Virtualization Administrator at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
We perform more DR testing now because it is so easy
Pros and Cons
  • "The test features have been really good for us. Our DR testing goes very quickly and easily now for all our stuff with Zerto. We have our priority recovery process, where we cover our databases for our app servers and web servers. All our teams pretty much get their VMs very quickly. The RPOs are very low."
  • "I don't like the evacuation process. The host evacuation process could be a little simpler too. It takes our maintenance a bit longer, when we are doing host maintenance, because we still need to evacuate the vRAs manually. I know they tried to make it more automatic, but it is not quite there yet."

What is our primary use case?

We mostly use it for disaster recovery purposes. We do a lot of migrations as well, e.g., VM from one site to another. We use Zerto for that, as we have hundreds of VMs that we protect as our main DR position using Zerto.

In general, our DR position is entirely based around Zerto. We use it for everything. We just have a couple things that we don't put on it. There are a couple of Oracle things that we replicate with different methods, but we pretty much do everything related to DR with Zerto.

We are not using it for backup. We are using it for continuous DR and replication between two on-prem sites. 

We have two data center sites with bidirectional replications. Each site protects the other site and we have our VPGs that go back and forth.

How has it helped my organization?

We perform more DR testing now because it is so easy. For example, what we are doing right now is baselines on our recovery time objectives, determining, "Okay, if we recover one VM, it takes this long. If we recover another VM this size, it is this long." Then, we recover 10, 100, and 800. That way, we get kind of a forecast, when we add VMs, about how that will affect our DR stance.

When we need to move a VM from one data center to another, it is replicated there. We don't need to do any snapshots of storage. We just make a VPG for it, do a move action, and it is just there. It works really well.

What is most valuable?

The test features have been really good for us. Our DR testing goes very quickly and easily now for all our stuff with Zerto. We have our priority recovery process, where we cover our databases for our app servers and web servers. All our teams pretty much get their VMs very quickly. The RPOs are very low. 

It is very easy to use. There are a lot of training materials online on the Zerto portal, which make it very simple to learn and use. You could go from not knowing how to use it to fully understanding all of it in a day. This can be done by using the Zerto University, getting your little certification and making your boss happy. It is pretty easy to set up VPG-wise.

You have a 24-hour journal. The amount of disasters and things that you can recover from using a 24-hour journal is huge, e.g., ransomware. We haven't had to do that yet, but the possibility is there. It is good to know that you can go back as far as you need.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see the app be more like the analytics site. Right now, when you go into the analytics, you need to zoom in real tight on your browser. You get a lot more from the analytics site than you do from the app. If they made those two more similar, it would be really useful for day-to-day monitoring of your stuff.

I don't like the evacuation process. The host evacuation process could be a little simpler too. It takes our maintenance a bit longer, when we are doing host maintenance, because we still need to evacuate the vRAs manually. I know they tried to make it more automatic, but it is not quite there yet.

Buyer's Guide
Zerto
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for at least three years in my job function.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have had no problems with it. Stability-wise, I can only say positive things because we haven't had any real negatives with it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. If you add a data center, then you just add a ZVM at that data center, link it up, and add your vRAs. After that, you are ready to start making VPGs. It is very simple to set up.

We don't have issues with scaling. If a vRA is getting a bit overloaded, it makes little vRAs. So, it kind of handles itself. We have our vRAs at the maximum size, as far as CPU and memory, that they can be. Our RPOs are really short, so we are doing pretty well for our size.

How are customer service and support?

Zerto's support is always responsive. I have never had any problems with it. Our lead Zerto engineer does a lot more stuff than I do as far as with support. Typically, I will escalate to her. If there is an issue, then I defer to her. However, as far as my experience with support, I have experienced nothing but good things. The learning portal, myZerto portal, and analytics are very good. I don't have to use support very often, which is a good thing.

If I were to rate it, I would probably rate it as 10 out of 10. Every time that I have needed them, they have been responsive and quick. I haven't used them that much, but when I have, they have been very responsive.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We have used SRM, who is Zerto's main competitor. 

SRM was pretty quick. However, the speed of recovery with Zerto is so simple. It can failover, e.g., do whatever kind of failover you want it to do. You choose your VPGs, then you are off. It is really fast and simple. A lot of people could handle using it pretty easily.

How was the initial setup?

I haven't found it to be hard. When you add a new host, you just go to set up and add a new host, then it builds a vRA. It is pretty easy to manage alerts. It will tell you exactly what is wrong, e.g., this doesn't have enough scratch disk, so you need to go update that. Or, this host is offline, e.g., you forgot to evacuate it, so then you need to take it out of Zerto. So, it will alert you to that stuff.

