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Paul Mickenbecker - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Analyst, IS Infrastructure at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Jul 2, 2023
We have centralized and simplified our DR processes, and DR in Azure has enabled us to consolidate DCs
Pros and Cons
  • "We can failover to an isolated environment and validate the application without impacting the production environment. We can do more testing in a non-impactful way..."
  • "We do have some sites that are very low-bandwidth sites. Zerto is able to set throttling in the solution, but the throttling is set at a site-wide level. In those instances that have very low bandwidth, I can't reduce the throttling on that site. It would be nice if there were a way to control the throttling by the protection group for a specific workload."

What is our primary use case?

In my previous company, I used it for disaster recovery. We protected our critical workloads in another data center where we would replicate our primary workloads.

In my current company, we're in the middle of a data center consolidation project and we're using Zerto in two ways. First, we're migrating the workloads we had in one data center to another, about 250 servers. It took us about three months to complete the migration. We had to schedule all of our moves and work with the business to validate that the services were fine and accessible, once they were moved to the other data center. We've completed the migration and a data center has been shut down, and we're working on building disaster recovery for our primary workloads in Azure.

How has it helped my organization?

The main benefit is that we are centralizing our disaster recovery solution. Before, we were doing replication for some services and RecoverPoint for other services. We had a mix of tools for disaster recovery and we're trying to simplify that process with a product we can use for both. We're even contemplating using Zerto for backups as well, because we use other tools for that. But the main focus is having a specific tool, Zerto, that we can use to achieve our disaster recovery goals for on-prem services.

We also have a big push to move our DR solutions into Azure as a result of a decision from our upper levels to use Azure as our primary solution for building applications. That has allowed us to reduce costs and consolidate from three data centers to one, with our disaster recovery solution in Azure. Our focus on one tool has made it simple. We're still working through that process. Whereas the failover solutions in Azure are somewhat the same as any other data center, building out the rules and requirements for firewalls is a little more complex. We have some third-party vendors that are helping us design and build out our security into Azure.

Near-synchronous replication is one of the benefits of Zerto that drove us to choose it over some others. With typical backup and recovery, your recovery point can be 24 hours. With the near-synchronous replication, our recovery point objectives are in the seconds. That's one of the major benefits of Zerto. We don't have to run incremental backups every half hour or 15 minutes. And the recovery time is fairly quick as well. It's essentially just a shutdown and reboot of a VM.

Near-synchronous replication is incredibly important for us because we have transactional applications that work on financial and transactional databases. The fewer the number of transactions that are potentially lost, the better it is for our organization. It means we don't have to go through rebuilding those transactions. It limits the amount of data that we could possibly lose in a disaster recovery situation, amounting to just a few seconds' worth.

The near-synchronous replication with Zerto has enabled us to reduce our RPOs to two seconds instead of hours and, sometimes, days.

And Zerto really improves RTOs for moving applications. You're not waiting for restores to happen. In some cases, if you have large amounts of data on the order of hundreds of terabytes, it could literally take you a week to recover certain applications, especially if you're pulling the data down from Azure or offsite storage. Zerto greatly improves the amount of time that it takes to recover. And you don't have to do one at a time. You can move over a large chunk of servers at once and get those recoveries running and mounting in your disaster recovery environment. It's a lot quicker than running a restore from a restore product.

In addition, the solution reduces the amount of downtime we have in applications during migration. We had a large number of servers, including some critical production applications. But we didn't have to find windows where we could have those systems interrupted for a short period of time. A few minutes of downtime, compared to having the application down for hours, helped move our migration project along. We moved about 250 servers in a three-month period, and we didn't have any issues with any of the applications related to data or the like. We had two instances where there was an issue related to licensing but they were our only issues when moving these applications.

What is most valuable?

The auto-connect feature is valuable because we can set the amount of time that we delay before committing a move from one location to another, giving application teams time to validate that the move went well and everything is working before we commit those changes. That gives us the ability to roll back to the same point we were at before we shut things down, if needed. 

Another nice aspect of the product is the non-intrusive failover of the application, similar to an actual disaster recovery test without impacting the services that are currently online. We can failover to an isolated environment and validate the application without impacting the production environment. We can do more testing in a non-impactful way using isolated testing. And once or twice a year, we'll do a live test that is more like what would happen if we lost a data center.

Zerto is also a very easy product to use. Although I've used it before in other environments, we introduced it to some engineers on our team and, after a couple of hours of training to go through the product, it's fairly intuitive. It's not something that takes a five-day training course to understand. You just drive through the checkboxes to build a protection group and that's pretty easy to do. You don't really have to understand coding or the like. It's GUI-driven, so it's fairly easy for an engineer to create protection groups.

