Microsoft DPM vs Zerto comparison

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4,813 views|2,992 comparisons
68% willing to recommend
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Read 234 Zerto reviews
10,524 views|5,722 comparisons
98% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Microsoft DPM and Zerto based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Backup and Recovery solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Microsoft DPM vs. Zerto Report (Updated: March 2024).
767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The user interface is very good. The reporting and monitoring features are also good.""The initial setup is quite straightforward.""The most valuable feature is that DPM has an index so individual files can be searched.""The most important feature is that it's easy to use.""The automated procedure is quite good for us, as it is able to capture all of the information that we require.""It is almost perfect for Microsoft products. It is not a very powerful tool, but it is okay for small sites and small businesses with Microsoft products. It is easy to use for backup and restore. It is good for backing up Microsoft servers such as Exchange and SharePoint servers.""Its capability to give a BMR for all the workstations that I want to connect to.""Microsoft DPM is scalable."

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"If we lost our data center and had to recover it, Zerto would save us a great deal of time. In our testing, we have found that recovering the entire data center would be completed within a day.""The UI is straightforward. It makes it very simple to group our resources and understand that our production workloads are covered because we can set them up as granular or as non-granular as we want.""Journaling allows us to leverage Zerto's journal for sub-minute recoveries, instead of having to wait for the storage array to replicate.""One of the valuable features is the ability to re-IP on the fly, because it makes the migration a lot smoother on the system end.""Zerto enables us to do sandboxing failovers. You can run tests on a production environment in a sandbox and spin up a copy of your actual production environment in a few hours. When you're done with it, you can click a couple of buttons, and it's all blown away. You don't need to worry about reverting changes or interfering with your on-prem production environments.""The whole package is valuable. The most useful feature for the company is the rapid RTO, which offers a faster return to operations and brings us back online quicker. The last time we had an issue, we recovered within about 36 minutes, which was probably the most valuable thing for us because, previously, it took four to seven days.""The most valuable feature for us is accelerating cloud adoption, as it helps provide greater speed for disaster recovery. Ultimately, this saves us time, as well as resources.""I've used backup solutions like Veeam in the past, but Zerto seemed like a better, faster solution. We adopted Zerto because of the speed, and because we wanted to do everything in-house."

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Cons
"Management reporting could be improved.""The user interface can be improved quite a bit.""It needs portability for other vendors. It is good for backing up Microsoft servers, but it doesn't support third-party solutions such as Oracle Database. It depends on Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy, especially for Hyper-V, which has a lot of problems. They should enhance the Volume Shadow Copy functionality. Its reporting should also be better. Reporting is too weak in DPM.""You have only a few settings and if you change them for some special configurations, it's very difficult.""It would be better if it integrated seamlessly with open source and competitor products. In the next release, I would like to see some data governance frameworks. It should have support features for data integration and data replication like Veeam. Right now, we are also using Veeam for certain scenarios.""The data tagging feature needs improvement. The solution could be a bit more intuitive in certain aspects.""There is a very poor online user community in terms of people blogging about their experiences with DPM.""Compatibility and integration with other products needs improvement."