What about the implementation team?

I have done my share of deploying vRAs. Though, our lead Zerto engineer handled most of that stuff from the initial setup.

What was our ROI?

We have definitely seen a return on investment. We can move any of our VMs from either of our data centers back and forth very easily, bringing them back and doing tests as frequently as we want. We will be doing two tests next week. At previous companies, we did one test a year. Now, we are doing different stacks, e.g., if we do 20, 100, or 700 VMS, then it will be this long. So, we can forecast additional workload and how much that will affect our DR position.

Zerto is definitely a lot easier to manage. My whole team knows how to use it, since it is very simple to use and intuitive. There are a couple people who use it and I am the secondary person. We have someone who basically lives in Zerto. She adds stuff on a daily basis and we are always on top of our updates. We are always looking at whatever new features come out. We try to maximize our journals. We are up to 24 hours on a lot of them. Our average RPO is eight seconds, and that is pretty good since we have 1,500 VMs and 280-plus VPGs. We have a pretty big on-prem environment. So, the good thing about it is the frequency and ease of testing because Zerto is very simple to use. DR has enough problems to deal with and Zerto makes things a lot easier.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have looked at Veeam and SRM. We examined the marketplace, Gartner, etc. This product that management chose, and we are pretty happy with it.

What other advice do I have?

Give it a try. Move some VMs back and forth to see how easy it is to use. The one-to-many is pretty good. We have two sites, so it is not a very big deal for us to do that, but it is very useful. 

I would rate Zerto as 10 out of 10. I love Zerto's CDP solution. It is really easy to use. It does everything that we need it to do and scales easily.

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.
PeerSpot user
Lambert Tomeldan - PeerSpot reviewer
SVP of Technology / Head of Information Technology at Barkley Inc.
Real User
Has significantly reduced our organization's RPO and RTO
Pros and Cons
  • "Zerto has helped reduce our organization's DR testing to seconds to minutes. We have been able to save probably close to 200 hours a year."
  • "If something happens, and we are out and about, I would like to be able to interface with it on our mobile phones. That would be great."

What is our primary use case?

Our use cases are disaster recovery and long-term retention against ransomware.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto was part of our technology transformation initiative about five years ago, not only to protect our customers' intellectual property that we create for them, but also to protect our organization as a whole.

In a way, it has reduced the number of staff involved in a data recovery situation since we are contracted with insurance companies to help us recover. This solution allows us to be more self-sufficient, using our existing staff to recover.

What is most valuable?

Zerto has helped reduce our organization's DR testing to seconds to minutes. We have been able to save probably close to 200 hours a year.

What needs improvement?

If something happens, and we are out and about, I would like to be able to interface with it on our mobile phones. That would be great.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for about five years.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support is really good. They do quarterly tests to make sure everything is working and spot on. Our Zerto engineer is local, so we work with him quite often just to make sure everything is working.

I would rate the technical support as 11 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

It replaced Veeam. Zerto is a lot easier.

Prior to Zerto, when we were looking at our traditional disaster recovery, we were looking at 30 days plus.

What was our ROI?

We have been able to reduce our RPO and RTO to a matter of seconds to minutes versus what our technology committee established as our metrics, which was 30 minutes versus a few days.

What other advice do I have?

Knock on wood, we have never had downtime. However, it has given us better peace of mind.

I would rate Zerto as 11 out of 10.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Zerto
March 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2024.
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Enterprise Infrastructure Architect at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees
Real User
Provides continuous data protection and decreases the time and the number of people involved
Pros and Cons
  • "It works very well in terms of it providing continuous data protection. It does what it says it is going to do. We have been using it for several years, and once or twice, we had to recover a machine or files. It didn't have any problems in doing what it is supposed to be doing."
  • "We would like some of the real fine or granular things. We've submitted a few minor things for enhancements such as being able to control bandwidth utilization for each facility you replicate to versus overall. We just need a little bit more granularity on some of the things, but there is not a whole bunch that is in need of tweaking."

What is our primary use case?

It is for real-time data protection and, if needed, for the ability to recover within seconds at a point in time. It is deployed on-premise and multi-cloud on Azure and AWS.

How has it helped my organization?

It just gives us extra peace of mind. We can backup and recover critical information not only on-premise but also off-premise at multiple places. So, we have that additional place for recovery if Azure or AWS is having problems.