What needs improvement?

You can use Zerto as a backup product, but in the discussions that I have had with them about the product, they don't really sell or talk about that feature as much. So I would be interested in improvements related to using it as a backup. If I could consolidate and use Zerto for disaster recovery as well as everyday backup and restore for situations where I need to recover something, that would be helpful. It has some of that functionality, but it's not something they promote a lot. They should point out the benefits of using Zerto as a backup and recovery product instead of just a DR product.

With Cohesity, we keep a limited amount of backups, about 14 days. That way, we can recover an individual server within the same site or we can restore data or databases that we need, in a non-DR way. We use it for typical day-to-day backup and restore. If we could use Zerto in a similar fashion for everyday backup and recovery scenarios, that would be another area where we could consolidate into a single application.

Buyer's Guide
HPE Zerto Software
September 2026
Learn what your peers think about HPE Zerto Software. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

At my old company, I used it for several years, and at the company I'm now at we've been using it for about a year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has been rock-solid. I haven't had any issues with any of the builds or the virtual managers. It just runs.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's really scalable. You can create as many protection groups as you need, and a lot more than we have in our environment. 

We do have some sites that are very low-bandwidth sites. Zerto is able to set throttling in the solution, but the throttling is set at a site-wide level. In those instances that have very low bandwidth, I can't reduce the throttling on that site. It would be nice if there were a way to control the throttling by the protection group for a specific workload.

How are customer service and support?

Our experience with their tech support has been good. I have never called them with an issue that they couldn't resolve fairly quickly. 

I did call them a few times on some migrations that we were doing off-hours where certain aspects of the migration didn't work, particularly on the reverse protection. I always got a callback within 30 minutes and most of the time it was quicker. The support has always been great.

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

One of the main issues was handling large data migrations. It wasn't feasible to do a big-bang move where we could move everything at one time, so we needed to schedule moves. We were able to at least replicate the information and work through a schedule for the migrations quickly. One of the major things we were trying to adjust was having to schedule the migrations and working with the team to validate that everything was functional. We were also looking to minimize the amount of time that that service would be offline during migration.

In addition, we use a combination of tools. We were doing replication with RecoverPoint, and straight backup and restore with Cohesity. While we still use Cohesity, we did get rid of RecoverPoint and we don't use VMware Site Recovery Manager because we're not recovering from VMware to VMware anymore. Cohesity does certain things and Zerto does certain things very well.

How was the initial setup?

The implementation of the migration was very straightforward. The implementation of disaster recovery into Azure was a little more complex. In part, that was because of the way our company built our Azure subscription and the rules we have in place for installation and dividing things and networks within Azure. 

But from the standpoint of installing and deploying the product, it's very simple.

What about the implementation team?

We did it in-house, but we did have a Zerto engineer run through the installation into Azure with us because we did run into some issues related to permissions in Azure and some of the custom roles that are defined. We also worked with an engineer from Azure to help us, mainly around the identity portion in Azure.

On our side, it was just me and one of our other engineers involved.

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI on the migration project which didn't require a whole bunch of people involved. We rotated two people who were able to facilitate the migrations when we scheduled them in the evenings. Sometimes, we would do up to six or seven migrations in an evening. 

The main thing that held us up a little in that project was the validation process required by the business. If we had been able to just run through it, we probably would have completed it a lot more quickly.

Still, we didn't require a lot of resources to do it. It was just one engineer to handle a migration and the applications teams to validate. We didn't have to go outside the company to hire services to help us with the migration. That was helpful from a cost perspective.

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

Pricing is one area where there could be some improvement. We would like to see a consumption model that would charge in a DR scenario, where you're failing over and consuming those resources, instead of a per-protected-node model. Or it could be a model based on the amount of storage space you're protecting.

Others in our organization have raised the issue of how it's licensed, where you need one for every VM you're protecting.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at RecoverPoint and Site Recovery Manager in VMware, but they just didn't fit the type of scenario that we were looking to set up with replication and recovery into Azure. We couldn't really find too many tools that were doing it in a way that was not too intrusive. There are ways you can migrate things into Azure and run them, but there's a technical process that you have to go through to make it happen. 

We were looking for a solution where we wouldn't have to flip all the switches for Azure. We wanted something straightforward that was much simpler to use. Zerto was really the only tool that we could find to do it. Others that we looked at briefly just didn't do what we wanted to do, so we didn't spend too much time on them.

