Our main use case for HPE Zerto Software is for DR purposes—that's disaster recovery—for our separate DR site.
HPE Zerto Software for AWS - Disaster Recovery
Hewlett Packard EnterpriseExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Enables seamless disaster recovery with near-synchronous data replication and efficient testing
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
What I appreciate about HPE Zerto Software is that it seems fairly easy to use, and there are a couple of minor challenges that we figured out. We also found ways around those.
The way HPE Zerto Software specifically benefited us is that when we've had to do some testing to show we can actually bring things up in our disaster recovery site, we're able to do it with relative ease, allowing us to check off boxes on testing for either auditors or some of the other cyber insurance or whomever else that we need to validate that through. It made it a lot easier and gave everybody else a sense of comfort.
HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication is great, just based on the small timeline that's there; that's what I found to be most beneficial. Near-synchronous replication is very important to our organization as it gives us that safety and security blanket of knowing that the data is being mirrored or replicated up to another environment, so in case we were to have some kind of disaster locally, we would at least have another copy sitting somewhere else within a very short period of time.
HPE Zerto Software has helped reduce downtime in some situations; we haven't had to use it officially to bring anything back up, but we have tested numerous times throughout the year for different applications to see how long it takes for us to bring things up, and while we haven't had to actually use that in place just yet, we know it's there if certain things happen.
HPE Zerto Software has saved us time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes; we've been able to utilize it just for doing some work with it. But we've also found that certain situations will not work for us since we haven't finalized the air gap vault in place, and we know that using some simulated ransomware attacks would cause problems, so we wouldn't be able to recover. That's why we're looking and trying to see what we can do to mitigate that issue.
In testing, I wouldn't be able to come up with a number right now as we take our time to ensure we don't miss anything. Usually, we can normally do that within a day. HPE Zerto Software has definitely impacted our RTOs and RPOs positively; they have come down considerably.
In comparing it to other disaster recovery solutions that we've used in the past, I would say that since we own and use HPE Zerto Software, it clearly beat out any of the competitors we had looked at previously. We're not yet using a cyber vault solution or immutable data copies. I can't say how HPE Zerto Software can be improved just yet; I want to see us get the vault in place first to test that out, so we're hoping to look at it here sometime soon. Our DR testing will probably save about 50% of the time.
What needs improvement?
The only thing I could suggest for HPE Zerto Software would be better support for detached drives in a clustered environment, as it's currently not supported very well unless everything's running on a virtualized VMDK file. If it's detached an iSCSI drive, it doesn't work, so that would be about the only thing I would suggest.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using HPE Zerto Software for six to seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software has been stable and reliable every time we've had to go through it thus far.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software has scaled with us thus far.
How are customer service and support?
The support we've received from HP Zerto has typically been very good, and they normally answer any questions we have; we're looking at a couple of gaps we found, and we'll be testing that out to see how that's going to meet our situation.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to using HPE Zerto Software, we weren't actually using anyone for a similar type of situation; we were relying on backups.
How was the initial setup?
For the most part, it's very easy to set up, and the time it takes for it to keep things in sync is very small, which has also been a huge benefit. We've seen that work out very well when we've had to test part of our DR situations.
What was our ROI?
I've seen a return on investment with HPE Zerto Software. I've been able to see that return based on the time it saves us for recovery and testing for DR testing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I can't say what those competitors are since we've had HPE Zerto Software for about six to seven years now, and I don't remember which ones they were at the time.
What other advice do I have?
Initially, HPE Zerto Software has helped us deal with many challenges. We have had a couple of bouts where it did cause a problem, however, part of this is due to the fact that we haven't implemented the new air gap solution yet, so we run into some difficulties there. We are reevaluating that through our rep and also talking to them now just trying to get more information on that.
Our deployment model for HPE Zerto Software is all on-prem; we keep everything on-prem with our primary data center to a disaster recovery location located out of state.
On a scale of one to ten, I would give the product overall a big nine, probably over nine; it's not perfect. There's always going to be some pieces that are missing.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Reliable near-zero recovery ensures seamless disaster recovery testing with significant time savings
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for HPE Zerto Software include providing near-zero recovery. We're replicating several of our VMs for instant recovery purposes.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto features benefit my organization. I've never had to use HPE Zerto Software in a real disaster scenario, however, we test it every year and it performs its job effectively.
What is most valuable?
It's easy to use, setup, and configure. It's also very easy to do a recovery.
The features of HPE Zerto Software that I appreciate most include its integration with our VMware environment, which makes replicating VMs really easy. My impressions of HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication capability are that it's one of the main features why we purchased it, as it allows us to restore from anywhere from basically five seconds ago to three days ago.
HPE Zerto Software has impacted our RTOs and RPOs positively by providing near-real-time replication and instant recovery, which has definitely reduced our RPOs and RTOs.