When we need to fail back or move workloads, Zerto decreases the time and the number of people involved. It definitely speeds up the process of recovery for us. We essentially need only one person for the recovery process. In other solutions that we had in the past, we had to involve quite a few of our team members in the recovery process. We haven't had to do fail back a lot, so I can't give a real numeric number of how much it has saved us. If we had to do a big fail back, I can see where it could have saved us.

It has reduced the number of staff involved in a data recovery situation. The number of staff involved is less than what it used to be. We can basically do that with one person. It also reduces the number of staff involved in overall backup and DR management.

It has saved us money by enabling us to do DR in the cloud rather than in a physical data center. We don't have to buy another SAN, so it has saved somewhere in the $150,000 to $200,000 range.

What is most valuable?

The reliability of the solution and ease of upgrades are most valuable. Support has also been really good on it.

It works very well in terms of it providing continuous data protection. It does what it says it is going to do. We have been using it for several years, and once or twice, we had to recover a machine or files. It didn't have any problems in doing what it is supposed to be doing.

It is easy to use once you have gone through the online training class to learn the basics about it. We have been able to get a couple of our folks in the IT department up to speed on how it works and how to utilize it within basically a day or less. It is relatively easy for us to get staff trained and get going.

What needs improvement?

We would like some of the real fine or granular things. We've submitted a few minor things for enhancements such as being able to control bandwidth utilization for each facility you replicate to versus overall. We just need a little bit more granularity on some of the things, but there is not a whole bunch that is in need of tweaking.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using this solution for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It has been very stable for us. We haven't had any issues with it. Even upgrades have been relatively seamless for us. If anything, it is just that you miss something on the upgrade release note and you need to open a port or something else, but there is nothing critical.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It seems to be very scalable. We're not that big, but it seems to scale out for us and give us more scale for what we are size-wise. It could be very beneficial for a bigger organization.

We started out protecting roughly 30 terabytes of data, and that's roughly where we're right now. We have 30 terabytes of data and 250 employees. We are just trying to keep them all functioning 24/7.

At the moment, we don't have any plans to increase the usage. We're utilizing everything we can at the moment. The only thing that we might consider down the road is the backup functionality long-term, but that's something we just keep evaluating versus what we currently have. What we currently have works so well, and we don't really want to change it.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their support has been really good. They've been very proactive in helping resolve issues, and you get quick callbacks or contact with them. I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

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

They used Avamar Data Domain before Zerto. It had a very complicated process, and the price was also very high. It did not have a similar granularity of recovery points.

How was the initial setup?

It was pretty straightforward. We had it fully installed and started implementing it within the first couple of hours of the process. We worked with the local rep for about an hour or two, and by then, we had the process down. After that, it was pretty straightforward, and we just replicated that for additional protection groups.

In terms of the implementation strategy, we knew what we needed. We wanted to get out in the cloud. We focused on Azure to start with and then came back and looked at AWS after the fact for a couple of use cases where Azure wasn't the best place for some big data sets.

For its day-to-day maintenance or administration, there is just me. We do have desktop admins that can get into it as well if they need to be, but generally, I take care of it all for them. They just holler out if they have a problem or a question about something, and I can take care of it for them.

What about the implementation team?

We worked with the local rep for about an hour or two. Our experience with him was very good. He was very helpful and knowledgeable about the product and also about the ways other folks were using the product.

What was our ROI?

There is nothing that we can quantitatively define, but we are able to meet regulatory requirements.

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

It initially seemed a little pricey, but in the big picture, you're paying for peace of mind. It could always be cheaper and more competitive, which would make it an easier choice for people, but I can see both ways. They can say this cost is for the value they are providing. If anything happens, they can recover your data very quickly. You won't be losing it, so there is a win. It is a win-win.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated VMware Site Recovery Manager. I have used that in the past, and it is okay, but upgrades tend to break a lot of stuff, whereas Zerto hasn't had that kind of issue, which is great. It is never a good thing to do a minor update and then your whole system is dead for maybe a day or two until you figure out what caused the breakage. We also looked at SRM and Cohesity. Cohesity was more for just overall backup, not for full DR.

Zerto was very easy to use. We could use it for backup and DR, which was very important for us. That was one of the key driving factors for us.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise others to just get the training before utilizing it so that you have a better understanding of the overall product. You should also have plenty of bandwidth for your providers so that replication works seamlessly.

It has helped us a little bit in reducing downtime in a couple of cases. It saved us a few hours here and there. It could save us time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes. We haven't had to use it currently for that. Its overall backup and DR management could also reduce the number of people needed.

We don't use Zerto for long-term retention. We have another solution in place for that. We will evaluate Zerto possibly down the road.