Recovery with Zerto is a little more straightforward compared to other solutions, and the amount of time it takes is fairly short. You can recover with Cohesity fairly quickly, but there are a bunch of other things that you need to do, depending on how the recovery is done. If you're mounting a new virtual machine from a snapshot, which would give you a fairly quick recovery, you would still have to re-synchronize that data to keep it as a replication, and that takes some time. 

Zerto is just a more straightforward solution. You're getting pretty much the same server restored in under a minute, which is the time it takes to reboot, sync, and bring it back online. Other tasks you have to do, when bringing something up in another data center, like re-IP the machine, can be automated in the Zerto replication. It makes things easier.

What other advice do I have?

My advice is to look at what you're trying to accomplish. If you're looking for a migration tool, this is a great migration tool that will help you move workloads between data centers. It's agnostic as to whether you're using VMware, Microsoft, or Azure.

And you have to look at whether you're moving a large amount of data or a large number of servers. Think about how much downtime your business can afford for moving those applications. If you're looking for something that can move an application with minimal downtime, this may be a solution for you. Or if you're moving large amounts of data, but you don't want to be down for the whole time you're restoring or moving, a synchronous product like this may be a solution for you.

We have built a disaster recovery landing zone in our Azure environment and we built an isolated environment so we could do non-intrusive failover tests into Azure, and still keep our production environment up and running. We've tested certain workloads failing over into Azure, including a standard Windows or Linux box, and specific things like SQL Server, Oracle, et cetera. It has been going well so far and we're at the point where we're defining our protection groups and security in Azure for all of our critical workloads.

We have not yet used the immutable data copies feature, but I was just at a conference and had some meetings with Zerto, some of the product professionals and engineers, and that is something that we are strongly looking into. That's because of the issue of cyberattacks and because even backup systems could become corrupted and then you're still in a bad situation. Putting the data into an immutable repository is something that we are definitely looking into. Especially in the industry that we are in, cybersecurity is a big issue.

We have also not used it for blocking threats and attacks. But the ability, in conjunction with immutable data and putting that into a vault, to look at the data that is being replicated in real time and scan it, would be a great benefit. We do use some of the best-in-class tools for that kind of protection, but this would just be another layer to help with that. It's an interesting feature and another tool that would add a layer to our cyber protection.

Zerto hasn't reduced the number of staff involved in backup and DR management. We have a pretty lean team. We try to cross-train our employees on the different products that we use. But Zerto did help to simplify the process because we can get people trained on it. They can assist in covering for other people in the group when they're out. The training only takes a couple of hours to go through the tutorials.

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.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2098281 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Storage Adminstrator at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Feb 17, 2023
Reduced downtime and time to deploy new servers in an easy-to-use solution
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution's most valuable aspect is allowing a failover from our remote sites to our data center. Our remote sites have failed several times, and on each occasion, we were able to bring a plant back online within 30 minutes, even though the hardware repair took many days."
  • "I want to have an OVF or some local deployment where I can deploy the ZVRA rather than having to push it from the console. Some of our smaller remote sites have relatively poor bandwidth, and they can't keep up with the constant deployment stream from our center console, meaning we have to find some creative hours to get around the bandwidth bottlenecks. If I could push out a small install file, install it locally, and then reach back to the console, that would be excellent."

What is our primary use case?

We have critical servers at remote sites that failover or are replicated to our main data center in case of an emergency. If a remote site has a failure, we can spin up that virtual machine from our data center.

We operate a hub and spoke design with a centralized data center hosting our main instance, reaching out to roughly 78 remote locations. We handle the VPGs through the centralized management console at our data center.

We also use the Zerto to replicate from a primary host to a secondary host in case the primary goes down; we have a kind of cold box to which the solution replicates.

Our final use case is if we are updating a plant's entire server rack, and we use Zerto to replicate the old servers onto the new ones, which results in less downtime.  

How has it helped my organization?

The product significantly decreased the time it takes to deploy new servers; we can work on them, build them, and then failover the old VMs to the new server with minimal business impact. What previously took hours to migrate the VMs with vMotion typically takes 30 minutes with Zerto, which is a phenomenal time saving for us. Our plants also have the reassurance that when we replicate their main servers back to a data center, we can keep their business running even if they have a total loss of a server rack or power.

