IT Operations at a performing arts with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Great for disaster recovery with good uptime and near-synchronous replication
Pros and Cons
  • "The DR - Disaster Recovery - is the main selling point."
  • "They are not cheap. They are more expensive than others."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for disaster recovery. 

How has it helped my organization?

We set up the environment and we're testing right now. We are able to do test recoveries and restalls. Once we have everything set up, we'll try a real failover test. 

What is most valuable?

The DR - Disaster Recovery - is the main selling point. We have a policy that requires us to have, in case our primary goes down, a failover for our production environment to another site. 

The near-synchronous replication is very good. You can set it to a second. It's important to our company. All of our applications are a part of our production. We need to have uptime. We have an SLA that meets uptime requirements and needs to stay up to maintain our company reputation.

We are also protecting our VMs. 

It's had a positive effect on our RPOs. It's meeting our objectives.

What needs improvement?

The journal history is only up to 30 days. If it were longer, it would be better and I would have more flexibility.

Buyer's Guide
Zerto
June 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for a little over a year. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is great. It is running well. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is not too bad. We upgraded our server and we were able to scale easily. We installed Zerto on our VMware with no problem. We have about 200 VMs and Zerto is protecting about just under 100 of them. 

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is an area I'm not too keen about. My experience is 50/50. Level one support doesn't seem very knowledgeable and I don't get the answers I want. That can delay us sometimes. Hopefully, they will improve. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

How was the initial setup?

I was involved in the initial deployment. 

The process is not too bad. The process was pretty straightforward. 

What about the implementation team?

The vendor provided implementation support. 

What was our ROI?

We have noted an ROI. Compared to others, overall, it made sense to choose Zerto.

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

They are not cheap. They are more expensive than others. However, they have great features.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did test other solutions. The speed of recovery in comparison testing was great. That was the reason why we chose Zerto over our competitors. 

We looked at Veeam Orchestrator and Veeam is not as complete in terms of DR. 

The ease of use of Zerto and the interface are easier to understand and use.

What other advice do I have?

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using. It's around version eight. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten overall. 

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
Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Automatic, replicates in seconds, and has responsive support
Pros and Cons
  • "Its automation and the ability to replicate and keep an RTO of just seconds is valuable. It is all automatic. Everything is pretty transparent on the backend. It is just point-and-go."
  • "From the technical side, there can be a little bit more PowerShell integration. I know it leverages APIs, but people still use PowerShell. Some people would rather use PowerShell if that is an option."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Zerto as a DR solution for our environment as well as for migrations. When we do data center migrations, we use it to move our servers over.

We are only on-prem at the moment. We do not do disaster recovery in the cloud.

How has it helped my organization?

In the old days, during data center swaps, it used to take days to move our workload environments over, whereas now, it literally takes an hour for hundreds of servers to migrate. Literally, in under a minute, an app stack can move down and up in a new data center. It is reflected in the uptime support to our customers. Our company is very happy with the product.

Essentially, you just tell it to go and pull the trigger. It is all automatic, so you can sit there and watch the shutdown within vCenter, and then on the remote side, you can see it coming up. You can literally have your environment up and running in under a minute. You just have to prioritize what goes first, and that is a business decision.

What is most valuable?

Its automation and the ability to replicate and keep an RTO of just seconds is valuable. It is all automatic. Everything is pretty transparent on the backend. It is just point-and-go.

Its near-synchronous replication is amazing. It is a lifesaver. You can see it replicating in real-time in seconds. The overall impact on the network is negligible as well. It is a great tool.

What needs improvement?

From the technical side, there can be a little bit more PowerShell integration. I know it leverages APIs, but people still use PowerShell. Some people would rather use PowerShell if that is an option.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used it across several employers. I probably used it for a total of four or five years before it was bought out by HPE.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is amazing. You just look at the dashboard, and it is pretty much all green unless you have some replication or journaling issues, but that is not the product's fault. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability has not been an issue. You deploy it, and it just ramps up and goes. It is all in the background and automatic.

We have about 700 servers and 130 VPGs.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate them a ten out of ten. They are very responsive and technical. Even when there is no issue and you are looking for a root cause or just a question, they are very responsive. They exceed their SLAs.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

My current employer already had it in place. In my previous role, it was evaluated against a few other competitors, and it ended up being a replacement for VMware's Disaster Recovery, which at that time had a lot of issues. Zerto came in and helped us out. We implemented a few new things that Zerto did not have, and I have not looked back.