I would rate Zerto a 10 out of 10.

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
Senior Manager, Technical Services at a logistics company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Simple to set up and use, and offers continuous data protection with a five-second interval
Pros and Cons
  • "This product is impressively easy to use. It's dummy-proof, once it's set up."
  • "The long-term recovery is a little bit weak in its granularity."

What is our primary use case?

We use Zerto for real-time replication of our systems, company-wide. The main reason is disaster recovery failover.

How has it helped my organization?

We use the long-term retention functionality, although it is not deployed system-wide. We have a lot of critical systems backed up, such as our file servers. We utilize it to hold things for up to a year and we send our long-term retention to ExaGrid appliances.

When we need to failback or move workloads, this solution has decreased the time it takes and the number of people involved. The entire process is, realistically, a one-person job. We usually have an application specialist involved just to validate the health of the server. Whether it's an SQL server or application server, we have somebody that runs integrity checks on it. That said, the entire process is very painless and easily handled by one person.

I estimate that this product saves us hours in comparison to products like Veeam. Veeam would take several hours of time to fail something over. 

Our company fell victim to a ransomware attack that affected between 50 and 60 servers. Until we knew for sure that the entire situation was remediated and that we weren't going to spread the infection, we restored the servers in an offline manner, which only took a matter of minutes to complete. Then, we pushed all of that data into Teams and OneDrive directly for people to start accessing it.

From the SQL server perspective, we failed those servers over, running health checks such as anti-virus scans, just to make sure that the failed over instance didn't contain the same situations. Thankfully, they did not. We probably saved ourselves several days worth of work in the grand scheme of things. In total, it potentially would have taken weeks to resolve using a different solution.

I wouldn't necessarily say that using Zerto has meant that we can reduce the number of staff in a recovery operation. However, I think it's probably mitigated the need to hire more people. Essentially, as we've continued to grow, we've avoided adding headcount to our team. Using Veeam as my problem child to compare against, if we were using it, it would have required a lot more management from us. It would have cost us more time to recover and manage those jobs, including the management of the ExaGrid appliances, as well as the VRAs, which are basically proxies.

Definitely, there is a huge saving in time using Zerto and although we didn't reduce any headcount or repurpose anything, we've definitely mitigated at least two people from the hiring perspective.

Zerto saved us considerable downtime when we experienced the ransomware attack. It may be hard to substantiate that just on the one situation but we saved at least a couple of million dollars.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the continuous recovery with the five-second checkpoint interval. Just having those checkpoints prior to when a situation arises, we're able to get the transactional data that occurred right before the server failed. That has been a blessing for us, as we are able to provide a snapshot with no more than five seconds of data loss. This means that we don't have to recreate minutes or hours worth of data for an industry that includes fulfillment, shipping, warehousing, et cetera.

Zerto is very good at providing continuous data protection. It does a very good job keeping up with the system and it creates five-second interval checkpoints. This has been helpful when it comes to needing to fail something over, getting that last moment in time that was in a usable state.

This product is impressively easy to use. It's dummy-proof, once it's set up.

What needs improvement?

The long-term recovery is a little bit weak in its granularity. Veeam is definitely superior in that aspect, as it's able to provide a granular view of files and databases, et cetera. However, it just kind of depends on what a business' recovery strategy is.

From our business perspective, it's really not impactful to us because our recovery strategy is not based on individual files. But, I could definitely see it being a challenge if there is a very large instance of individual files, as a subset, that need to be recovered. I think that if somebody has terabytes of data then Zerto will recover it faster but navigating through the file explorer to get to files is not as easy with Zerto.

One thing I don't like about the product, and I know this is where their claim to fame is, but whenever I have a VPG that has multiple virtual machines in it, and one virtual machine falls behind, it'll pause replication on everything else in that job until the one server catches up. The goal is to keep symmetric replication processing going, so the strategy makes sense, but for our business model, that doesn't really work and it has created a challenge where I have to manage each VM individually. It means that instead of having one job that would cover multiple servers, I just have one job to one server, which allows me to manage them individually.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Zerto for approximately five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

From a company perspective, a few years ago, I would have said that it is very stable. It is a solution that is thriving and growing. At this time, however, HP is in the process of acquiring them. While I had assumed that was their long-term plan, I didn't quite anticipate HP being the one to pick them up. As such, I am a little bit worried about what will change in the long term.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, it's a very painless product. As we continue to grow out our virtual environment, Zerto is able to, in a very nimble fashion, scale with us with very little effort or overhead involved.