The solution has helped to reduce downtime; we had a situation where a plant had its server fail, and we could failover their server to our data center and had them back up and running within 30 minutes. The required parts for a fix took three days to arrive, but thanks to Zerto, they did not have three days of downtime. Additionally, we just updated our hardware at our plants from HP servers to Dell, and we had to move 10 to 15 VMs per location from the old servers to the new ones. We completed this relatively significant move- roughly eight TB worth of data- in 30 to 45 minutes versus multiple hours, a remarkable reduction of potential downtime. Depending on the plant, downtime can cost $100/minute and potentially much higher if they are into online sales.   

The product helped to reduce our organization's DR testing; we previously used a Hitachi failover or manual VM move, but now we have Zerto VPGs at all sites. We can click the failover button, and it's done about 30 minutes later. It's good not to have to failover manually. Regarding time saved, we can get testing for a plant done in 30-45 minutes, resulting in between two and six hours' worth of savings.

What is most valuable?

The solution's most valuable aspect is allowing a failover from our remote sites to our data center. Our remote sites have failed several times, and on each occasion, we were able to bring a plant back online within 30 minutes, even though the hardware repair took many days.

The solution is very straightforward, especially after using it a few times. We had users who were daunted by it, but once we walked them through how easy it is to failover, they felt pretty comfortable. Zerto is easy to use and doesn't take long to learn, which is nice.  

We like the near-synchronous replication feature, and it's essential as we want to reduce the amount of data lost during a failover. The RPO and RTO are excellent, thanks to Zerto, and we have some sites with poor bandwidth, so we understand the limitations we're working with. Near-synchronous replication allows us to roll back to a specific hour or minute in case of a failure, which is a great feature.  

One of our primary uses for the solution is to protect VMs in our environment, which has an excellent effect on our RPOs. We had a data breach several years ago, and Zerto helped us quickly get back up. We like it a lot because we can failover within minutes once we detect an issue.  

What needs improvement?

I want to have an OVF or some local deployment where I can deploy the ZVRA rather than having to push it from the console. Some of our smaller remote sites have relatively poor bandwidth, and they can't keep up with the constant deployment stream from our center console, meaning we have to find some creative hours to get around the bandwidth bottlenecks. If I could push out a small install file, install it locally, and then reach back to the console, that would be excellent.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution for over five years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Zerto is very stable; we only have problems with sites with poor bandwidth, and there's little we can do to get around that. Sometimes VPGs get outdated because those sites can't copy the data fast enough, but the application is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution scales exceptionally well; we add more licenses when required and keep running. We currently have over 400 licenses.

How are customer service and support?

I recently contacted technical support, and I rate them seven out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

We previously used Veeam, Commvault, and a Hitachi solution. We switched because Zerto has a better RTO and RP, and it's much easier to use than Veeam. The Hitachi solution was very cumbersome as it was CLI only, and we had to unmount and remount storage.

Comparing the ease of use with other solutions, Zerto is excellent; once we have the VPG, there's a large failover button which allows our entire team to carry out the function. It's elementary. After showing a team member once or twice, they can operate the tool independently. The graphics and GUI show us the failover progression, so we don't have to wonder if it has taken place or how long is left. The tool keeps good stats and informs us of the step it's on. 

How was the initial setup?

I wasn't involved in the initial deployment, but we operate the solution with one team, our server team. Regarding maintenance, a minimal amount is required to keep up to date with patches etc. We occasionally run into an issue that necessitates upgrading to a newer version; for example, we were trying to move some vast data stores, and Zerto support said we needed to increase the timeout count. We keep fully up to date with security patches, and two staff members are responsible for maintenance. 

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI with Zerto, though it's hard to quantify precisely how much. It saved us a significant amount of downtime, and plants lose money when they're down, so it's a hidden ROI in that respect.

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

As far as I know, the pricing is around $1,000 per VM, but Zerto is changing the pricing model to more of an enterprise-class license. I don't know if there are any additional costs or fees.

What other advice do I have?

I rate the solution nine out of ten. 

Zerto did not reduce the number of staff involved in data recovery, overall backup, and DR management because we already run a very lean staff; there are eight of us on the server team, and we manage over 3000 servers across the company. On the other hand, Zerto enables multiple staff to do the failovers rather than one of two specialized employees. 

None of the time saved in DR testing has been allocated to value-add tasks because the time saved occurs outside our regular business hours.

Comparing the solution's speed of recovery with other disaster recovery tools, Zerto is excellent and rapid; we can restore everything in the VPG simultaneously. A tool like Commvault is single-threaded, so we would have to restore VM by VM, which is very limiting. VPGs are excellent because we can restore everything within them and get on with life.  