Zerto is easy to use. I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of ease of use.

How was the initial setup?

Currently, we are still on version 9. We have deployed that. Overall, it is very easy once you get the Windows Server. I am excited about the new version 10 coming out that takes away the Windows server requirement.

What about the implementation team?

We did not use an integrator or a reseller, but we are in contact with our engineer from Zerto. I personally know him from a previous job and as a friend as well. If I have questions, I am sure he will help me out.

What was our ROI?

Uptime for our customers is important. When we are able to do transitions and not impact customers or minimize that impact, that is a financial gain at the end of the day in terms of the satisfaction that customers get, as well as the overall view of the company. As a whole, the management sees that we are doing this stuff in minutes and hours versus days. So, overall, the company is not looking to move away from Zerto anytime soon.

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

I know it is per server, but I am not fully aware of the price model. I know for our VDI environment, they are looking at something that is on the lower end and that they can use just for migrations and not so much a disaster recovery.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Zerto a ten out of ten. It scales well. It just works. It is amazingly simple. Everything is pretty much automatic. I cannot remember when I had to open a case because Zerto was not working.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Zerto
June 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2024.
793,295 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Resiliency Specialist at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Easy to use, integrates well with vCenter, and it provides a short RPO in case of data center outage
Pros and Cons
  • "When we need to failover or move workloads, Zerto significantly decreases both the time it takes and the number of people involved. It only takes a single person to activate a failover and we can pretty much automate everything else."
  • "Zerto should add the capability to replicate the same VM to multiple sites."

What is our primary use case?

We use Zerto to replicate data between our on-premises data centers, as well as for replicating data to the cloud. It is used primarily for disaster recovery, and we're not using it very much for backups.

How has it helped my organization?

Continuous data replication is the most important feature to us, and we use it for disaster recovery. We have very short RPOs in the event of a data center outage.

With respect to ease of use, I would rate Zerto an eight out of ten. It is very easy to set up and utilize. The only reason I wouldn't give it a ten is that I would like to see more export capability. Right now, you can export your VPG to a spreadsheet, but you don't have a lot of control over what data goes there. You just get everything and the formatting isn't the best.

When we need to failover or move workloads, Zerto significantly decreases both the time it takes and the number of people involved. It only takes a single person to activate a failover and we can pretty much automate everything else. Instead of a week to recover a major application, we can do it in a day.

Mostly, this solution protects us from data center outages. With ransomware, it gets a little more complicated because depending on what they're doing, you could be replicating the encryption that they placed on you. Then, depending on how large your journal is, how far back you can go and how long the malware has been sitting in your network, it might not save you from a ransomware attack.

That said, it's still a major plus because if you have enough tools in your environment where you can catch the fact that they've been there, then if you've got 14 days, just as an example, in your journal, then you can go back far enough before they place any kind of encryption on your file. But, if you don't have other tools to also help protect you from ransomware, Zerto by itself may not be sufficient.

It's very rare that you have a true disaster where you have to failover a data center. I see Zerto more often being utilized to deal with some sort of database corruption. You can restore your primary site back from before the corruption. We need this Zerto protection, but it happens so rarely that you would actually have a full data center failure that, I can't say that we have had any staff reductions because of it. We have no staff specifically set aside for data recovery.

Beyond your normal path for backup and recovery, and those daily backups and managing that stuff, whether you're using Zerto for your backups or another backup utility in addition to Zerto, it hasn't really changed our staff.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the quick RPO for replication, which is our primary use case.

What needs improvement?

Zerto should add the capability to replicate the same VM to multiple sites.

The export capability should be improved so that it is more customizable in terms of what fields are exported and what the formatting is.

I would like to see the ability for Zerto to handle physical servers, although that is becoming less important to us.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto with my parent company for the past several months and had been using it at a previous company for two years before that.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Zerto is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is generally good.

We're on an older version so this may have changed, but when it comes to cloud DR, they haven't kept us with the Azure capability. For example, Azure used to have an eight terabyte limit on disk drives. Azure now has a 32 terabyte limit, but Zerto still has a limit of eight. 

That said, when it comes to the number of VPGs and the number of instances, that has been sufficient for us. We have 646 VMs and 60 VPGs that are protecting 650 terabytes of data.

We have about four people who are managing it day-to-day. It is a shared role; our server engineering team is responsible for Zerto, and that team has approximately twelve people. They are all capable of utilizing Zerto, depending on their individual responsibilities, but there are probably no more than four people who currently use it on a daily basis.