I'm covering approximately 400 VMs currently, which is approximately 360 terabytes worth of data. That is between two separate data centers.

How are customer service and technical support?

Rating the Zerto technical support is a little bit tough because I've had some experiences that were truly 10 of 10, but then I've had one or two experiences where it was definitely a two or a three out of 10. It really depends on who I've gotten on the phone and their level of, A, comfort with their own system, and B, comfort helping the customer.

Some people have said this isn't within their scope of work, where others have said, "No, let's absolutely do this." In that regard, it's been a little hit and miss, but it's usually been a decent quality in the end.

Overall, I would rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

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

I have worked with Veeam in the past and although I prefer Zerto, there are some advantages to using Veeam. For example, long-term recovery offers more features.

In-house, we had also used the Unitrends product, as well as a SAN-to-SAN replication using an old HPE LeftHand array.

The main reasons that we switched to Zerto were the management ability, as well as its ability to provide continuous replication. Veeam was a very cumbersome product to manage. There were a lot of instances to monitor and manage from a proxy perspective, whereas Zerto's VRAs are relatively transparent in their configuration and deployment. These are painless and I don't have to continually monitor them. I don't have to update them since they're not like standalone Windows instances. It's very low management for us.

Of course, continuous replication is critical because Veeam, even though when we had owned the product, it claimed 15-minute intervals were doable, it never seemed to actually keep up with those 15-minute snapshot intervals.

One final reason that we migrated from Veeam is that they were utilizing VM snapshots at the time. I know that they've moved away from that approach now, but it was very painful for our environment at the time. The VMware snapshots were causing some of our legacy and proprietary applications to fail.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is very simple.

Our implementation strategy involved setting it up for our two data centers. We have a primary and secondary data center, and Zerto keeps track of all of the VMs at the primary site and replicates them to the other site.

In the future, we plan on looking into the on-premises to cloud replication. On-premises to Azure direct is on our roadmap.

What about the implementation team?

I completed the setup myself without support or anybody else involved in the deployment.

It took approximately an hour to deploy.

I handle all of the administration and maintenance. As the senior manager of infrastructure, I oversee our work and server group. I have also retained private ownership over the disaster recovery plan and failover plan.

What was our ROI?

We have probably not seen a return on investment from using Zerto. We don't really have lots of situations where we have to use it and can substantiate any kind of financial claim to it.

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

I do not like the current pricing model because the product has been divided into different components and they are charging for them individually. I understand why they did it, but don't like the model. 

Our situation is somewhat peculiar because when we bought into it, we owned everything. Later on down the road, they split the licensing model, so you had to pay extra for the LTR and extra for the multi-site replication. However, since we were using LTR prior to that license model change, they have allowed us to retain the LTR functionality at our existing licensing level, but not have the multi-site replication.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have not evaluated other options in quite a long time. We very briefly evaluated Rubrik. 

What other advice do I have?

When we first decided to implement Zerto, it wasn't very important that it provides both backup and DR in one platform. In fact, realistically, even now, while we have it and we used it on a limited scope, I'm not sure that it's needed.

With respect to our legacy solutions, I'd say that the cost of replacing them with Zerto is net neutral in the end.

My advice to anybody who is considering Zerto is that it's an awesome product and it won't steer them wrong. That said, there are some issues such as the licensing model and the situations where VPGs falling behind suspends the replication. Overall, it is a good product.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

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
Enterprise Architect at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Our effort for DR is a fraction of what it was; we just click the VMs that we want to protect and they are protected
Pros and Cons
  • "Zerto's support for different hypervisors is a valuable feature because we have a mixed bag. We have VMware and we have Hyper-V. For us, that was extremely critical when we made the decision. We wanted a single tool that is able to replicate all our virtual servers. At this point, I think the only tool on the market that can do that on-premise is Zerto."
  • "We own another solution called VMware Site Recovery Manager, SRM. We have licenses for our entire environment and we still decided not to use it. That's how big the difference was in the experience that Zerto provides."
  • "They definitely have room for improvement in a couple of areas. One is role-based access control. Right now, they don't have an identity source so they use the identity of the vCenter or the VMM. If they connected to an identity source like Active Directory and allowed for granular roles and permissions, that would be an improvement."

What is our primary use case?

It's on-prem only, and we're replicating part of production data centers to the DR location. We use it 100 percent for DR. Zerto, as a product, has a lot of capabilities, but we're only using it to replicate servers for disaster recovery, on-prem.

How has it helped my organization?

