Zerto Reviews

We use it for DR and general backup. We have snapshots or shadow copies with Microsoft and we do Zerto backups to our other locations so we can always get the data back.

We bought Zerto, in the beginning, to migrate a very important system of the airline from a co-lo that was managed by the co-lo to our on-prem. As an airline, you can't be down because you could cause a ground stop. With Zerto, we were able to migrate all those things across to on-prem without touching anything or losing any time. We took very little downtime.

Also, we've run into some situations where, for some reason, Windows has lost some of the files. I have been able to fail it over to our other data center and they were back up in 10 minutes.

The speed of recovery with Zerto versus other disaster recovery solutions is vastly better. Whereas with the others, I'd have to spin through a lot of stuff and find things, with Zerto I can scroll back in the GUI, find the one I want, and restore it. If that's not right, I can destroy it and go back a little bit more in time.

And our being an ultra-low-cost airline, we don't have staff, so it helps in that way.

It has also helped our DR testing because we can fail over the main part that runs the airline within 45 minutes. The first time, it took me an hour and a half. The second time, it took about an hour. The last time I did it, it took about 45 minutes. That's within the timeframe of one hour where we don't have to do a ground stop.

Moving the VPGs from one location to another is a valuable feature. You just click on it and move it and it's done. We have a stretch VLAN between our data centers so it's really easy: this is IP here and the same IP is there. So if something happens or somebody wants to test something, I can fail it over.

Another aspect that I use a lot is that I can fail it over into its own little bubble and I can install software that I want to test to make sure it doesn't break something. I can do that and then roll it all back.

If there is a mass of changes to a server, Zerto will restart the replication. It would be nice to know why that happens. 

The other thing that I've run into lately is that when I've done a whole bunch of upgrades to systems, so they're offline, they get stuck in a pending state. You can never get them out so you have to delete and start all over again. It would be nice if they could make it a little simpler to figure out what's wrong.

I have been using Zerto for about six years.

It always just runs. I don't have to worry about it or keep checking it. It just does its thing.

It's very scalable. Fortunately, we bought a bunch of licenses when we first bought it and we've been growing into those licenses over the years. It has been very scalable for us.

The technical support has been good, although I've had a couple of situations where they've said some things that were totally inaccurate. But you have that in all organizations.

Positive

Since I started with this airline, we have gone through two other solutions. Zerto is the third and we've stuck with it for quite a few years.

One of the other solutions was a direct product that dumped everything to a storage area in the cloud and it never was consistent. The other was a Dell application backup that no longer exists. That was just too limiting and its backup was never consistent.

Zerto is much easier to use. Once you get the concept down of what it's doing, it's really easy to bring up backups, restore backups, move things around, and test things. It's very easy.

I had one of their sales reps in Colorado help me through the setup. Then we just took it over.

The ROI is in "funny money." It's my time and how long something is down or how long it takes somebody to restore something, and that is much faster.

The pricing seems really good. We're an enterprise customer, so we get all the bells and whistles.

We evaluated a couple of things, but one of our co-los was actually using Zerto so we looked at it as a result. That is what led us to buy it.

We rely on Zerto for data recovery and cloud migration as our primary disaster recovery solution, especially since we lack a dedicated backup data center. Zerto's ability to block ransomware attacks and facilitate rapid server recovery provides us with significant peace of mind.

This comprehensive solution extends beyond processor recovery and data center capabilities. It also encompasses application testing and on-site data protection, ensuring comprehensive coverage in the event of any incident, including ransomware attacks.

We implemented Zerto to mitigate concerns about cyberattacks and data breaches. Zerto functions as a robust multi-layered defense, safeguarding our data. Even if an attack breaches the initial layers, Zerto allows for rapid recovery, ensuring minimal downtime and continuous synchronization with the production server.

In terms of data protection, Zerto enhances business continuity by promptly reporting any encountered cyberattacks. This allows for timely notifications and, critically, prevents the disruption of running production VMs. This real-time monitoring and reporting prove invaluable in the event of threats, facilitating swift recovery efforts.

Our recovery time now is less than 30 minutes.

Zerto's CDP has had a positive impact on our overall data recovery.

Zerto's near-synchronous replication operates in near real-time, enabling data replication with minimal to no data loss.

Our repeated use of Zerto's immutable data copies has significantly enhanced our trust in our backup and recovery procedures.

Zerto provides real-time notifications and reports, which help us prevent unknown threats.

While cloud platforms offer their own security and backup features, Zerto provides an additional layer of protection for our data in the cloud.

Google Cloud Platform provides primary security for our virtual machines. Additionally, Zerto provides us with granular reports that help us focus on specific areas to ensure further protection.

While I haven't had extensive experience with other DR solutions, Zerto offers impressive recovery speeds.

The migration is not complex.

Zerto has helped reduce downtime by over 50 percent.

Zerto has sped up our recovery time by over 20 percent.

We have been able to reduce the number of employees involved in data recovery situations by five.

I like the ease of recovery and backup the most.