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"It would be beneficial if Zerto also offered integration with other cloud management platforms, such as VMware Aria Automation.""We're an NSX-T shop, and if I could get an NSX-T integration where it could manage the networks a little tighter, that would be an improvement.""It took me a little bit of time to get used to Zerto's terminology and to relate it back to how you do a backup traditionally. It was a little different. It took a little while to understand what a VPG is and what it does. That's an area that they could probably improve on a little, making the documentation easier to understand.""The technical support response needs improvement.""The alerting doesn't quite give you the information about what exactly is going on when an issue comes up. We do get alerts inside of our vCenter, but it doesn't quite give you accurate information inside the plugin to be able to tell us what's going on without having to go into the actual Zerto application and figuring out what's causing the issue.""The licensing is confusing and complicated.""One issue we've been having with Zerto lately is the ability to go into maintenance mode during vSphere upgrades. It doesn't have the hook into the lifecycle manager of the bump. During vCenter or ESXi upgrades, it causes VCF to fail its pre-checks because the machine doesn't power off and go into maintenance mode. It's been an issue since version 7.5 and it's impacting a basic automation function in vSphere.""With the VPG (virtual protected group) it would be nice if you could pick individuals in the grouping instead of having to failover the whole group."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Microsoft DPM is a free solution. However, we pay approximately $3,000 annually for support."
  • "I think Microsoft DPM pricing is reasonable. The additional costs are related to storage and technical support."
  • "Microsoft DPM can be considered as an expensive solution for smaller or medium enterprises, but we have been satisfied with the price structure as it is fixed and it offers a variety of useful features"
  • More Microsoft DPM Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Pricing depends on your future growth. Start small and then scale up."
  • "Zerto’s licensing model has changed a bit over the last year and they are in alignment with others. It is pretty simple and more economical."
  • "Licensing is based on the number of VMs to replicate. The first thing should be to get the number of VMs to replicate based on your business needs."
  • "Licensing is VM based so you can buy packages or single VM. Price is not low but the power of application is high, so you will get your money back."
  • "It's a little bit expensive."
  • "We believe the pricing, setup costs, and licensing are easy to understand. The pricing seems very reasonable."
  • "The solution is very cost-effective and very easy to set-up but does not compromise on features."
  • "While we find the twenty-five VM license somewhat inflexible, the actual setup costs are minimal as the product is so easy to install."
  • More Zerto Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: This solution helps us to manage all of the operations across servers and different workstations.
    Top Answer:Microsoft DPM can be considered an expensive solution for smaller or medium enterprises, but we have been satisfied with the price structure as it is fixed and offers a variety of useful features. I… more »
    Top Answer:To evaluate the solution's abilities and its performance under demanding conditions, it is recommended to carry out a stress test. It would ensure that the current version of the solution can accept a… more »
    Top Answer:Ik fluister:VM Host Oracle en DataGuard hebben we per toeval vervangen door Zerto :-) tijdens de Zerto implementatie en VPG werden de Host Data in write-ack Block-Level gerepliceerd. Qua licentie 1 =… more »
    Top Answer:Its ability to roll back if the VM or the server that you are recovering does not come up right is also valuable. You have the ability to roll back a few seconds or a few minutes. The rollback feature… more »
    Top Answer:The pricing is based on virtual machines. They need to do better in regards to their tiering pricing rather than one price per VM. A lot of times we have VMs that are lower tier, such as Tier 2 or… more »
    Ranking
    27th
    out of 133 in Backup and Recovery
    Views
    4,813
    Comparisons
    2,992
    Reviews
    4
    Average Words per Review
    436
    Rating
    7.8
    2nd
    out of 133 in Backup and Recovery
    Views
    10,524
    Comparisons
    5,722
    Reviews
    126
    Average Words per Review
    925
    Rating
    9.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    DPM, Data Protection Manager, MS DPM
    Zerto Virtual Replication
    Learn More
    Overview

    Microsoft Data Protection Manager (DPM) is an enterprise backup system that can be used to back up data from a source location to a target secondary location. Microsoft DPM allows you to back up application data from Microsoft servers and workloads, and file data from servers and client computers. You can create full backups, incremental backups, differential backups, and bare-metal backups to completely restore a system. Microsoft DPM can store backup data to disks for short-term storage, to Azure Cloud for both for short-term and long-term storage off-premises, and to tapes for long-term storage, which can then be stored offsite. Backed up files are indexed, which allows you to easily search your recovered data.

    Microsoft DPM contributes to your business continuity and disaster recovery strategy by facilitating the backup and recovery of enterprise data, ensuring resources are available and recoverable during planned and unplanned outages. When outages occur and source data is unavailable, you can use DPM to easily restore data to the original source or to an alternate location.

    Key Features of Microsoft DPM:

    • Application-aware backup: Application-aware backup of Microsoft workloads, including SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange, and SharePoint.

    • File backup: Back up files and folders on computers running Windows Server and Windows operating systems.

    • System backup: Back up the entire system state or run complete backups of physical computers running Windows Server or Windows client operating systems.

    • Hyper-V backup: Back up Hyper-V virtual machines running either Windows or Linux. You can choose to back up an entire virtual machine or specific applications on the virtual machine.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Microsoft DPM stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its robust and flexible backup capabilities and its being easy to manage with one central dashboard.

    William M., the head of ICT infrastructure & security at a tech services company, notes, "The automated procedure is quite good for us, as it is able to capture all of the information that we require. The compatibility is very good. We have an IBM AS/400 machine in our office that we're using, and we're able to back it up fine. This is the same for other systems, as well. I think that overall, it is really adaptable, compatible, and scalable."

    Mohammed I., a managing director at Adalites, notes, "I would definitely recommend data protection DPM. It has an application backup, a file backup, a system backup and a hypervisor. It works flawlessly, never a problem."

    Rodney C. a system analyst at a financial services firm, writes, "The most valuable feature is that DPM has an index so individual files can be searched. This is our primary tool for recovering deleted files or folders. Once we implement a System Center Operations Manager, all of our DPM servers can then be seen on one dashboard."