We have not used the tool for immutable data copies; we use our pure storage.

When we had a ransomware attack, the solution didn't initially save us time as they attacked our Zerto environment and took it down. Once we had it back online, we could speed up the recovery, and we've since hardened the product with additional security.

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.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
HPE Zerto Software
September 2026
Learn what your peers think about HPE Zerto Software. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer2843322 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Marketing Manager at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
May 20, 2026
Continuous data protection has minimized downtime and keeps disaster recovery responsive
Pros and Cons
  • "HPE Zerto Software has positively impacted my organization by keeping our data always available and business operations running."

    What is our primary use case?

    My main use case for HPE Zerto Software is disaster recovery. A quick specific example of how I use HPE Zerto Software for disaster recovery is to recover from hardware, files, or user file deletions in a disaster situation.

    What is most valuable?

    HPE Zerto Software offers excellent features including point-in-time recovery to just before a disaster occurs. Point-in-time recovery helps my team day-to-day by allowing us to recover key data that may be lost due to a disaster event.

    HPE Zerto Software has positively impacted my organization by keeping our data always available and business operations running. This has led to specific outcomes for our business, resulting in near zero downtime.

    What needs improvement?

    I believe HPE Zerto Software can be improved by providing more clarity on roadmap features coming.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using HPE Zerto Software for five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    HPE Zerto Software is stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    HPE Zerto Software is very scalable.

    How are customer service and support?

    The customer support is top-notch.

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

    My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is good.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    Last updated: May 20, 2026
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    PeerSpot user
    KetanPatel6 - PeerSpot reviewer
    System Architect at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
    Real User
    Aug 9, 2024
    Reasonable pricing with a good interface and easy setup
    Pros and Cons
    • "Zerto has helped us reduce overall DR testing in our company. What used to take a month I can do in less than two days."
    • "They have moved to appliances, and the configuration of appliances is a bit complicated."

    What is our primary use case?

    We primarily use the solution for DR purposes. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    It provided an easier way to set up everything regarding DR. We had a small team. There were only four people and one of them was a manager, so we had just three people with one desktop guy. We were looking for a solution that was easy to set up, did not require too much maintenance, and something we didn't have to constantly keep an eye on. Zerto provided that. 

    What is most valuable?

    The setup is easy and very comfortable. There are not too many issues doing the upgrades. Maintenance is easy and configuration is easy as well. It's all just GUI-based. You just select the server that you want on the DR and it starts the application. 

    Transfers between the data center are good as well. They do the compressions and also the encryption. That way, you are protected and it doesn't consume too much bandwidth.

    The interface is very good. It's not too complicated. The interface is way easier than Veeam. You can do everything from the interface - including authorization of DR. 

    Its near-synchronous replication is good. We get an RTO of five seconds. They also provide different checkpoints. They maintain a lot of checkpoints, so you can go back in time on the DR side if you want to. Of course, there is a limitation based on how much space you have. 

    We noted the benefits of Zerto immediately. Before I joined, the company used to do a very manual process. We started doing a POC with Zerto, Veeam, and Pure Storage. I found that Zerto was easier to manage - and it's cheaper than the rest of them. That, coupled with the limitation of the human resources, we wanted to have less maintenance, less interface, and I found Zerto very, very useful in that process. 

    Zerto covers our entire production environment. If something goes wrong, you can use Zerto to recover the server if you want. Mainly, we started Zerto just for protection.

    The recovery time objective is good. We've had no issues. If the line goes down, it recovers very quickly since it provides a lot of compression in the data. It doesn't consume much bandwidth.

    If we have issues in our database, we can recover the data. We can go back and time and pull out whatever is lost. 

    Zerto has helped us reduce overall DR testing in our company. What used to take a month I can do in less than two days. 

    It's impacted our IT resiliency strategy. It provides, in terms of DR and data protection, peace of mind. We can get our data back quickly.

    What needs improvement?

    They have moved to appliances, and the configuration of appliances is a bit complicated. The appliance is is very complicated to configure by proxy as they move everything to containers, and each container needs to be configured. It's a little bit complicated.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've used the solution for almost eight years. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability of the solution is very good. I'd rate stability nine out of ten. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It's easy to scale Zerto. I'd rate scalability nine out of ten. 

    How are customer service and support?

    I've contacted technical support. I've had no issues with them. They are well-versed and know the answers. 

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

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

    I did not previously use a different solution. 

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial deployment is easy. We create a server and deploy. You just answer a few questions, and you are done. 