Disaster recovery is the most valuable for ensuring minimal downtime during a disaster scenario.

The technical support response needs improvement. They need to treat us more as a partner.

I have been using Zerto for seven months.

I would rate the stability of Zerto nine out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of Zerto eight out of ten.

We contacted the support team by email and tickets during the data migration but received limited response.

Neutral

Previously, we relied on backups from GCP, AWS, and Azure. We transitioned to Zerto because it offers granular reporting capabilities, which helps us keep our managers and non-technical personnel informed.

The initial deployment took a few weeks.

The pricing is reasonable.

I would rate Zerto eight out of ten.

We have 500 people in our organization that use Zerto and it is used in multiple regions.

Zerto requires moderate maintenance, handled by a team of five.

We use our custom dashboards to manage and monitor our disaster recovery plans. These dashboards receive emails automatically, allowing us to take necessary actions as needed.

I recommend Zerto for data backup and recovery, as it also helps mitigate the impact of data corruption or deletion.

We use it mainly to move the server alarm between vCenter and the physical center.

I like that Zerto is easy to move and that there is no effect on the user. That is, the user doesn't even know it. We're in the healthcare industry and work for a hospital. We can set up a server in no time whatsoever. It's easy for us to schedule the time because it takes only about one minute.

In terms of ease of use, Zerto is a lot easier to use in comparison to similar solutions.

We have had no downtime with Zerto.

The speed of our upgrade is a lot easier because, for example, when I put the move fail and there's a pullout from the destination, I can cover with something from the source and pick it up from the source in person. I can copy the tag from the server very fast.

Customer service and technical support need improvement.

I've been using it for about five years.

Customer service and technical support need improvement, and I would rate technical support a seven out of ten.

Neutral

We switched to Zerto because it is easier to use, and the users did not complain.

The initial setup was straightforward. You open the firewall, install it, connect to vCenter, and then do all the steps to install the software.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Zerto a seven because of the bad experience I had with technical support.

We use Zerto for offsite replication.

I like how easy it is to run our DR tests with it.

In terms of ease of use, in the user interface it's very easy to tell the different virtual protection groups apart. It's easy to figure out where your virtual machines are and set different recovery IPs. It is a lot easier with Zerto than it was previously.

When you compare Zerto's ease of use versus that of the previous solution we used, Zerto has good documentation. That's probably what made it the easiest to install and configure, and have peace of mind that it's going to do what I expect it to do.

Every six months when I go through my audit, I don't have any stress about whether I'm going to pass any of my audit logs or any of the questions the auditors ask me. That is, I know I'm going to pass.

Zerto helped us reduce downtime.

Our disaster recovery test used to take quite a long time before we started to use Zerto. After we started using Zerto, the speed of the virtual machines' backup when they are going into test mode, is just so much quicker and so much more consistent. When we previously performed tests, we would need a block of about a week. Now, it's two days. The actual recovery portion is just a small part of that, but Zerto cut it in half easily.

I've been working with Zerto since 2019.

The stability is great; there's very little downtime. I don't have to worry that there will be a surprise update to one of the ZVRAs or the host that I have to contend with. We're given plenty of notice to plan ahead for an update. As far as losing service and downtime, we haven't had that happen.

We're a very small shop, but when we did expand to another group of servers that we were going to replicate, it was very easy to go in and just add another virtual protection group, add my virtual machines to it, and set my settings up and go.

We have less than a hundred virtual machines that we replicate.

The technical support staff I've had to interact with have certainly been some of the better ones. I feel that their turnaround time is always pretty fast and that you get reasonable support right off the bat. If my problem is a little more technical, then I may be transferred, but I don't find that to be an issue. I would rate technical support at nine on a scale from one to ten.

Positive

The initial setup was pretty straightforward for the site-to-site recovery or for setting up the VPGs. If you just want to do basic replication and you don't have a lot of special situations to account for, you could have it up and running very quickly.

For special situations, there are options within advanced settings. You don't have to dig too far for them, but they're not quite as straightforward.

We implemented it ourselves after reading through Zerto's best practices, etc.

If you want something that you can set and forget, Zerto is a solution you should look into. If I were to rate Zerto on a scale from one to ten, I'd give it a nine.

We are mainly using it for DR and, in a few use cases, we leverage it for migration as well. It really fits our use cases.

The experience has been smooth when it comes to DR testing, as it has reduced the testing we need to do. 

Some of the most valuable features are the synchronous replication and migration with RDMs. I really like the conversion of RDM VMs for migration. It is very simple to use and fast. We haven't run into any issues.

If we have multiple VMs in a VPG (Virtual Protected Group) and one VM is hung for DR, it holds things up. The only alternative is to create multiple VPGs. It would be nice to have one VPG where, if one VM is failing, it does not impact the overall process.

We have been using Zerto for close to a year.

Our experience with Zerto has been good, but I don't know if we have actually saved a ton of time with it. There have been no issues or real challenges so far. We just recently adopted and started using it, so in terms of implementation of real use cases, it has barely been a couple of months. We haven't even done a single upgrade of it yet.

