HPE Zerto Software Reviews

We use Zerto to protect our staff information against ransomware and is outlined in our disaster recovery plan. We have a DR site that we failover to if anything happens at our primary data center. We have only our core services, that we could not live without, being protected.

It is very easy to use. Almost anyone in our IT team can manage it after not using it for months at a time. As the DR strategist here, I like that. I enjoy having a fast way to bring a server back up. It will take me longer to get to my desk and log into everything than it will to actually complete the failover. 

I really like how you can test the failover as often as you need.

The reports it generates are very good at showing our protection state.

It is self-healing in case I mess up on something and need to re-sync. When you are protecting Terabytes of data, this comes in handy.

I think Zerto could do better with size planning because it would be nice to analyze a server for a week and give an estimate on sizing the Journal. I find myself estimating too high.

It would be nice if I had an option to dynamically restore to any host in a cluster. Right now, if we have multiple things happen and the main host is down it will not work. 

We are only using a fraction of what it can do. If you add the backup function it scales very largely. I could see a hospital really finding this product useful.

My first experience with technical support was not good at all. In the last few years, it has improved quite a bit. 

Prior to this solution, we used storage mirroring and DFS syncing. Our old way used far too much storage. Zerto compresses the data well. 

The initial setup of this solution is very straightforward. We were making initial syncs in forty-five minutes. 

We did both, with most over the phone. Their expertise was fine. I didn't in any way feel like I was not getting my questions answered. 

Our ROI happened in nine seconds.

I don't remember it being cheap. We started out slow, which was a good call. We found that in an event that was massive enough to cause an entire cluster to go offline we would be happy with our core services up and running.

At the time, Zerto was the only product doing this so easily. It might still be.

Don't underestimate how good it feels to rollback data instantly. It makes me look like a Wizzard at my desk. 

We primarily use this solution for disaster recovery. The initial sync was from Pure to Compellent, and DR with disparate storage was great. Once we identified our critical servers, vetted the Live and Test Failover, and got the necessary configuration at our DR site, we are now able to perform tests in a safe bubble.

This solution is an integral part of our DR plan. The data and servers we needed are protected in a group as I need them. Changing or adding servers is easy and fast. The ability to protect resources that are in hurricane zones has been fantastic. Being able to safely perform DR testing remotely has enabled us to meet DR goals that were put in place. The first DR test with everyone in a room was fun, as everyone who hadn't seen it was amazed at how fast a server can come online.

The replication has been outstanding, it was three times as fast as initial Compellent replication. The ability to copy new data and protect new servers without a significant delay in getting the data is very valuable.

The ability to perform DR testing to ensure data integrity is critical.

The mobile app is great.

Increased granularity in how long to keep the journal would be nice, currently you can only do hourly up to 1 day, after that it is only daily.  The ability to test failover for a single VM in a VPG would be beneficial for testing purposes.  Currently alerts come from both replication managers at times, creating a lot of alerts; reducing those would be good.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

Setup is really easy and quick. Make sure that you have your desired networking for replication and testing in place.

You are getting what you pay for, as this is a solution that requires minimal management after it is configured.

We did not evaluate other options that are worth noting.

EMC was too expensive and everything else was tied to the storage vendor.

It has been a great purchase, and we have no regrets.

Not much can be improved in this solution as it has performed to what we had hoped and has the features we currently desire.

Our primary use for this solution is DR Replication to a separate data centre. We use VMware at both sites. We're currently replicating around eighty VMs from our primary data centre in London to our secondary data centre in Beccles. Most of these are SQL servers with the VSS agent installed.

We now have the ability to activate replicated VMs at our DR site within minutes of something happening to our primary data centre. The ability to have a RPO of seconds has enabled us to restore data to just before an incident has occurred, which certainly saves a lot of time and money.

The most valuable features of this solution are its ease of use and simple setup.

The ability to do a test failover to an isolated environment has been very useful, as this allows us to test servers without any implications to our live environment.

The dashboard is very clear and concise, showing any problems in different colours.

The VSS agent setup and configuration does seem to be a bit clunky compared to the rest of the software. We have had issues with licensing, where the license we've been given by Zerto support doesn't include VSS replication, which was a pain at the time.

We primarily use this solution for Replication and Disaster Recovery.

We now have the ability to replicate critical data to a secure, off-site location that can be brought back in seconds if needed.

The dashboard is very user-friendly and easy to navigate.

The email alerts can be excessive, so better control over frequency or resolution may be a worthwhile improvement.

We use this solution for disaster recovery.

Implementing this solution has given us sandboxing and the ability to move VMs. These are nice to have tools.

The most valuable feature is the Restore file, where you can go back in time on a file-level. This is very helpful.

The backup functions are in need of improvement.