    Even if a person is new to Zerto, it would still be very easy. As a very small team, we are always searching for products that aren't too complicated. 

    The deployment itself might take half a day. It's a one-person job. 

    If you add new servers, there will be maintenance. You can also set up reporting if you like. 

    What about the implementation team?

    When we first deployed eight years ago, we may have used somebody from Zerto. They provided us with help as they were new at the time. If I had to do it again, I could handle it on my own. It's not too complicated. 

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

    The pricing is reasonable and very affordable. 

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We did look at the Veeam. We also look at the Pure Storage. Pure Storage also had some sort of replication, however, the RTO was too big. The RTO was around 15 minutes with Pure, and Zerto was providing an RTO of five seconds.

    What other advice do I have?

    We are end-users. 

    I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

    When using this with VMware, I'd say it is very easy to set up. I haven't used it with Hyper-V, however, I've heard that Zerto may not develop a version for Hyper-V

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises

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

    Google
    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    SatyendraSingh1 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Recruiter at Digital Janet
    Real User
    Aug 6, 2024
    The non-destructive testing enables businesses to test their disaster recoveries without impacting production
    Pros and Cons
    • "It's good for reliability, timing, and simplification. For reliability, it's a logical construction that behaves productively. It's a critical system where timing and coordination are necessary. It also offers simplicity to design and analyze the system by clearly defining the relationship between events and conditions."
    • "Sometimes we require extra storage for Zerto."

    What is our primary use case?

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

    How has it helped my organization?

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

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

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

    What is most valuable?

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

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

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

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

    What needs improvement?

    Sometimes we require extra storage for Zerto. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have used Zerto for five to 10 months. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Zerto is scalable. 

    How are customer service and support?

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

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    What other advice do I have?

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

    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer2505780 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Platform engineer at a energy/utilities company with 5,001-10,000 employees
    Real User
    Jul 15, 2024
    Has enabled us to mature our DR stance quite a bit
    Pros and Cons
    • "It protect and provide DR."
    • "Automated protection of workloads from one site to another could be improved."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use the solution to protect our general workloads, migrating VMs to the cloud and protecting VMs in the cloud. Our primary use case is to protect and provide DR.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Zerto has enabled us to mature our DR stance quite a bit in how we protect functions.

    The near-synchronous replication works pretty well. Going from RPOs of an hour to five seconds is pretty interesting.

    Zerto enables us to do disaster recovery in the cloud rather than in a physical data center.

    Having disaster recovery in the cloud is very important for our organization as we're currently moving our production workloads to the cloud.

    We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. Our RPOs are getting lower.

    The speed of recovery in Zerto is much faster than with SRM.

    What is most valuable?

    The on-prem to Azure, migration, and protection aspects are good. Zerto is one of the few tools that work pretty good and at moving between regions or clouds.

    The near-synchronous replication is good. 

    What needs improvement?

    Automated protection of workloads from one site to another could be improved. For example, with SRM, you can create a VM, and it automatically protects it based on mappings and other factors. Zerto does not do this.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Zerto for about a year.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It can throw us for a loop at times and it can be challenging to figure out.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We are pretty large-scale. It's been one of the challenges, as it seems pretty simple for smaller scales, but as you get larger, it gets more challenging, which is where the automation piece and lack of that comes in.

    How are customer service and support?

    Level one and level two are excellent. The development team is a challenge sometimes because they work four days a week. Sometimes, when we have to have a Dev escalation or a severe issue, it takes quite a long time to get a response.

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

    We use SRM and Commvault. Zerto is better than both of them. Commvault is not great at Orchestration DR, and SRM locks you into VMware.

    How was the initial setup?

    We were early adopters, so the deployment has been challenging, but it's definitely getting more mature and better as we go. 

    What about the implementation team?

    We bought it from a reseller but we used Zerto services to get it going.

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

    It has reasonable pricing comparable to VMware and others.

    What other advice do I have?

    Overall, I rate Zerto an eight out of ten because it makes testing easy and provides flexibility between on-premises and various clouds.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Joseph Navarrete - PeerSpot reviewer
    Senior Director, Information Technology at Housing Summit
    Real User
    Jul 15, 2024
    The ease of use and the ability to quickly recover our workloads is very simple and easy
    Pros and Cons
    • "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."

    What is our primary use case?

    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. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    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. 

    What is most valuable?

    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.

    What needs improvement?

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

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Zerto for five years. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    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.

    How are customer service and support?

    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.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

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

    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. 

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was easy. 

    What about the implementation team?

    We worked with Zerto on the deployment. 