We don't have one specific person to manage it but instead, we rely on the team. We're in the process of getting them all trained adequately. 

How are customer service and technical support?

I have been in contact with technical support and I would rate them a seven out of ten. They are similar to a lot of companies, where they're very quick to respond to simple issues that might be in a playbook, yet slow sometimes to get a more complex problem resolved.

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

This was our first true DR tool. Before that, we were just using backup solutions. The one that we were using most recently was IBM Spectrum Protect.

I have a lot of past experience in my previous company with RecoverPoint, as well as with CloudEndure. CloudEndure was used specifically for cloud DR with AWS.

Zerto is much easier to use than RecoverPoint. Both Zerto and CloudEndure are very easy to use.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is pretty easy to do. I was not with this company when they implemented it, so I don't know how long it took them to deploy. However, in my previous company, we initially installed and set it up in a day. We didn't have much trouble.

At first, we only had a couple of small test instances. We started adding things that we needed, over time.

What was our ROI?

Using Zerto has saved us money by enabling us to do DR in the cloud because we did not have to purchase the infrastructure at the alternate site. It's difficult to approximate how much money we have saved because we never built a DR site for the applications that we now have replicated in the cloud. There has never been an on-premises solution for them.

It is relevant to point out that we're not using it so much for day-to-day backups, but rather, we're using it for continuous data protection for DR and we have not had any disaster, so it's difficult to quantify our return on investment from that perspective.

However, from the perspective of being able to do cloud DR and not having to pay for that infrastructure, and even when it comes to the ease of use when we're going from data center to data center, I think we've got a definite return on our investment in comparison to not having a continuous data protection tool.

There is a difference between what we do and what we would have been doing without a tool like Zerto. In this regard, Zerto is a kind of overhead because hopefully, you're not using it day-to-day in a real disaster. It's more like insurance.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated RecoverPoint, but Zerto's better integration into vCenter was probably the reason that we chose it.

What other advice do I have?

We do not currently use Zerto for long-term retention, although we are looking at the feature.

I highly recommend Zerto. My advice for anybody who is implementing it is to go through all of the best practice guides and be sure to review whatever database they have in there. This way, they keep themselves efficient.

Also, it is important to keep in mind that it's only at a VPG level that everything is consistent. So, if you have multiple servers and applications that need to be consistent with each other, then, they really should be in the same VPG.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
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 Systems Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Real User
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.
PeerSpot user
Lee_Castillo - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Information Security Engineer at Lumen
Real User
Customer service stellar, reduces workloads, simplistic install and extremely easy to use
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is how simple it is to implement and how quickly you can get up and running at the second site. The solution is also extremely easy to use, for example, You just log onto the console and you can do a test failover with a few clicks."
  • "In future releases, doing backups of the environment we need to be able to do hot backups of the database."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution for two different data center sites. Inside the data centers we use VMware virtualization, NSX stretched VLANs and Dell servers. There are many servers, storage, virtualization, and a myriad of operating systems such as Red Hat and Windows Servers. 

We use Zerto to replicate our VMs from one site to the other, where we don't want to have to pay for two licenses of the same thing. We also do this to have high availability or to have the disaster recovery version of a piece of software. It is a benefit to be able to use Zerto to replicate that VM at the second site, and not have to power it on or anything. We know that it's always replicated on the other site. We currently use the solution for disaster recovery only but we are looking at longterm backup retention in the future.

How has it helped my organization?

I think it's perfect for providing continuous data protection for us, it is excellent. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is how simple it is to implement and how quickly you can get up and running at the second site. The solution is also extremely easy to use, for example, You just log onto the console and you can do a test failover with a few clicks. You can run a failover test for your auditors or your management. Afterwards, you can get a report on how easy it was to failover a specific application and the VMs associated with that application.

What needs improvement?

In future releases, doing backups of the environment we need to be able to do hot backups of the database. Granular based backups of the OS, versus taking a backup of the entire VMDK. Currently, I don't think we are able to do all that right now. Having an agent-based backup is a benefit because you can back up the OS files, and If you have an agent for the database, you can do a hot backup of the database and restore it. You then would have the ability to do an entire VMDK backup. I don't think that they have the ability to do a hot backup of a database itself via an agent or something similar.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have a couple hundred people using the solution within the organization. The solution is very stable, you set it up and you can forget it. When we have had issues where we lost the connectivity to a data center, we were easily able to bring up the VMs of a data center that was available using Zerto.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very easy to add new hosts and the VRAs get to pull it out automatically. It's very easy to scale, at more sites. We are already increasing and adding more data centers that Zerto can protect for us. We are very pleased with it.