Real-time replication for our Disaster Recovery site, which is currently hosted in another on-premise site but will shortly be moving to a Data Center in the Cloud.

I have also used this solution to do point-in-time restores of Exchange mailbox items and to check updates from Microsoft.

This solution has given us the confidence to know that our complex systems are being backed up off-site in real-time and are testable on demand. This gives me a real sense of ease when speaking to Management about our resilience, and being able to demonstrate it includes everyone in the processes to confirm that.

The ability to fully test your entire environment without actually performing a failover is invaluable.

I really appreciate the Mobile app that allows me to monitor, at any time of the day or night, whether the replications are up and running.

Creating Virtual Protection Groups allows us to treat business services as one.

There needs to be more flexibility in the licensing. I've mentioned to Zerto Management that I find the licensing at twenty-five VMs to be very restricting to an SME business, and could there be some flexibility here? Businesses like ours constantly change their IT due to the flexibility of Virtualisation and it would be great to get Zerto on board with that same flexibility.

It has been very stable and gives me minimal problems, especially when compared to other parts of the business network.

I would imagine that the product would not have an upper limit due to its architecture. It seems to cope easily with our own environment of approximately forty VMs.

The person I worked with was very friendly and had excellent knowledge of the product and understood the wider implications of the installation.

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

The initial setup of this solution is very straightforward. The installation and configuration are incredibly easy for someone who is reasonably familiar with IT Management.

We implemented this solution in-house.

We do not consider an ROI analysis to be relevant in this area.

While we find the twenty-five VM license somewhat inflexible, the actual setup costs are minimal as the product is so easy to install.

Before choosing this solution we extensively tested the built-in functionality of our EMC VNX SANs but they didn't function to an acceptable standard so we looked to third parties.

After researching the market thoroughly we decided that this was the one to go for.

I'd strongly suggest carrying out a proof of concept if you're looking at this part of your IT solution.

Our primary use case for Zerto was to enable replication at our DR site for virtual appliances and automation of the failover - failback process. This also gets utilized for recovery at our DR site at different timestamps using the journal history.

This solution is very light, with zero-touch deployment and very enhanced dashboards. 

It has enabled DR protection for virtual appliances with minimal administrator time. This solution also provides a backup option at the DR site without any additional cost of licenses. The Dashboards are very intuitive and can be published to the CIO and CTO. 

We loved the orchestrator, which allows us to specify IPs for our DR site in advance. It also allowed us to pre-configure the boot sequence for a failover test or actual recovery. Backup at the DR site is the icing on the cake. The concept of a journal history and keeping snapshots at intervals of seconds are quite good.

Mobile features are there only for visibility and not to take action. We would love to see the ability to perform actions through mobile apps.

It would be helpful if the reports can be generated periodically, on a schedule.

This solution is very stable.

This is a scalable solution that also supports multiple clouds.

Our earlier solution doesn't have a detailed orchestrator and didn't support appliances.

It is very easy to set-up this solution.

We implemented this solution in-house, without the need for any partner to assist with the set-up.

There is no need to think of ROI as this is a DC-DR solution.

The solution is very cost-effective and very easy to set-up but does not compromise on features. The features are much enhanced compared to any other DC-DR solution.

Before choosing this solution we evaluated VMware Replication & Sanovi.

Overall, this solution is quite enhanced compared to other, similar solutions in the market.

I recommend trying this solution.

Cloud-based disaster recovery. However, do your homework on your provider. There are several options besides Azure and AWS that don't have their surprise charges. Be sure to check them out.

Would not do a virtual based disaster recovery solution without it. Or would not do a virtual to virtual migration without it.

It just works. This sounds simple, but it is so true. So much of what we are sold in IT doesn't work as advertised. Zerto does.

It's coming, but I want to do my backups from my DR side without impacting my production side. This is supposed to come out in v7.0.

Rock solid, it just works. Make sure your Windows boxes are not previous in-place upgrades. Bugs between the Windows components create issues with assigning IP addresses. This is a Microsoft issue and not a Zerto issue. 

It's being used for hundreds of machines. It just works.

Tech support is great. They help troubleshoot things that are not their issues. See Microsoft upgrade note above.

Yes, VMWare Site Recovery Manager. SRM is not as intuitive and is VMware version dependent. Zerto does not have those issues. 

Very easy setup. Like all DR solutions, it requires planning. Specifically the network side. Don't skimp.

Use a Zerto cloud service provider. They generally know their stuff. 

Amazing ROI considering I don't have to buy a second set of hardware for my DR site. I can use a cloud provider and only pay when I need it.

Check your cloud providers. You don't have to host the DR side yourself. Also, look at folks other than Azure and AWS. The hidden/surprise costs will knock your socks off.

Veeam (no CDP), SRM, RecoverPoint for VMs, Double-Take.

No.