The solution has helped to reduce our organization's DR testing as it allows our DR tests to proceed very quickly. We conduct several tests each year, with the process being very seamless. The saved time has been allocated to value-add tasks because it's one less thing we have to focus on when we can easily perform a DR test.
Although we have not had situations involving ransomware or other causes, HPE Zerto Software has saved us time in general-purpose recoveries.
Fortunately, we've not had to use HPE Zerto Software to reduce downtime in any cases, but we know that it works effectively.
What needs improvement?
My only suggestion for how HPE Zerto Software could be improved would be to integrate with other virtualization platforms, as many organizations are moving off of VMware, so having options there would be beneficial.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for probably close to eight to ten years, since before it was an HP product.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would describe the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software as consistently stable over the years. I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues with HPE Zerto Software.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software scales effectively with the growing needs of my organization as we just have a small footprint where we use it in our most production-oriented VMs, and it has scaled fine for our needs.
I have expanded the usage of HPE Zerto Software; it's a relatively small footprint, but it has grown a little bit over time, and it's been easy to include more VMs in our recovery.
How are customer service and support?
I cannot specifically evaluate customer service and technical support because I'm not usually the one to call support, but I've never heard complaints from others at my company who use it. On a scale from one to ten, I would rate customer service and technical support as probably a nine or ten, although I cannot really answer that since I haven't been the one to contact support.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, I was using traditional backup systems, which obviously don't have as low of RTOs and RPOs.
How was the initial setup?
It's easy to set up, configure, and performing a recovery is very straightforward with simple steps.
What was our ROI?
I have seen return on investment with HPE Zerto Software as it is affordable and definitely prevents us from needing to purchase other similar software.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing of HPE Zerto Software has been that the product has been affordable for us, so I have no complaints from a pricing standpoint.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, I considered other solutions, however, it's been so long ago that I don't remember. However, we have been consistently happy with it so we haven't shopped around.
In my evaluation process, what stood out positively was the ease of use, as the setup was simple, and performing the actual DR recoveries was extremely easy. My experience with deploying HPE Zerto Software has been smooth, particularly the setup with our VMware environment.
What other advice do I have?
We didn't really change from anything in particular, so the factors that led us to consider HPE Zerto Software were more of an add-on to a traditional backup system. My advice to other organizations considering HPE Zerto Software is to ensure it aligns with your needs, and to try to get a demo of it and go through a proof of concept.
I rate HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Workload mobility ensures uninterrupted operations during weather events and reduces recovery times
What is our primary use case?
The main use cases for the HPE Zerto Software include DR and Disaster Recovery.
How has it helped my organization?
The challenge my organization is trying to solve by implementing the HPE Zerto Software is being able to restore in a disaster quicker. During a weather event, we were able to move certain workloads from one data center to another with the HPE Zerto Software so that we could maintain operations.
What is most valuable?
The features I find most valuable about the HPE Zerto Software include the ability to move workloads from one location to another.
The near-synchronous replication used by HPE Zerto is crucial to my organization's business continuity, as many of our applications are customer-facing. With the ability to shift those applications without downtime, we can continue to access our applications.
The solution has helped me reduce downtime in situations where, during a weather event, we were able to maintain 100% of our operations.
Zerto has impacted our RTOs and RPOs, and these times have definitely decreased in our case compared to other disaster recovery solutions we have used.
I assess the solution's ease of use as fairly simple, particularly in terms of failing over workloads once I am able to configure the applications to do so. We utilize a store-once solution as our cyber vault, or immutable data copies, to ensure recovery from a cyber threat.
HPE Zerto Software has helped reduce our organization's DR testing from multiple days down to a single-digit day in terms of a full DR test, allowing us to test individual applications by themselves and decreasing our recovery times in order to have a shorter DR test.
What needs improvement?
I'm unsure of what can be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the HPE Zerto Software for about five years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of reliability, I describe the stability of the HPE Zerto Software as pretty solid, as I have not experienced any downtime, corruption, or performance issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The HPE Zerto Software scales fairly easily for my organization since we don't grow as fast, as long as we have the licensing in place.
How are customer service and support?
I evaluate the customer service for the HPE Zerto Software as overall very high in terms of support, including response time and technical expertise.
On a scale of one to ten, I give it an eight. The people I've worked with have been readily accessible and very knowledgeable.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
What stood out to me in the evaluation process when comparing other solutions is that Zerto seemed to offer more options in terms of platforms, both positively and negatively.
How was the initial setup?
My experience deploying the HPE Zerto Software involves some initial setup hurdles.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for HPE Zerto Software was that the pricing and setup cost were very manageable and cost-wise, it's manageable for small business.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting the HPE Zerto Software, we were looking at leveraging the native replication technology as potential solutions.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate the HPE Zerto Software overall as a nine out of ten, and my advice to other organizations considering the HPE Zerto Software is that if you're looking for an application that is easy to configure and has active-active type performance where you can have your applications set up for disaster recovery, it's a good tool.
