System Architect at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Is easy to install, upgrade, and manage
Pros and Cons
  • "The low RPO times of about four to eight seconds are very nice and very valuable to us."
  • "The alerting could be fine tuned and improved. It does a lot of alerts, but it's a little bit cumbersome to modify them."

What is our primary use case?

We use it primarily for DR.

What is most valuable?

What I appreciate the most about Zerto is that it is the easiest to install, upgrade, and manage. Most things in the product are fairly intuitive and easy, including upgrades. You don't have to dig through a bunch of manuals or go through a bunch of technical data to make it work.

The low RPO times of about four to eight seconds are very nice and very valuable to us.

What needs improvement?

The alerting could be fine-tuned and improved. It does a lot of alerts, but it's a little bit cumbersome to modify them.

It could be cheaper as well.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for six years.

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May 2023
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good. We haven't had any real problems or downtime. The only thing is that it runs on Windows, so that has its own problems.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Zerto's scalability is very good. We haven't had any scaling problems. We tested out DR in Azure, DR to VMware on GCP, and DR on AWS. It performed on all of those. The AWS setup was the most complicated, but AWS with Windows is a little bit messy.

We currently have 400 licenses. We have two ML350s, and we use Zerto to keep them replicated. If one fails, we just move to the other. That has been expanding, and that's where we've been adding licenses.

How are customer service and support?

Zerto's technical support is very responsive. We had some posts that were not working properly and caused some issues with Zerto. The technical support staff were very helpful and worked through the night to help us resolve that. They always solved any problem I've had, so I'll give them a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We used SRM. It had a lot of specialized plugins and specialized machines, but was very cumbersome. We weren't guaranteed that it would work all the time. It was very complicated to set up and manage as well.

SRM was storage-vendor-dependent because you had to have plugins through the storage vendors. It wasn't IP-based at the time and relied on storage-based replication. We had disparate storage arrays and disparate systems, and the IP-based replication treasury was much more resilient on our end.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was unbelievably easy. We had Zerto up and running in five minutes, whereas setting up the SRM replication took weeks and needed technical support staff.

What about the implementation team?

We deployed it ourselves.

What was our ROI?

In terms of ROI, it was quite expensive, but I think we got a lot of value out of it, such as being able to have a reliable DR method, particularly offsite. We have very poor latency locations, and sometimes, we replicate those. Zerto makes that very easy.

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

From a customer perspective, the price is okay. From an investor's perspective, however, it is a little bit high.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Veeam, but Zerto was a better match for our needs.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise you to give Zerto a try in your environment. Get a trial license and see how it works. I think you'll be very impressed.

Overall, I've been very happy with Zerto, and I'd give it a rating of nine on a scale from one to ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Ken-Adams - PeerSpot reviewer
CIO at a legal firm with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Supports live replication, provides fast data recovery, and helps with compliance
Pros and Cons
  • "Live replication and up to the second type of failover are valuable. The fact that we can do test failovers and failbacks is important for our ISO certification."
  • "More user support would be best for me because I'm not in the product all the time. So, having strong support is probably the most important decision on any products that we buy."

What is our primary use case?

Its primary use case is for disaster recovery of 10 servers that we have in-house.

How has it helped my organization?

The testing of failover and failback is critical to any company, especially if they're certified in some platform like we are with ISO 27001. It is a necessity, and one of the main reasons I purchased Zerto.

What is most valuable?

Live replication and up to the second type of failover are valuable. The fact that we can do test failovers and failbacks is important for our ISO certification.

What needs improvement?

More user support would be best for me because I'm not in the product all the time. So, having strong support is probably the most important decision on any products that we buy.

The price is another thing that they definitely need to work on unless it has changed. I purchased mine a while back. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

When it is up and running, it is just always running, but because we're changing our infrastructure, basically, everything has to be destroyed and rebuilt.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I know it is scalable with the backup solution. I don't understand why that wasn't there early on, but it is neat that they've added that functionality in there.

How are customer service and support?

It has been a long time since I've worked with them. So, I would rate them a 7 out of 10.