    What was our ROI?

    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.

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

    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. 

    What other advice do I have?

    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. 

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Senior admin at a manufacturing company with 11-50 employees
    Real User
    Jul 15, 2024
    Has a fast recovery time and good near-synchronous replication
    Pros and Cons
    • "Speed of recovery has been very effective in getting our information back as fast as we're able to get it. The daily backup solution that we use alternatively only allows a single backup versus having continuous backup replication with Zerto, it's a no-brainer."
    • "I would like to have more granular notifications for jobs and workloads within the applying case application."

    What is our primary use case?

    We've used Zerto for file recovery and entire VM recovery.

    What is most valuable?

    Having a fast recovery time for both of our use cases is invaluable to the business. 

    The ability to form our backups automatically during the day has saved us, more than a few times. 

    My impression of Zerto’s near-synchronous replication is very positive. It gets the job done. 

    Near-synchronous replication is very important for our organization who use a lot of different versions of files across environments and database changes. It's what we do every day and having the functionality of near-instant recovery on entire virtual machines and files is a blessing. 

    We use Zerto to protect our VMs in our environment. We do daily backups with a different backup management software and having the ability to recover data in under ten seconds has been helpful.

    Speed of recovery has been very effective in getting our information back as fast as we're able to get it. The daily backup solution that we use alternatively only allows a single backup versus having continuous backup replication with Zerto, it's a no-brainer.

    What needs improvement?

    I would like to have more granular notifications for jobs and workloads within the applying case application.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using Zerto for around sixteen months. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's pretty stable. The company itself has been around long enough to know they're not going anywhere. The number of clients that use them on a day-to-day basis speaks for itself. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    For our environment, scalability does a great job with how it is. It can handle scaling. 

    How are customer service and support?

    Zerto technical support is some of the best around. I know when I reach out to them over the phone or via email, they are there quickly and offer great support. 

    I would rate them a ten out of ten. Every time I have to call them, they get something ready, very fast, and our issues are resolved quickly.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

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

    We still use Veeam.

    We chose Zerto because when we started our path with GreenLake, we began looking into other backup utilities and Zerto was highly recommended. After we saw a product demo, we were sold. The demo sold itself very well.

    Once the VPG is configured, the automation for backups happens on its own. There's nothing else to do. You can monitor but until you need to recover the files, there's nothing else to do. Zerto is very simple. We enjoy using the product. 

    The main difference between Veeam and Zerto is that with Zerto, we can get our near-instant recovery window to pull entire virtual machines back from the brink of failure. We might be able to implement more recovery windows for Veeam but from a data storage perspective, Zerto does a great job with deduplication.

    How was the initial setup?

    We had a third party enable our Zerto configurations. They did a great job. The same VPGs are still running today. 

    What about the implementation team?

    We used an integrator for the setup. We had a good setup. They walked us through any issues we had after the setup. 

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten. There is a network issue that my team is still trying to figure out. Once we take care of it, it'll be a perfect ten. 

    Zerto should be our primary backup solution but until we can get the network issue resolved, it is relegated as a secondary source. It still does its job. We've used it multiple times for specific cases, and it's always passed with flying colors.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Manager, Server Operations at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Jul 14, 2024
    Speed of recovery is simple and amazing compared to other disaster recovery solutions
    Pros and Cons
    • "We use the solution for one-to-one replication from data center one to data center two, from server one to server two, or from the cloud to on-premises."
    • "The new licensing model didn't work out for us because we used one-to-one replication."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use Zerto to replicate critical VMs between data centers. We also use it to do local replication whenever the servers do not have shared storage. We have recently used it to migrate some workloads from Azure down to our on-premises data center.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Zerto has improved our organization by simplifying everything because the storage is agnostic. We used SRM (Site Recovery Manager) from VMware, and it's very tied to the storage, and it has to be the same storage on both sides. The whole replication is at the storage level unless you use vSphere in the middle, which defeats the purpose. This is data storage, and you can use it if you can see it, which is very convenient.

    What is most valuable?

    We use the solution for one-to-one replication from data center one to data center two, from server one to server two, or from the cloud to on-premises.

    We have used Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment, and its overall effect on your RPOs has been fantastic.

    The speed of recovery with Zerto is simple and amazing compared to other disaster recovery solutions.

    I have previously used Site Recovery Manager.

    We chose to use Zerto because of the RPO and because we wanted to eliminate the dependency on storage. Everybody on my team is familiar with the tool, and it's easy to use.

    What needs improvement?

