Zerto Reviews

Name: Zerto
Brand: Zerto
Rating: 5 (103 reviews)

Vendor: Zerto

4.5 out of 5

103 reviews

2,487 followers

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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.

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Featured reviews

Paul Mickenbecker

Senior Analyst, IS Infrastructure at a energy/utilities company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jun 26, 2023

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.

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Tim K.

Senior Director of IT Security & Infrastructure at a logistics company with 501-1,000 employees

Jun 2, 2022

In general, the solution is pretty good, but because it is geared toward simplicity, sometimes, when things go wrong, the answer is not very detailed so that things can be solved quickly. If things do go wrong, it does require a little bit deeper troubleshooting to resolve the issues. That's the only area where improvement could occur. There should be a little bit more details about if things go wrong, how to remedy them. Everything is meant to be simple. When something doesn't work, even though what you were trying to do appeared to be very simple, there are probably a lot of pieces behind the scenes. So, to be able to narrow down where in those 100 steps something went wrong can be a little tricky. When there is a failure, there should be a more detailed explanation of what the error is and how to remediate it. Currently, it's a little vague. A part of that could be because we use Zerto on top of Hyper-V. VMware still has a very large market share over Hyper-V and a lot of the information and a lot of the deployment plans are geared towards VMware. So, sometimes, there are new features that first roll out to VMware and then come to Hyper-V.

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reviewer1599558

Disaster Recovery Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Jun 27, 2022

The main purpose of this tool is to allow failover between different data centers and different locations. When one site is unavailable, we can start the failover activity and perform the failover task. When a primary location is unavailable, or there is some hardware or logical issue at the primary location, it allows us to resolve the problem. We are able to start services at safe locations. We handle the disaster recovery process, and this is the main function for which we are using it all the time. The second valuable feature is related to integration. If we want to implement any tool in our company, we want to make sure that it is not sandboxed. It shouldn't be completely isolated from other systems, and it should help other systems to receive feedback. To gain advantages of having tools like Zerto on the board, we want to combine our disaster recovery with other processes, such as incident management or change management. We can integrate these processes using different tools, but usually, the best approach is related to API. So, we can integrate different systems and combine them into a big IT platform, which allows us to achieve more features that are normally not available in the tool itself. Zerto supports different ways to integrate with or get information from the systems. GUI is one of the options, and technologies like PowerShell cmdlets or RESTful APIs are also very good to exchange data for integration or automation purposes. We also use Zerto for compliance purposes in case we need to provide evidence. When we perform DR exercises and we have some problems with the infrastructure, we need to prove that some actions were taken. It works very well when we perform DR activities and we want to show external auditors the proof and evidence of performed actions.

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Pricing

Some reviewers mentioned that the pricing is fair, competitive, and reasonable. They appreciate that Zerto offers a unified license structure, making it more straightforward. The cost-effectiveness of Zerto is highlighted, with several reviewers stating that it is worth the investment for the benefits it provides. However, a few reviewers mentioned that the pricing could be improved, suggesting alternative models such as a consumption-based or storage-based approach.

ROI

Zerto has provided time savings during data center migration and disaster recovery. It has also reduced the number of resources and work hours needed for disaster recovery testing, resulting in a clear return on investment. The software provides peace of mind and acts as an insurance policy for potential disasters. It has also saved money on annual licenses and reduced downtime. While the exact ROI is difficult to quantify, Zerto has been valuable in terms of cost avoidance, time savings, and ease of use.

Primary Use Case

Zerto is for disaster recovery and data center migration. It is used to replicate servers and virtual machines in different locations to ensure failover capabilities in case of a disaster. Additionally, Zerto is used for conducting upgrade and scaling purposes, allowing organizations to spin up machines in isolated environments for various tests.

The product can be used for transferring workloads between different environments and offsite replication.

Valuable Features

The most valuable features of Zerto are:

1. Migration: Users found Zerto to be incredibly valuable for migration, saving them significant amounts of time and enabling easy movement of VMs.