It is rare that I have to contact them. We are in the process of redoing our VMware infrastructure. We have to reinstall the whole product, which we haven't done for a long time. So, I'm not that familiar, and we're probably going to have to pay for services where I would like that to be handled by support to help us.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

It has been quite a while, but we used to use Double-Take to replicate some servers between offices. Zerto is much better at doing that functionality, and that's why we switched. 

The ease of use is definitely better with Zerto. The data recovery with Zerto is very fast. You just push buttons for recovery and flip back.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward, but I had a team, probably from Zerto and not the consultant, that helped us with the installation. So, I had somebody right there holding my hand, and it was very easy to do.

What was our ROI?

That's hard to say because we haven't had a catastrophe. If we have a failure, hands down, I can't complain about that, but we haven't had any incidents.

Even though there is a fast speed of recovery and ease of use, I haven't measured the time savings and resource savings with Zerto. That's analytics, and we're not that detailed. We're user support focused.

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

It is very expensive. It is overpriced. No doubt. What held us up for many years from committing to buying it was always the cost. That's also why we only have 10 licenses.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We probably looked at other solutions, but I don't recall what they were at this time.

What other advice do I have?

I know that they have a backup now, which they didn't have when I purchased originally, but we don't use that today. It may be something we'll look into. 

The solution is great. I'd rate it a 10 out of 10.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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May 2023
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VMware Engineer at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital
Real User
Top 20
Is user friendly, has great recovery speed, and has good technical support
Pros and Cons
  • "I found the very easy VPG setup, the easy recovery, and failover testing to be the most valuable features."
  • "Even though Zerto is for disaster recovery, it would be nice if it can also make backups."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case is to migrate VMs. It's easier to use than HCX and SRM.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto made our migration from different data centers very easy and very smooth. Zerto support and our account manager have always been there to help us out.

What is most valuable?

I found the very easy VPG setup, the easy recovery, and failover testing to be the most valuable features.

It's very user-friendly. You only need a couple of clicks, and it gets the job done. We also have SRM, but Zerto just requires a couple of clicks. You can test with Zerto, and you don't have to commit. So in terms of ease of use, Zerto is better. That's why we use it for migration.

In terms of reducing downtime, we don't actually have any because of seeding and mirroring. However, on the failover, it only takes two seconds of a blip.

Zerto's speed of recovery compared to that of others is great. It's incomparable, and the ease of use is always there.

What needs improvement?

Even though Zerto is for disaster recovery, it would be nice if it can also make backups.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been working with Zerto for three to four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable. They have bug fixes. If there's a problem, you can report it, and they immediately provide a solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Zerto's scalability is amazing. If they could do backups in the future, it would be better.

We're in a healthcare environment, so we have probably 30,000 VMs. We only have a couple of licenses, but that's probably going to grow in the near future. We're going to be using it in the cloud as well.

How are customer service and support?

I would give technical support a nine out of ten. I'm taking away a point because, at times, they send emails for me to read when I need something done immediately.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We previously used SRM. We use Zerto because it is just easy to use. You don't need to set up a lot of stuff. You only need to set up one appliance on each site, and you're good to go.

How was the initial setup?

The initial deployment is very straightforward. You just install the appliance, make sure that all the ports are working fine, test the connection, and you're done. If you have any problems, technical support is always there to help.

What about the implementation team?

We had help from CDI for the initial deployment, and they were not bad. It was easy enough, but we had to use our credits. If it were not for the credits, we could have done it ourselves.

After the initial deployment, my team has been doing all the upgrades and any other setups.

What was our ROI?

We're down to a couple of data centers now, and our data center cost is going down. That is the ROI we have seen with Zerto.

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

The pricing is fair.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated SRM.

What other advice do I have?

You don't have to evaluate Zerto; it just works. I would give it a ten out of ten;
I have no complaints.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Senior Systems Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Real User
Top 20
The return to operations is the most valuable feature because it decreases the amount of time it takes us to recover
Pros and Cons
  • "The return to operations is the most valuable feature because it decreases the amount of time it takes us to recover."
  • "The documentation needs improvement in terms of the setup, getting enough detail, and getting that up to speed."

What is our primary use case?