How are customer service and technical support?

The customer service is stellar. They always answer and they are very helpful. I have had very good relationships with the sales executives and sales engineers. If the team at the technical support cannot get an issue solved, then our pre-sales engineers will get on calls with us and help us sort through problems. They have been great.

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

We were using SRM, VMware's Site Recovery Manager before we switched to Zerto. We did the switch because we were impressed with the demo that was given to us. Additionally, SRM was very complicated and cumbersome.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was easy and demo replication was simple too. The initial process started by us building out the VMs of the virtual machines, as per their requirements. We deployed the manager, based on all the log information of the vCenter. You then select the data storage and it installs the VRA out on your environment. Once that is done, you put together the virtual protection groups and you build out your replication site, it is very easy.

What about the implementation team?

Our deployment took about a month to go through everything with three different staff members and for the maintenance, we have one technician. Make sure that we grouped everything properly together, based on the network and its functions, and how it should be brought back up etc.

What was our ROI?

I have saved days and even weeks of working time from using the solution. We are in the process right now of designing a new cloud infrastructure for one of our environments to utilize Zerto to replicate our VMs to our cloud. It is going to be a huge time saver, probably saving us a couple hundred thousand dollars. We've definitely seen some good return on investment with it. Our auditors are impressed by it. 

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

This solution is far less expensive than SRM and NetBackup. After the standard licencing cost there is an annual support contract, nothing that we were shocked about.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have also used NetBackup but Zerto was much easier to set up.

What other advice do I have?

When trying to think of improvements I cannot think of anything to critiques at this time because it does behave so amazingly well. I've been involved with other SRM implementations and SRM is very complicated to put together and to configure, whereas Zerto is just so easy out of the box. Overall, the solution probably has saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars or maybe millions.

Some of the important lessons we have learned are you need to plan your DR carefully. That is the most important. Also, make sure that your applications are grouped together, be cognizant of the different virtual networks they go into. For example, If you have a web frontend DMZ that goes into one component, where the application and the database are in another place. You need to be careful on what networks you are sending them to at the replication site, be aware of that.

I highly recommend Zerto. I speak about the product all the time. I think that it is priceless what it does for us. 

I rate Zerto a ten 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
Network Administrator at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Real User
Enables us to bring up a virtual machine almost immediately
Pros and Cons
  • "We selected Zerto because the RPO is extremely low, so you can get that server back up almost immediately. That was a huge thing. Also, the ability to do failover tests, where you can test your environment, but not have it impact your production environment, was huge."
  • "If I have to reboot a virtual machine host, I have issues with Zerto catching up afterward. That's about the only thing I would say needs improvement. Sometimes, when I have to do maintenance, Zerto takes a little bit to catch up. That's understandable."

What is our primary use case?

We protect about 15 virtual machines. We use Zerto to replicate them from our home office in Pennsylvania to our co-lo facility in Arizona. Our main data center is in our Pennsylvania office, but if that office were to go down, we would use this as a DR solution so we could run our company out of Arizona.

How has it helped my organization?

When I started with the company, we didn't have a disaster recovery option. If our office were to have gone down, our company would pretty much have ceased to work. Having implemented Zerto, now we know that if there's a power issue or some kind of facility issue at our home office data center, we can run everything that's protected by Zerto out of Arizona.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the ability to spin up a copy of a virtual machine which is a complete copy, within minutes.

I also enjoy the Analytics, which is something they added recently. They tell me all about my virtual machines and what kind of data we're pushing back and forth. I've been very impressed with Zerto Analytics.

What needs improvement?

The only time I ever have an issue is because there's a virtual server on each host in our environment. If I have to reboot a virtual machine host, I have issues with Zerto catching up afterward. That's about the only thing I would say needs improvement. Sometimes, when I have to do maintenance, Zerto takes a little bit to catch up. That's understandable.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using Zerto for between a year-and-a-half and two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's extremely stable. I've never had any real issues with it. When there are issues, it seems to recover eventually, so I don't really have any problems with it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable. As long as you have the licensing, you can add more virtual machines or more VPGs, which are virtual protection groups, to the license. As long as you have the licenses, you can protect the whole environment and add and remove virtual machines from Zerto as you want.