    Zerto, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, specializes in data protection and empowers customers to run a business by simplifying the protection, disaster recovery, and mobility of on-premises and cloud applications. Zerto uses advanced hybrid cloud IT technologies to recover and protect business-critical applications in on-premises and cloud environments, enabling them to deliver continuous service without compromising security. Zerto’s foundation is based on continual data protection (CDP) technology. Users can benefit from a single, unified, and automated recovery and data management experience across all virtualized or container-based workloads.

    Zerto's native clustering technology creates a resilient, fault-tolerant system that automates recovery of critical virtual machines while supporting software updates, new OS releases, and upgrades. With native clustering, a creation, migration, or deletion of a virtual machine is automatically replicated to all nodes in the cluster. This creates an automated failover and availability solution with the features of high-end dedicated servers running at a fraction of the cost.

    Zerto Features

    Zerto has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Continuous data security
      • Continuous replication
      • The industry's lowest RPOs and fastest RTOs
      • App and database protection and recovery on a granular level
    • Agility across hybrid and multi-cloud
      • Protection between clouds
      • Simple on-premises to cloud migration
      • User-friendly native cloud services
    • Simple to scale
      • Automation and orchestration are built-in
      • Cross-platform, multi-site analytics
      • Unified experience regardless of cloud
    • Software-based
      • Hardware, hypervisor, and cloud are all independent
      • No physical appliances
      • Future-proof

    Zerto Benefits

    • Robust disaster recovery: Continuous data protection enables recovery of entire clusters, multi-VM applications, or even a single server with the lowest RPOs and fastest RTOs. Zerto allows users to safeguard, manage, and recover all of their key digital assets, whether they’re recovering to a secondary location, the public cloud, or a managed service provider.
    • Constant backup: Instead of making backups every 12 or 24 hours, Zerto creates backups every 5-15 seconds. Zerto backup has no impact on production and eliminates the burden of micromanaging backup windows by using CDP instead of snapshots. Its backup provides immediate recovery of data, folders, or virtual machines (VMs) that are only seconds behind the original, which is a simple approach to completely avoid ransomware or erase inadvertent deletions.
    • Strong long-term retention: Send data to the cloud or a purpose-built storage appliance of your choice for months or years of retention. These long-term copies can be made from local backups or DR replicas, and they can be kept wherever is most convenient for your company. Its powerful indexing and search makes discovering and restoring data simple. For data you want to maintain but only use infrequently, use cost-effective cloud tiering to shift LTR copies from hot to cold to deep-freeze storage.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Zerto stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are its disaster recovery abilities and its ease of use. PeerSpot users take note of the advantages of these features in their reviews:

    Justin C., Director of IT at Arnott Inc. writes of the solution, “If we had to deal with a ransomware event, Zerto would be one of the first things I would use, because it is going to be the fastest to restore data to a certain point. If there were a fire in our building, Zerto would be a big thing too, because we would shut down everything that's in our building… It's definitely going to be one of our prevalent DRBC layers of protection."

    Brad W., Vice President of Information Technology at a financial services firm, notes, “The file restoration is very helpful. They've improved it over the years to make it a lot more user-friendly and easy to do, which I appreciate. So, we use that quite a bit. The failover process is quite simple and intuitive. Even the configuration and setup are pretty easy to do.”

    Sample Customers
    Medical Park, Centropol Energy, a.s., NCFE, D & H Distributing, Metalor, Colosseum, a.s., Sanitas S.A., Icebreaker
    United Airlines, HCA, XPO Logistics, TaxSlayer, McKesson, Insight Global, American Airlines, Tencate, Aaron’s, Grey’s County, Kingston Technologies
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company40%
    Government20%
    Marketing Services Firm10%
    Energy/Utilities Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Government11%
    Educational Organization9%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm16%
    Insurance Company12%
    Healthcare Company10%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm10%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Healthcare Company7%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business37%
    Midsize Enterprise26%
    Large Enterprise37%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business26%
    Midsize Enterprise21%
    Large Enterprise53%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise25%
    Large Enterprise52%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise57%
    Buyer's Guide
    Microsoft DPM vs. Zerto
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft DPM vs. Zerto and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    767,847 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Microsoft DPM is ranked 27th in Backup and Recovery with 17 reviews while Zerto is ranked 2nd in Backup and Recovery with 234 reviews. Microsoft DPM is rated 7.0, while Zerto is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of Microsoft DPM writes "Good for backing up, but the 2019 version lags". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zerto writes "Gives us business continuity capabilities during hurricane season and in case of ransomware". Microsoft DPM is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Azure Backup, Dell PowerProtect DD (Data Domain), Veritas Backup Exec and Commvault Cloud, whereas Zerto is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, VMware SRM, Rubrik, Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines and Commvault Cloud. See our Microsoft DPM vs. Zerto report.

    See our list of best Backup and Recovery vendors.

    We monitor all Backup and Recovery reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.