We have Zerto as an emergency backup if we were to lose electricity or compute.

I purchased Zerto because I wanted to get a return to operations and to minimize the downtime.

What is most valuable?

The return to operations is the most valuable feature because it decreases the amount of time it takes us to recover. 

Zerto is the best of breed when it comes to providing continuous data protection.

It has a number of features rolled together. So when we need to failover, it does it successfully without a lot of stuff that we have to tune underneath the scenes. We use Zerto for the short-term retention of the data.

I would rate its ease of use as an eight out of ten. It has made it a lot easier for us to failover. Usually, in the past, we had to manually go and bring things up and this automates it.

The solution decreases the time it takes and the people we need when we need to fail back or move workloads. It saves around eight hours and one person. We had started off with two to three people.

It could save us time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes but we haven't used it for that.

We haven't had something where we had to recover data using this product, but I assume it would reduce the number of staff involved in data recovery situations.

It has helped to reduce downtime in testing but we haven't had a serious issue where we had to switch over and use it.

What needs improvement?

The documentation needs improvement in terms of the setup, getting enough detail, and getting that up to speed.

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?

We found Zerto to be pretty stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We haven't had problems with scalability.

We don't really have users. We just have data that we move over which is basically the size of the campus.

We need at least one full-time employee to run it.

It's used for all of our failovers so it's in 100% usage.

How are customer service and technical support?

I have had a little bit of experience with their technical support. I don't have any issues with them.

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

The ease of use, compared to other products, is much better. Zerto is all-encompassing. 

How was the initial setup?

We had to work on it for about a week to get it running the way we wanted. It took so long because of the fine-tuning. We could have set it up within three hours or something just as a test to see at work, but not necessarily do everything we wanted to do.

The time it took to sync the data up took a little bit longer.

What was our ROI?

We'll probably see ROI in around three years. 

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

The pricing is more expensive, but the functionality is what we wanted.

There are no additional costs to standard licensing.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked at Druva. We liked the flexibility that we get with Zerto. 

What other advice do I have?

You'll be happy with Zerto.

The biggest lesson I have learned from Zerto is to be patient. 

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten. 

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.
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Oz Pozner - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Product - CloudHome at Bynet
Real User
Top 5
Good support and training with great analytics tools
Pros and Cons
  • "The Zerto university for training staff is very useful."
  • "They could improve their online documentation."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for continuous data protection and cloud onboarding.

What is most valuable?

The analytic tools are great. 

The external API is something we're using quite a lot. It was upgraded, however, we still haven't upgraded to nine. We were starting to work at six, then seven, then eight, and now we are at eight of five updates. We've been working with this product quite a lot, and they have constantly added a few features. The long-term journal is one feature that is useful in that it allows us to use the product as both CDP and backup. You don't need the backup and disaster recovery tool. That's lowered the overall maintenance and operational costs. The OPEX gets reduced, once you use these two products. 

They have reasonable support. The Zerto university for training staff is very useful. It's very easy to get people on board and to get technicians to work and be familiar with the product. The virtual labs are very useful. You have a sandbox and you can easily play and try the product.

Unlike other products that split the VPG into protection plans and activation plans, they're doing everything within the same location. 

Technical support is good.

It's a very stable solution.

What needs improvement?

They could improve their online documentation.

From a reliability perspective, the product is around seven. It's less reliable than, others for example. They have one limitation when they have a virtual protection group that does everything.

From the ease of deployment perspective, it requires expertise and time. It's not very easy to do auto-tagging or to run multiple VPG genes at the same time. So, from multi-tenant or multi-complex scenarios such as using Zerto external products, such as firewalls, while their own product is good, it's part of a larger ecosystem, that still has a long way to go.

The triggering of external products could be better. Combining a master runbook and not just a single VPG or splitting the protection group from the activation plan could be better. There will be a protection policy and activation policy as being done in other products. 

Better tagging and better multi-term support are needed. Currently, there is no tenant admin support, only global admin support. They should work at the tenant level instead of the global admin level.