We have 15 virtual protection groups which protect 15 virtual machines at this time. Because of the licensing costs we couldn't go crazy. We have a total of about 60 or 70 virtual machines, but we only needed to protect the critical ones. We're using 12 of those 15 licenses.

We don't have plans to increase usage of Zerto at this point because these are the critical servers. If we add more critical servers that need to be up in case of an outage at our home office, we may add more. But this 15 has covered us.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is good. Just like any technical support, it's all based on the severity of the case. I've never had any outage cases, so I have never had to sit on the phone or wait for them to get back to me. 

I opened two cases with them and they got back within a reasonable amount of time. Both times, they knew exactly what the problem was and how to fix it, just from the details I left them in the case notes.

They also have a nice option where you can submit a case, or enable remote support, right from the interface. The support's pretty nice because they can actually look at logs, once you give them remote access right into your environment. That's very useful. And they're very knowledgeable.

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

We didn't have a previous solution. We selected Zerto because the RPO is extremely low, so you can get that server back up almost immediately. That was a huge thing.

Also, the ability to do failover tests, where you can test your environment, but not have it impact your production environment, was huge. 

Those two features were the main selling points for us to pick up Zerto.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very straightforward, very easy. We set up a virtual machine at both locations, which are both Windows, and then installed the Zerto software and gave it credentials to connect into our environments. It did the rest for us. Once it was initially set up, we just had to figure out which virtual machines we wanted to protect and which way: did we want it to copy from our data center over to the co-lo, or back to our data center from the co-lo. They walk you through step-by-step with wizards. It's incredibly easy to set up.

Because there's a lot of data initially to sync over, the deployment took about a week in total. The initial setup only took a couple of hours, but then you have to wait for all that replication to sync.

We didn't have an implementation strategy for Zerto. Because we didn't have a previous solution, we didn't have any migration to do. We just paid for the license, got it installed, and rolled with it.

What about the implementation team?

I did it myself.

Technically there are four users who have access to it in our company. I'm the main administrator. The other ones are guest administrators and they have a little less access than I do. But nobody else really logs into it except me, unless there's an issue and I'm not there. But as the main administrator it's really all on me.

What was our ROI?

We have seen return on our investment with Zerto, absolutely. Just to have an option for disaster recovery in case our main data center goes down — which can happen, because we don't have a generator or anything in our home office — is a type of return. Not just IT, but everybody in the company from the C-suite, was happy that we have a disaster recovery option now.

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

First of all, you should figure out which virtual machines are critical and how many licenses you may need before you start getting prices. You don't need to go crazy if you only have a handful of servers that need licensing. 

Zerto sells licensing in bundles or packages, so I wouldn't go crazy and buy 100 licenses when you only need 30. Figure out what you need before you get your licensing, because it can get expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have Veeam which we use for backup and I know they have replication, so we looked into that, but it just wasn't as feature-rich or as quick to restore or bring up a VM as this was. We hadn't heard about Zerto really until we went to a conference in Philadelphia. They told us about it so we looked into it and it seemed like the best option at the time. We did look at maybe one or two other options, but this was the one that looked like the best option for us.

What other advice do I have?

The biggest lesson from using Zerto is the failover capability and the testing capability. Those are two very useful things. If somebody calls me and they need to test something in a test environment, I can use the test failover copy of Zerto to bring up that virtual machine, or machines, and test things without affecting production. The other thing that is impressive is that you really can bring up a virtual machine almost immediately.

I would definitely give it a 10. I have no problems with it. I'm very happy with it.

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
Rodney Carlson - PeerSpot reviewer
Rodney CarlsonSystem Analyst at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Real User

I like the review. I would add an additional feature comment that it is not hardware dependent so you can use it on any brand or model you have.

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.
PeerSpot user
Sr systems engineer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
We were able to migrate from co-lo to on-prem without losing any time
Pros and Cons
  • "Moving the VPGs from one location to another is a valuable feature. You just click on it and move it and it's done."
  • "If there is a mass of changes to a server, Zerto will restart the replication. It would be nice to know why that happens."

What is our primary use case?

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.

How has it helped my organization?

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.

What is most valuable?

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.

What needs improvement?

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.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for about six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

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

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.

What about the implementation team?

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

What was our ROI?

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.

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

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

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

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.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: June 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.