased our licensing to cover our entire environment whereas before we're only covering critical servers. 

I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten. When we started using it, it was very easy to use. It was easy to implement. Throughout the years, it's continued to be that same way. They've proven themselves. We've had the data center move, we've had failures, we've had different issues that happened in our environment, and they were able to meet all of our needs. 

We utilize Zerto as part of our disaster recovery toolset. We employ a multi-tiered model, catering to a select group of customers, primarily hospital clusters. These customers maintain on-premise networks with cloud-based disaster recovery. In this managed service offering, we leverage Zerto to facilitate their cloud recovery.

The replication is quick. We encountered some challenges replicating the data during the first full copy. Since we weren't using Zerto, I suspect the bandwidth requirements for replication were a bottleneck for us. However, once the initial copy was complete, the process became seamless. The recovery was near zero after the first replication. Zerto worked perfectly.

We implemented Zerto because it supports a multi-tenant model, which was a critical requirement for us. We have five tenants located on-premises across five different data centers. However, we only have a single disaster recovery site in the cloud. Zerto's solution enabled us to consolidate our disaster recovery needs. Previously, managing five separate data protection solutions for each data center and five different cloud recovery subscriptions would have been incredibly expensive. Zerto significantly reduced our costs. Additionally, Zerto provides a single-pane-of-glass dashboard, allowing us to manage our infrastructure efficiently and effectively. This comprehensive view offers full control over our applications and complete visibility into all our tenants. As an infrastructure manager, I believe these features are the most valuable contributions Zerto has made to our organization.

Zerto has helped save around 30 percent of our time.

Zerto has helped achieve significant cost savings.

In the VMS portal, we had a relatively small amount of data overall. We also had multiple tenants, each with a maximum of 20 to 30 virtual machines on-premises. These VMs weren't particularly large. As a result, recovery was quick, typically taking less than a minute. My Recovery Time Objective would be less than a minute for any VM, even for a complete migration of all on-premises VMs to the cloud.

While I wasn't privy to the details of the client's previous DR solution before implementing Zerto, our discussions revealed significant time savings with Zerto's recovery process. Compared to their prior on-premises DR approach, Zerto offers a substantial reduction in recovery time – at least 15 to 20 minutes faster. This improvement stems from eliminating the need to coordinate with personnel and the time required for on-premises recovery procedures at their dedicated DR site. Previously, they relied on manual, on-premises to on-premises recovery, which inherently took longer. However, a direct comparison between their old solution and Zerto wouldn't be entirely accurate. Zerto offers significant efficiency gains, boasting up to 200 percent improvement.

Migrating data through Zerto is straightforward with careful planning. Our first experience involved Zerto's support throughout the process. While initially challenging due to our lack of experience, we were able to navigate the initial setup. One hurdle we faced was optimizing network traffic for the initial data replication from on-premises to the cloud. However, we embraced the learning curve, documenting everything as we gained control of the environment. This ensured a smooth integration for subsequent tenants. While the first migration presented some difficulties, as is to be expected, Zerto's excellent support made the process manageable. Their responsiveness in explaining and resolving issues made it a positive experience overall.

The RPO was very close to zero, meaning there was minimal data loss between replications. However, this could be impacted by the specific database being hosted and other factors. For application servers or virtual machines replicated on-premises to the cloud, I believe there was negligible lag or delay, assuming no network issues. Bandwidth and network traffic did play a role – we observed instances of slower RPO due to traffic spikes or network events. However, with Zerto providing the recommended data bandwidth, we encountered minimal challenges. In most cases, I'd say 90 percent of the data was synchronized almost constantly. The only exception was when network issues arose.

Our data center experienced an issue, necessitating a disaster recovery procedure. Fortunately, data loss seems minimal, and the impact on our clients appears negligible. This is partly due to the managed service we provide for a tenant, who fortunately didn't perceive any significant data loss. The success of the recovery is also attributed to our user-friendly, always-in-sync system. Upon receiving alerts and notifications, we promptly informed the client, who then quickly authorized the recovery process. From our perspective, the recovery went smoothly with minimal challenges. In the actual scenario, we believe data loss was negligible. While some data loss might have occurred technically, it wasn't significant enough to cause any noticeable impact on the client. It's important to note that our monitoring team maintained complete control of the situation, allowing for swift decision-making and a speedy recovery.

In a data recovery scenario, we'll still have our database administrator, Linux administrator, storage administrator, and Zerto operator available. While Zerto can automate disaster recovery and VM restoration, it's important to remember that it's not a foolproof solution. Even though Zerto streamlines the process, a well-prepared organization will always maintain backups and ensure a dedicated team is in place for data recovery. Zerto doesn't reduce the number of personnel involved; rather, it enhances their productivity by freeing them up for other tasks during a recovery event. During a recovery, it's still recommended to have everyone on call. While Zerto handles most recoveries, there may be situations where manual intervention is necessary. By being fully prepared, our organization can effectively address any data recovery situation.

It is easy to manage and monitor the DR plans using the Zerto GUI. 