Providing DR for the entire organization is a big improvement, compared to the previous way we did DR. With the old DR tool we identified the systems that we wanted to protect and we installed agents and installed a server in the remote location and pretty much treated every physical and virtual server the same way. That tool was agent-based and required installation and maintenance of a server on the remote site. Now, the effort involved is a fraction of what it was before. We just click the VMs that we want to protect and they are protected.

Zerto has reduced the number of staff involved in DR.

It has also helped to reduce downtime. With our old solution, something that took 10 to 15 minutes of outage, required one reboot, which took less than a minute, with Zerto. That amount of downtime would have cost our company a couple of thousand dollars.

What is most valuable?

Zerto's support for different hypervisors is a valuable feature because we have a mixed bag. We have VMware and we have Hyper-V. For us, that was extremely critical when we made the decision. We wanted a single tool that is able to replicate all our virtual servers. At this point, I think the only tool on the market that can do that on-premise is Zerto.

It does a great job of continuous data protection. That's why we're using it for DR. It has the journal, the recovery points. It's doing its job. It's a good tool.

It's extremely easy to use with a very intuitive interface. You can set up a VPG (virtual protected group) and add VMs to it in a couple of clicks. Everything is in a single dashboard and you can do everything from there. If you need some granular information, you click the Analytics and get your RPO or RTO and how much data you would lose if you do a DR at this point in time. 

What needs improvement?

They definitely have room for improvement in a couple of areas. One is role-based access control. Right now, they don't have an identity source so they use the identity of the vCenter or the VMM. If they connected to an identity source like Active Directory and allowed for granular roles and permissions, that would be an improvement.

Another area of improvement is support for clusters. They have very limited support for Microsoft clustering.

Also, integration with VMware could be improved. For example, when a VM is created in vCenter, it would be helpful to be able to identify the VM, by tags or any other means, as needing DR protection. And then Zerto should be able to automatically add the VM to a VPG. 

There is definitely room for improvement. But what they have implemented so far, works pretty well.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for about five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's pretty stable. 

We're always one version behind. The current version is 8.5 and we're running 8. We always wait until at least Update 1 before we upgrade. So when v9 is out, we'll probably upgrade to 8.5, Update 1, or whatever the current update is. Because we are a little bit behind and we're running on a very stable, mature version, we rarely experience issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We're running thousands of hosts. Scalability is not a problem.

We plan to keep the product. It's doing a good job.

How are customer service and technical support?

Our experience with their technical support has been good. But keep in mind that we have a pretty high-level, Premium Support agreement with Zerto. We have a dedicated technical account manager from Zerto, and he has direct access to the developers.

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

We used Double-Take DR which treated all the physical and virtual servers exactly the same way with agents. Zerto replaced it.

We switched because it is a little bit inefficient to treat all the virtual machines as separate physical servers, because on the DR site you need to install them, you need to configure them. You need to put the agents on both sites and configure the replication relationship. It's very complex. And whenever you need to patch or do some maintenance on the target site, it's double the work because you patch the source and you patch the target—you have a live server at the remote site. With Zerto, as soon as I patch the VM at the source, the updates are replicated to the target immediately.

Zerto's ease of use is very good compared with other similar solutions for replication.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Zerto is quite simple. You build a SQL instance. You build a Windows VM and install the ZVM on it. You integrate it with vCenter and then, from the ZVM, you make sure your firewall ports are open and you push the VRAs down.

Deployment takes a couple of hours, for a relatively big environment. It would typically require 30 minutes of DBA time, an hour or two of Windows engineering time, and another person from VMware for another hour.

It doesn't require any staff for day-to-day maintenance. It's used by our operations team, which is close to 100 people; those are people who have access to it.

What about the implementation team?

It's quite easy and straightforward. We do it with internal labor.

What was our ROI?

The way we use it there is no return on investment. You can think of Zerto as an insurance policy. We use it to protect our business, but we actually hope that we'll never put it into action.

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

It's not the cheapest tool, it's expensive. But it's doing a good job.

We pay the standard license, maintenance every year, and we pay for our technical account manager, which is pretty much Professional Services, with our Premium Support.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at other solutions. We own another solution called VMware Site Recovery Manager, SRM. We have licenses for our entire environment and we still decided not to use it. That's how big the difference was in the experience that Zerto provides. 

We also compared Zerto with our previous disaster recovery solution, which was called Double-Take DR.

Zerto is much better. It is not a cheap solution. The fact that we decided to buy it when we already had all the licenses for VMware, bundled in our ELA with VMware, should tell you how big of a difference there was.

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be that when you need a tool to bet your business on, as a last resort, make sure you evaluate all the options, test them, and don't be cheap.