2. Disaster Recovery: Users appreciated Zerto's ability to preserve business continuity and quickly recover in the event of a disaster. The near-synchronous replication and quick VM recovery were particularly valuable.

3. Ease of use: Many users praised Zerto for its simplicity and user-friendly interface. They found it easy to configure, manage, and perform tasks such as failover and testing.

4. Continuous Data Protection: Zerto's continuous replication and near-zero recovery point objective (RPO) were highly valued for ensuring data is always up to date and minimizing data loss.

5. Testing and Validation: Users found Zerto's testing and validation features helpful for testing failovers, verifying the DR plan, and conducting DR tests without impacting production.

6. Replication and Recovery: The replication feature and the ability to recover files and VMs were mentioned as valuable tools for protecting and restoring data.

7. Quick Recovery: Users appreciated Zerto's fast recovery time, allowing them to recover large amounts of data within minutes or even seconds.

8. Dashboard and Reporting: Users found the dashboard and reporting features valuable for monitoring and controlling the DR status, replication data, and other important metrics.

9. Automation and Orchestration: Zerto's automation and orchestration capabilities were mentioned as valuable for simplifying and streamlining DR processes, reducing manual effort, and ensuring consistency.

10. Hardware Agnostic: Users appreciated Zerto's ability to work with different types of storage and hardware, providing flexibility and compatibility with various environments.

Room for Improvement

Some areas that need improvement on Zerto include:

1. Insufficient knowledge available in the online documentation for non-partners.

2. Difficulty in performing file-level recovery and server restoration.

3. Lack of continuity between sales pitch and implementation, leading to discrepancies in expected functionality.

4. Speed of maintaining compatibility with VMware and different versions of VMware.

5. Complex configurations and limited support for data testing and network connectivity outside of the isolated environment.

6. Lack of automatic installation in a cluster and the need for manual installation.

7. Glitches and bugs in the product that need to be addressed.

8. Need for better ransomware protection and detection features.

9. Limited promotion and functionality as a backup and recovery product rather than just a disaster recovery solution.

10. Long failover times and issues with technical support response time.

11. Need for better file management and support for VMware Lifecycle Manager.

12. Enhancement in platform updates and compatibility with Azure.

13. Improvement in pricing and dependency on VMware's vCenter.

14. Difficulty in rotating passwords on VMware nodes with secure boot enabled.

15. Need for better integration with automation platforms like Terraform, Ansible, Chef, or Puppet.

16. Improvement in stability, alerting, and reporting features.

17. Simplification of deployment process and better user support.

18. Native management pack for vROps and native plugin for VRA.

19. Better management of ZVR appliances and support for NSX-T and storage vendors.

20. Enhancement in documentation, automation features, and mobile options.

21. More detailed error reporting and remediation guidance.

22. Improvement in the syncing of replication and long-term retention functionality.

23. Better coordination with VMware updates and tighter integration with VMware.

24. Enhancement in terminology, user interface, and exporting capabilities.

25. Improvement in backup and restore functionalities, along with customization options.

Initial Setup

The majority of reviews indicate that the initial setup for Zerto was straightforward and easy. Some reviewers mentioned that they had assistance or training during the setup process, while others were able to set it up themselves. The deployment time varied, with some completing it within a day and others taking a few weeks. The setup involved tasks such as installing the software, configuring networks and firewalls, and deploying virtual machines or appliances.

Scalability

Zerto users mention that it is easy to deploy and can be quickly expanded to meet their needs. They appreciate the ability to add licenses and increase the number of protected servers, virtual machines, or databases without encountering any limitations. The solution is described as scalable across different environments, including on-premises data centers and the cloud.

Customer Service and Support

Zerto's customer service and support have been praised for the responsiveness and helpfulness of the technical support team. Users appreciate that the support team is prompt in responding and highly knowledgeable, working diligently until the problem is resolved. They found it easy to contact Zerto's support and have had positive experiences with their support staff.

Stability

Users express that they have not encountered any significant stability issues and that the solution is highly stable. They mention that Zerto runs consistently without downtime or crashes. The reviews also mention that any problems that arise are often due to changes made on their end rather than issues with Zerto itself.