    The new licensing model didn't work out for us because we used one-to-one replication. The other problem is that the Linux appliance is not available for everybody, and you must have a certain license. It's very important for us that if, at some point, those servers get compromised, or that server gets patches, I don't want to rely on Windows to protect Windows.

    You want this hardened appliance to protect our critical workloads. If they can make that available from version one, it shouldn't matter what license you have. This is the best way to do it, and we are going to deprecate Windows support.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Zerto for five to six years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    If they need more space, they grab it. If you move the SLA or want to keep more logs or history for the DVR function, you have to check everything before making your claim.

    How are customer service and support?

    The solution’s technical support is very good.

    How was the initial setup?

    The solution's deployment is very easy.

    What other advice do I have?

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

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    reviewer2240109 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Data Research Analyst & Business Development at a marketing services firm with 1-10 employees
    Real User
    Jun 30, 2024
    Saves significant recovery time, doesn't require a lot of resources, and eliminates the need for a dedicated physical data center
    Pros and Cons
    • "Zerto stands out for its user-friendly approach to data protection and recovery, allowing for quick and efficient backups and restores."
    • "Zerto's setup process could be simpler."

    What is our primary use case?

    We store a lot of raw data for reporting and use Zerto to protect that data.

    Before implementing Zerto, we lacked a data protection and recovery solution, resulting in a significant data loss incident of approximately 70 percent during a past event.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Zerto is easy to use.

    The near-synchronous replication offers a critical advantage for our customers' multi-platform environments by providing continuous data protection with minimal delay.

    The main benefit of Zerto is that it doesn't affect the performance of the cloud platform while protecting the data. We realized the benefits of Zerto within the first three months.

    Zerto's implementation has significantly improved our recovery time objective, allowing us to get our systems back online much quicker.

    Zerto has significantly improved our disaster recovery capabilities, reducing downtime from days to just two hours.

    With Zerto in place, our disaster recovery time has been reduced to a maximum of two days, whereas previously we lacked a recovery solution altogether.

    Our disaster recovery testing with Zerto exceeded expectations. We aimed to restore all data within five days, but using Zerto's capabilities, we achieved a full recovery in just two days.

    Zerto saved our staff three days of work, freeing them for other tasks.

    Zerto's continuous data protection, journal-based recovery, automation, multi-cloud and hybrid cloud support, and non-disruptive testing have significantly improved our IT resilience strategy. These features not only enhance data protection and improve our Recovery Time Objective and Recovery Point Objective but also provide the flexibility and scalability needed for a robust IT environment.

    It facilitates a cloud-based disaster recovery solution, eliminating the need for a dedicated physical data center to ensure business continuity in the event of an outage.

    Zerto was our disaster recovery solution of choice because it offers a cloud-based implementation, which perfectly aligned with our organization's prioritization of cloud-based disaster recovery.

    What is most valuable?

    It stands out for its user-friendly approach to data protection and recovery, allowing for quick and efficient backups and restores.

    What needs improvement?

    Zerto's pricing structure could be more competitive to better suit the needs of a wider range of businesses.

    The setup process could be simpler. A more streamlined installation would improve the user experience.

    Zerto's long-term data storage capabilities, specifically how long data can be retained and managed, could benefit from further development.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using Zerto for ten months.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We sometimes face challenges that require multiple hours of downtime but it is rare. I would rate the stability eight out of ten.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Zerto is expensive.

    How are customer service and support?

    The technical support is quick to respond.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    How was the initial setup?

    Integrating the initial deployment into our infrastructure proved to be a complex undertaking.

    To ensure a smooth implementation, we prioritized planning and engagement, starting with management and then incorporating other stakeholders. We piloted the project with the operations team for a month before a full organizational rollout.

    The deployment took around one week and involved six people.

    What about the implementation team?

    The implementation was completed in-house.

    What was our ROI?

    Zerto provides a return on investment through the peace of mind we get knowing that all of our data is protected.

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

    Zerto is expensive.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    After considering both Commvault and Carbonite, we ultimately decided Zerto was the best fit for our data protection needs.

    Zerto emerged as our choice for data protection because its feature set directly addressed the specific needs of our organization.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate Zerto eight out of ten.

    Maintaining Zerto is manageable as we have a dedicated team of three people responsible for its upkeep.

    Our organization consists of 40 analysts in one site.

    Zerto provides robust data protection and excels in disaster recovery for businesses, but its cost may be steeper compared to other solutions.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Private 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.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free HPE Zerto Software Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: September 2026
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free HPE Zerto Software Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.