The biggest lesson I've learned from using Zerto is that a third-party company can do a better job of protecting the workloads than the vendor. It does a better job than VMware and Microsoft together.

In terms of using the solution for long-term retention, we're evaluating Zerto's offering. It's a new feature. We already have an established backup system, using Symantec. In a couple of years, when we need to refresh Symantec, we might consider it. But at this point we don't use it and we aren't considering it.

We use the Veritas NetBackup solution. They split from Symantec so Veritas is separate, but it was a Symantec solution for backup. We don't use Veeam, we don't use Cohesity, we don't use Rubrik. The only potential is to replace our Veritas/Symantec backup product, in the future, with Zerto Long Term Retention.

If we have a DR situation, we are not planning to fail back. It's not part of our DR strategy. If we need to fail-over a production data center, it means that this data center has been destroyed, it's a smoking hole in the grass. We will be running continuously from the DR data center, which is a full-scale data center.

I would rate Zerto at nine out of 10. There are new features that they're working on, which will be nice to have. That's why I won't rate it a 10, but overall it's a really good, stable, easy-to-use product.

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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Disaster Recovery & Cybersecurity Consultant at a consultancy with 1-10 employees
Consultant
Top 20
An effective tool for automation and orchestration of complex activities
Pros and Cons
  • "Its ease of use and scalability are valuable."
  • "There should be more comprehensive cyber recovery capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

For one client, the use case was to facilitate data center migration, and for another client, it was for failover and failback of the data center for DR. We wanted to have controlled failover and failback of related applications for DR.

We have not used it for disaster recovery in the cloud. Everything has been on-prem so far.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto helps in automating disaster recovery capabilities. It allows automation and orchestration of complex activities.

We have used Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. Zerto’s overall effect on our RPOs has been pretty good.

It has also been effective for our RTOs.

Zerto has helped to reduce downtime, specifically for failover and failback, but it is hard to qualify the time saved.

Zerto has not saved us time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes because we have not been impacted by any such issue.

Zerto has helped to reduce the organization's DR testing. There is about 20% reduction.

It has also reduced the number of staff involved in a data recovery situation, but I have not seen any reduction in the number of staff involved in overall backup and DR management.

What is most valuable?

Its ease of use and scalability are valuable. 

I also find the near-synchronous replication to be valuable. It is extremely important for organizations.

What needs improvement?

There should be more comprehensive cyber recovery capabilities.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. It is deployed across multiple locations. There are roughly about 4,000 VMs.

We might use it to migrate to cloud solutions. It is to be decided.

How are customer service and support?

I have not reached out to them myself.

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

We were using SRM. We switched to Zerto for automation.

Zerto is highly effective in terms of ease of use as compared to other solutions. Zerto is also pretty effective in terms of its speed of recovery.

We can easily migrate data using the Zerto console.

Zerto has not yet replaced all of our legacy backup solutions but it will.

How was the initial setup?

Our setup is all on-premises. I was involved in its deployment to some degree. It was pretty straightforward to deploy.

It took about three months. It was an enterprise-wide solution.

What about the implementation team?

It was a combination of in-house staff and a third party. The third party was a VAR or value-added reseller.

It required just a handful of staff for deployment. It does not require any maintenance from our side.

What was our ROI?

We have seen an ROI, but I do not have the metrics.

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

It is not a bad pricing model.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated other options on paper, not physically.

What other advice do I have?

Zerto is an effective tool for automation and orchestration of complex activities.

The biggest lesson that I have learned by using Zerto is the need for application involvement and defining protection groups.

Overall, I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Database Admin at Fintec
Real User
Reliable with minimal downtime and helps reduce staff
Pros and Cons
  • "We can use Zerto to help protect our VMs."
  • "We're not fully satisfied with the support team."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for data replication. We have it in Oracle. It helps with disaster recovery. We have a primary and secondary server and the data can move between the two thanks to Zerto.

How has it helped my organization?

Right now, I'm having issues with delays when archiving. We're facing issues with RPU and getting 20 or 30-minute delays. That's a bandwidth issue.

We do rely on the replication capabilities. When our one system went down, we were able to immediately replicate. 

What is most valuable?

It's a reliable solution - if we have great bandwidth. It offers near-synchronous replication. This is very important. We're a fintech company relying on Zerto for disaster recovery. We tend to only use the replication features.

We use the solution for immutable data copies. The 3-2-1 rule is very reliable. 

We can use Zerto to help protect our VMs.