The stability is good.

We right-sized initially and we have not had to scale up yet.

I haven't had to engage support. One of my colleagues handles that. But I have heard no complaints about support.

We have a VMware product, SRM, and we use it in a few data centers around the globe. We started using Zerto in a few locations and, in other locations, we still have other products being used.

We were using SRM in our data centers and what happened was that we had a merger. In that process, the other party already owned some Zerto licenses. That's when we got our hands on it and started looking at it. We figured Zerto would be a better fit for our European data centers. We ended up using Zerto there and then got more licenses so that we could use Zerto more.

We have one other solution that we use for live migrations, VMware HCX, rather than Zerto. But we were not always able to use that. That's where the delta for those VMs is, and why we use Zerto for migrations.

The speed of recovery of Zerto is right up there compared with other solutions. It's good, no complaints in that respect.

Compared to other solutions, Zerto is very straightforward and simple to use. The preparation for DR is fairly straightforward, and the deployment is not very complicated.

Zerto hasn't cut the number of staff involved in data recovery, for us. We had one engineer doing it before and he continues to do it. He wears multiple hats. You cannot go down to less than one engineer.

We use Zerto for replication to a DR site of Windows and Unix machines. We like having a testable solution which does not interfere with the performance on our production machines. It has an included feature allowing assignment of a specific LAN or IP address to segregate the machine while testing. We are replicating 56 machines, totaling more than 30 TB, but compressing at 70 percent for space savings. We use the email alerts as a way to monitor replication status. This helps in off hours alerting for potential problems.

Testing and auditing are required at our organization. Zerto has saved a tremendous amount of time in performing these tasks. I am alerted every six months to retest each protection group. This setting is customizable. All past testing reports are retained and available upon demand. It has also added assurance in recovering servers and/or files. Being able to run tests on a working machine is beneficial. Being able to group virtual machines in order to recover all of them to an exact point in time is a definite benefit.

The mobile application is very useful as a real-time monitoring and reporting tool. When management asks the status of our VM backup and recovery, an easy way to answer is to display the status on the real-time Zerto application on a mobile phone or on a local computer browser.

The Zerto Analytics tool helps predict future storage needs by tracking trends in space, journal size, and I/O rate. These are reportable statistics making quantifiable tracking easy and accurate. It is nice the see developing trends. 

Having a web interface simplifies access by other system administrators.

Certain areas were designed and work fine for VMware but are under development for Hyper-V. Eventually, all features will work for both platforms. Zerto support is very responsive when those questions arise. 

There is a comprehensive online training program which is a good start to using the application. But nothing can take the place of actually using the product in your own environment. 

The online search for solutions is very large. This is good, but also bad, as there are solutions present but you have to be diligent to find the answer you need.

I have been using this solution for more than three years. My organization utilizes Hyper-V instead of VMware. One big advantage of Zerto is its hardware agnostic. I have used various models of arrays and servers from Dell EMC and HPE with no issues from Zerto.

It picks up nicely where it leaves off (in the case of a reboot).

It easily grows at whatever pace is needed.

In the few cases that I have had, every one was dealt with quickly and by support staff who knew what they were doing.

We still use our previous solution because it creates a backup of both physical and virtual machines. However, there was an impact on performance running a backup on a running machine.

There is a slight learning curve when setting up, but nothing overwhelming for a good administrator.

Work with your local representative on running a live test to see if the solution fulfills your needs.

We use Zerto at our remote locations as a backup solution in environments where we don't have the infrastructure for redundancy. It allows us to use two HPE DL380 servers as stand-alone VMware hosts and replicate the VMs without needing shared storage.

Using Zerto, we are able to replicate / backup our VMs and between servers and locations, without the need for shared storage, which provides redundancy in case of hardware failure.  We are able to fail the VMs over to the secondary host, which also allows us to patch or repair hardware without extended downtime. 

We use to use VMware replication appliances to attempt to replicate our VMs to remote locations and servers, but Zerto's one-to-many replication options with deduplication have made the process much simpler without having to constantly worry about the versions of each driver.

The number one thing we have found we would like changed so far is the cost per VM. It would be great to get that pricing reduced.

The need for a VM to be spun up on every host is challenging. In our remote locations, it's not a big issue, but as we look to use that in our main data center where we have hundreds of hosts, it becomes more daunting.

I have been using this solution for six months.

In the six months that we have used it, we have not had any issues.

So far, it looks like it should scale to our entire environment of over three thousand VMs.

Prior to this solution, we use to use SRM. We were looking to switch because SRM continues to be troublesome and requires a select combination of drivers and versions across the environment to work correctly.

This initial setup was pretty straightforward with the exception of needing a VM on every single host.

The cost per VM is a bit high.

We also looked at RapidDR from HPE but it only works on our HPE SimpliVity servers and not across all of our hardware.

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

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

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

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

The mobile app is great.

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

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

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

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

We did not evaluate other options that are worth noting.

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

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

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