Right now it's an HPE product; they're no longer a startup. We are hoping that being bought by a major company will do good for them and they'll fix what needs to be fixed. There were very good products, to begin with, and HPE should work to make it even better.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using the solution for the last three years at this point. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the product is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. it's reliable and the performance is good.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support has been great. We are happy with the level of support.

What other advice do I have?

We use both on-premises and cloud deployments. In terms of the cloud we are using, we are using Azure. We are using our own Cloud provider; we are using VMware Cloud Director.

I would rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We are happy with its capabilities. They are a very good product, however, they are not perfect just yet.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Team Lead / Virtualization SME at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
It is low maintenance; it's set and forget
Pros and Cons
  • "It is pretty easy to use. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. Once you set it up, it just works. So, it is great."
  • "It has some quirks. We have quirks with appliances. Some things don't really work as expected, but it is minor."

What is our primary use case?

Database replication is our primary use case. We don't use Zerto for backups. We use Zerto as DR at our sites.

It is deployed on-premises at several sites.

How has it helped my organization?

It is a good DR solution for a number of databases that we use. It is just a DR solution that works. It does that continuously. I like it. Once it works, it is set and forget.

We have used it as a test in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes. We haven't had to use the actual recovery. We haven't actually had to use it in an actual DR scenario, but we do DR testing. The switchover is pretty good.

What is most valuable?

Recovery is the most valuable feature. It has a good DR solution.

Zerto's ability to provide continuous data protection is good. It works. It has continuous availability.

It is pretty easy to use. The interface is intuitive and easy to use. Once you set it up, it just works. So, it is great. 

I like that it's low maintenance; it's set and forget.

As far as replication technology goes, it is a pretty good product.

What needs improvement?

It has some quirks. We have quirks with appliances. Some things don't really work as expected, but it is minor. It doesn't really affect the overall functionality.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for a couple of years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is good. There have been no major issues.

I have 12 engineers on my team. We maintain/administer Zerto to our organization.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It scales pretty well.

We have a large environment, but this actual deployment is pretty limited. It has a targeted use. We are protecting some production databases.

How are customer service and technical support?

The support is good. I would rate them as eight out of 10.

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

We had another version of Zerto that we decommissioned, then we built a new one.

Zerto was already present in the company when I came onboard. We just renewed the support and built several new instances.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in the initial setup from the start. It is very complex as far as requirements go and what needs to be set out for Zerto. Once you set it up, it is fine. It works.

Back and forth, our deployment took a couple of weeks. It was deployed on different sites. We needed to set up, provision, have networks open, firewalls, and allocate dedicated storage. We also needed to install it, build it, deploy the agent on the host, and configure it.

What about the implementation team?

I deployed the solution myself.

What was our ROI?

I am pretty sure my company has seen ROI.

What other advice do I have?

It is a good solution. It doesn't work for everything, but for certain use cases. You can't restore your entire site with it. However, if you need to restore or replicate a certain number of production and mission-critical applications, it is a good solution for that.

I like Zerto. We have big databases, so it does take a lot of storage to replicate it, but I think it is a good solution. I would recommend it.

I would rate it as eight or nine out of 10.

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.
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IT Infrastructure Server Manager at a logistics company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Is consistent, agile, and reduces downtime
Pros and Cons
  • "We've seen a massive benefit from using Zerto in terms of time savings and consistency. You see a consistent outcome every time you do the conversions. We're moving from one platform to another, but the payloads in what we're moving are different. We see consistent delivery."
  • "Right now, our production environment runs on-premises, and we have a DR copy of everything that we run in production. However, our development runs on that hardware. In the case of a DR event, we would need to shut down development and bring up our secondary copy of production. We're hoping that Zerto is going to be the tool to help us do that."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for our conversion from Hyper-V to VMware. The DR purposes are being looked into as well.

We've got about 1500 to 2000 Hyper-V machines. These Hyper-V machines are used and converted to VMware, and these are the two environments that we work with now, both on-premises and in a hosted environment.

What is most valuable?

The ease of the conversion, moving from Hyper-V over to VMware, has been the most valuable feature. It's the primary reason why we chose Zerto.

We've seen a massive benefit from using Zerto in terms of time savings and consistency. You see a consistent outcome every time you do the conversions. We're moving from one platform to another, but the payloads in what we're moving are different. We see consistent delivery.