It's had a positive effect on our RPOs. We have virtual protection groups and haven't had any issues. Our production server does need to be replicated in real-time, and everything else can be replicated whenever we like. 

It only takes five to ten minutes to switch over or failover.  During data migrations, our users can continue to collaborate just fine. It's fine and fast. 

The RTO is good. If a machine is storing more than two to three terabytes, it takes longer than ten minutes, but any time the storage is less than that, it takes ten minutes or less.

Our downtime is minimal.

We've saved a lot of time in a data recovery situation. 

We do switchovers from time to time to test DR. We do switchovers every three months. It only takes half an hour. It saves us about one hour at least. We can allocate the time we save to any other activity or task. 

It's reduced the number of staff needed for DR by three or four people.

The solution did replace some legacy solutions. It replaced small backup solutions. It's helped us save on the costs needed to manage them. We've saved around two resources so far. I'm not sure how much those tools cost. However, we needed four infrastructure and two or three database people looking after those. Now, we don't need to.

What needs improvement?

We don't have great bandwidth. When we don't have good bandwidth, it doesn't work so well. 

We're not fully satisfied with the support team.

The first time, it's difficult to migrate data. However, after that, it becomes easier. 

They need to give more options, such as more archiving options. 

For how long have I used the solution?

The company has been using the solution for around one year. I've used it for three months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable, from what I have seen.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have around 100 direct Zerto users. We have around 30,000 to 35,000 end-users. We have 10 production servers, Linux machines, five development servers, and five Unity servers. 

It is very scalable. We can scale up to 200 machines and have maybe around 80 right now. I'm not sure if we will scale more in the future. 

How are customer service and support?

Support has dropped off. When I joined the organizations, they were very active. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We also use Oracle. I used it in my previous company. In this company, we use HP, and it works well with Zerto.

Zerto is very easy to use, and the GUI is very comfortable. We can configure, replicate, and sync right from the GUI.

How was the initial setup?

We have Zerto on an HP machine. 

I was not involved in the deployment of the solution. 

Maintenance is necessary, and we have two people handling maintenance tasks. 

What was our ROI?

The solution is worth the cost. Having disaster recovery is necessary. If we ever suffer from a hardware failure, we can easily replicate in one click. 

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

The solution is a bit expensive. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options. 

What other advice do I have?

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. I'd recommend the solution to others. 

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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Sr Systems Engineer at a insurance company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Great interface, easy to use, and simple to update
Pros and Cons
  • "The biggest benefit is the application-consistent disaster recovery functionality."
  • "Zerto could improve its reporting capabilities."

What is our primary use case?

The primary use case is disaster recovery. 

How has it helped my organization?

The biggest benefit is the application-consistent disaster recovery functionality. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features include the ease of use and the usability of the user interface. Long-term, the solution has proven to be very resilient and stable. It meets our DR needs for VM environments. 

The near-synchronous replication is a great feature. You have near real-time DR capabilities. In the years I've used it, we've had application-consistent profiles. To meet the recovery point and recovery time objectives, it helps to have that on hand. 

It's affected our RPOs positively. It totally meets them via near-synchronous replication. That means the VM stays in a consistent state and is always available. 

What needs improvement?

Zerto could improve its reporting capabilities. That's lacking. The alerting capabilities are lacking as well, partly due to the fact that there's no way to trim down the alert fatigue if there are failures within the application. It will send out alerts consistently instead of spreading the alert times every 30 minutes, hour, et cetera. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Zerto at our organization over the past eight years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I cannot comment on scalability. We only have two Zerto instances installed, one in production and one in DR. We haven't had to scale out or to the cloud. 

We are protecting upwards of 100 virtual machines. 

How are customer service and support?

Zerto's support is good. They are responsive from an email perspective. I've never had to pick up the phone to call them for anything beyond our DR testing every year. In those cases, we do open a proactive ticket in the case that we run into issues with recovering virtual machines. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

We did not use any other solution previously. We chose Zerto since it was an application we inherited. It wasn't something I specifically chose, however, understanding the industry, we know that it is the top player in terms of software recoverability for virtual machines. 

How was the initial setup?

I did not initially set up the solution; I inherited it. However, over the past eight years, we have gone through a number of upgrades, which for the most part have gone seamlessly. We did have a few issues in the past that support was able to fix in a timely fashion. 

What was our ROI?

I'm unsure if the company has witnessed any ROI. We have not gone through any TCO analysis. 

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

The licensing is outside of my purview. 

What other advice do I have?

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. If the reporting and alerting functionality were better, I'd rate it ten out of ten. 

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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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: March 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.