Zerto's most valuable features include its user-friendly interface, multi-tenancy capabilities, and near-zero downtime recovery. Zerto is easy to learn and use, even for those with limited technical experience. Additionally, Zerto's failover testing functionality allows us to run tests in real time without impacting production systems.

We encountered some issues during Active Directory recovery. When we implemented Active Directory, we provided feedback to Zerto regarding the challenges of recovering AD from the on-premises environment to the disaster recovery site. Unlike other virtual machines, AD recovery presents unique difficulties due to its active-active nature. It's unclear whether these challenges stem from Zerto itself or limitations within Microsoft Active Directory. However, in our experience using Zerto for AD recovery compared to other technologies, we faced data discrepancies that necessitated workarounds to bring AD online at the DR site.

Certain applications we migrated from production relied on Active Directory authentication. To ensure successful application functionality at the DR site, a functional AD environment was a prerequisite to application migration. Therefore, our initial step involved copying and guaranteeing a running AD instance on the DR side before application recovery.

However, upon attempting application authentication on the DR side, data inconsistencies prevented successful authentication. To address this, we created an isolated clone of the AD environment and conducted tests. Through trial and error, we were able to develop workarounds to resolve the issue. Notably, these challenges were specific to Active Directory; other VMs didn't exhibit similar problems.

I have been using Zerto for over 3 years.

Zerto has been very stable for us. We do apply patch releases and upgrades whenever necessary to ensure continued stability. Fortunately, we haven't encountered any major bugs or issues that would cause significant downtime, unlike what we've experienced with some other tools. Zerto has been a reliable choice for us.

I would rate the stability of Zerto 9 out of 10.

I would rate the scalability of Zerto nine out of ten.

The technical support is fantastic. They offer same-day assistance, and their documentation is clear and comprehensive.

Positive

Before implementing Zerto, the client's disaster recovery relied on an on-premises to on-premises failover strategy. Seeking a cloud-based solution, they chose Zerto to leverage its expertise in this area.

We previously used another tool for DR orchestration. While Zerto can also perform recoveries, it focuses on virtual machines and doesn't extend to the operating system or database level for starting and stopping applications within those VMs. Despite these limitations, Zerto excelled in its support. The Zerto team provided excellent assistance whenever we faced challenges, joined calls to help us troubleshoot, and offered clear timelines for resolving issues. Their documentation was also thorough. In contrast, the previous DR tool lacked comparable support and documentation. This stark difference in support quality is why we favored Zerto and ultimately removed the other tool from our project. Currently, we rely solely on Zerto for our existing tenants, and we plan to continue using it for future ones as well.

We encountered some challenges during the initial setup. Zerto offers several data replication options, I believe 2 or 3. These include copying data to our hard drive or storage box, copying it to the DSR site, and replicating it over the network. However, only network replication worked for us.

The issue might have been related to bandwidth requirements. It's possible that either Zerto itself or our network infrastructure wasn't up to par. We faced some challenges during that initial phase.

However, after the initial setup and the application of delta copying, which happens daily, we rarely experienced any replication issues. Most of the time, network glitches and fluctuations caused brief disconnections, but overall, replication ran smoothly.

We went into the Zerto deployment with a clean slate. Both team members were new to Zerto, so we were all learning as we went. This initial deployment was challenging, but it gave us valuable hands-on experience. Once we had a firm grasp of the environment, onboarding subsequent tenants became seamless. We developed a clear plan and approach, which streamlined the process for future deployments. Technically, the challenges weren't ongoing. The main hurdle was understanding how to integrate Zerto with our existing infrastructure. While that initial learning curve was steep, Zerto's excellent support helped us navigate it successfully.

The deployment time for Zerto varies depending on the complexity of your environment. More complex environments will require a longer replication process. However, on average, we can onboard a new customer within 1 month. This timeframe encompasses the entire process, from the initial planning phase to the deployment of up to 30 VMs within a tenant.

Our project involved 2 separate IT teams at 2 different locations. One team acted as the managed service provider, while the other represented the client side. The client-side team, located on-premises, provided us with essential information about their data centers. This included details on virtual machines, such as their size, quantity, and basic data collection metrics. They also helped us identify their storage requirements. Based on this information, we planned our cloud storage procurement and other necessary actions. The project team comprised approximately 10 to 15 people, including project managers, IT personnel, storage specialists, network engineers, and development experts.

I would rate Zerto 10 out of 10.

Our organization uses Zerto to manage the replication of data centers from 7 on-premises locations to the IBM cloud for our midsize clients.

Our environment consists of VMware, data storage, and a network, with Zerto deployed for disaster recovery. While VCDM and VMware are managed by our cloud provider, we maintain 5 additional technologies with a team of 8 people.

We experienced a brief on-premises outage. Fortunately, we were able to recover quickly using Zerto. The software triggered an alert, notifying our monitoring team. These features proved to be very helpful. Additionally, we were able to promptly contact our clients and explain the situation. They responded quickly and effectively, minimizing the impact on their end. Our clients were pleased with the response.

I recommend Zerto to others.