Time savings-wise, I see anywhere from 30 to 50 VMs be converted from Hyper-V to VMware on a nightly basis. We've seen some pretty good throughput on the nights that we do conversions.

Zerto has absolutely helped to reduce downtime. If we were to do this manually, the amount of time that we would have to shut down the VMs on Hyper-V to be able to do the conversions and move them over to VMware would be massive.

That amount of downtime would cost our company a lot. We've got a team of three or four guys that do the labor. If you take what they're getting paid and you compound the amount of time that it would take to do the conversion, there would be a drastic cost in labor for those conversions.

What needs improvement?

Right now, our production environment runs on-premises, and we have a DR copy of everything that we run in production. However, our development runs on that hardware. In the case of a DR event, we would need to shut down development and bring up our secondary copy of production. We're hoping that Zerto is going to be the tool to help us do that.

For how long have I used the solution?

Zerto is primarily being used this year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We're getting consistent results, so the product seems to be very stable.

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

From a DR perspective, we use multiple different facets. We have multi-site data centers in our environment, along with Cohesity. We use Cohesity from a backup and DR perspective.

How was the initial setup?

I was not involved in the initial setup but have heard feedback that those involved loved the simplicity of it.

What was our ROI?

We've absolutely seen an ROI in terms of time savings with respect to downtime. When you convert a couple of thousand machines from one platform to another, the amount of downtime that it would take itself would have paid for Zerto many times over.

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

We get our money's worth with Zerto.

What other advice do I have?

If you're in the middle of a conversion between different platforms, regardless of whether you're moving from on-premises to hosted or from one environment to another, it seems to be very agile and able to move your workloads into different environments pretty easily. I would give Zerto a rating of nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
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IT Infrastructure Specialist at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Helped our organization by merging many different technologies into one, including desktop virtualization and replication
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable tool is the dashboard, which allows us to immediately check the DLP status, replication data, and all other data needed to have cleaner and immediate control of the situation."
  • "The technical support has room for improvement."

What is our primary use case?

Currently, we use Zerto to replicate our production visual systems at our disaster recovery site in Germany. This allows us to easily meet our RTO and RPO.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto is easy to use. Zerto is the leading disaster recovery solution.

Zerto's synchronous replication is important for our organization.

Zerto has helped our organization by merging many different technologies into one, including desktop virtualization and replication. Previously, we used to hire other providers for these services, but now we have everything in one system, saving us around 30 percent. For example, we used to have to keep a copy of our data on Veeam Backup, but now we can store it all in Zerto. This saved us time and money, and it has also made our IT infrastructure more reliable.

With Zerto, we are meeting our RPO better. Previously, it took us 20 minutes and now it is five seconds. 

With Zerto, we have the best RTO.

In our simulations, we observed a reduction in downtime when using Zerto.

Our recovery time with Zerto is excellent in data recovery situations, such as those caused by ransomware. We can save around five hours compared to other solutions.

Zerto reduced the number of people involved in our data recovery by 30 percent.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable tool is the dashboard, which allows us to immediately check the DLP status, replication data, and all other data needed to have cleaner and immediate control of the situation.

What needs improvement?

File management can be improved. Zimbra is the only platform that allows for file replication.

The technical support has room for improvement.

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?

Zerto is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Zerto is scalable. We have around 200 users.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is average. We have had some cases where we were not as comfortable with the outcomes as we were with other solutions.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

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

We previously used a custom solution, but we switched to Zerto to unify our systems and improve visibility.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was simple. We were able to deploy one FPE every two weeks. One person was involved in the deployment.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment with Zerto, which saved us 30 percent of our costs and improved our disaster recovery time.

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

The price is reasonable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other solutions because we were confident that Zerto was the best, as indicated by the Gartner chart.

What other advice do I have?

I give Zerto an eight out of ten.

Zerto is deployed to replicate our on-premises and virtual infrastructure data between our two offices in Germany and Italy.

Zerto requires around two hours per month of maintenance.

I recommend that new users take advantage of Zerto's flexible license program to buy one or two licenses and try them out before fully committing.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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