Ensures disaster recovery with real-time replication and dependable failover capabilities
What is our primary use case?
Primarily, my main use case for HPE Zerto Software is disaster recovery for a specific set of VMs to another site that have no ability to run active-active.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto features have benefited my organization by providing peace of mind for our disaster recovery team to know they have a way to ensure that if something were to happen in a data center, they would be able to run and bring that load back up in the other data center.
What is most valuable?
The features I have found most valuable in HPE Zerto Software are the replication using the virtual VPGs.
My impressions of HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication are that it can stay real-time, which is how we want to run it. We don't usually worry about data points in time for multiples.
The real-time capability is what we're looking for. The near-synchronous replication is important to our organization for disaster recovery; since we're a medical center, we want to have the most up-to-date data possible before a disaster occurs.
The solution has not saved us time in a data recovery situation or ransomware cases since, luckily, we haven't experienced one. However, this is something we must build for to ensure preparedness.
The solution has impacted our RTOs and RPOs positively; most of our others were replication of LUNs themselves, which would have required the storage team to bring those LUNs up active.
It has allowed us to handle it ourselves at our administrative level. The solution has helped reduce our organization's DR testing thanks to how easy it is to do a failover test or failover move to the other site and run it there briefly. We set up reverse replication and then fail back. It makes the process easy and seamless, with short downtimes that help teams have confidence they could get systems running fairly quickly if needed.
I would assess the solution's ease of use as fairly easy to use and administer. The interface is intuitive, and for unknown aspects, research makes everything clear.
What needs improvement?
Outside of disaster recovery, we are looking to leverage HPE Zerto Software for converting from VMware loads to Hyper-V. We have been doing testing and have concerns that support for Hyper-V ending with 9.7. Now that Broadcom has created an opportunity in the market, we're looking at Hyper-V. We also have a Microsoft ELA. Continuing support on Hyper-V is something we would want to explore.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The system has been stable and reliable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The software has scaled with the growing needs of my organization. We initially started with less than 100 different VMs, and now we're up to around 300, so we've tripled our usage.
How are customer service and support?
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the technical support or customer support that I received between seven and eight based on our previous experiences.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, we were not using another application; we were using array-based replication.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment was fairly easy. The upgrades are okay. We've run into minor things before. If we can't figure it out, usually, support has been very, helpful about getting us enough and running. I've heard no complaints. It's easy to work with, and if we need to exceed the license and true up quickly, we're not inhibited.
What was our ROI?
On the technical side, I have seen a return on investment. The amount of time for doing the DR test helps with the administrators when they're working with the application support. It saves us time since it's easy enough to do, and with our documentation, our admins can typically complete the process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing of HPE Zerto Software has been indirect. The feedback I receive indicates it is simple and easy. We don't purchase many licenses as we do a specific set of workloads.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, we were primarily using array-based replication for DR, and our team wanted to move away from that approach.
What other advice do I have?
The challenges my organization was trying to solve by implementing HPE Zerto Software include handling failover from one data center to another and having resiliency if there was a failure since they could only run it in one location. While we haven't had a disaster, we do conduct failovers and they work effectively.
Everything we put online goes through a test process to ensure functionality.
The solution has not helped reduce downtime as we haven't needed it for that purpose. It has served as an insurance policy.
We are currently working on a Cyber Vault solution. The most important capabilities when choosing a Cyber Vault solution include ease of use, resilience, and a proven track record. HPE Zerto Software met these requirements for us. For a Cyber Vault solution, we're exploring different options based on specific requirements.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the product overall as an eight, mainly due to considerations regarding Hyper-V support if we were using it to move workloads, not just for DR. Additional capabilities in these areas would be helpful and potentially generate more business.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Failover and data protection ensure reliable disaster recovery
What is our primary use case?
Our main use cases for HPE Zerto Software are disaster recovery and replication to the cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
Zerto features benefit our organization by protecting us in times of need. I work in Louisiana, so in case of any natural disasters, we have the protection that we can fail over to the cloud quickly if needed.
What is most valuable?
The feature I appreciate the most in HPE Zerto Software is the move or the failover buttons. It protects the data without requiring a hard cutover or failover. It shuts down the server and ensures all data is protected before moving it from on-premises to the cloud or back from the cloud to on-premises.
It's easy to use. It's simple. You just put the server you want in a VPG and make sure it's replicating and moving to the cloud and you hit protect.
The solution helped reduce downtime for DR testing. It would have cost my organization significant downtime as we would have had to find alternative methods to fail servers from one data center to another data center, and we would have needed more help. We probably would have had to bring in consultants if needed.
HPE Zerto Software has impacted my RTOs and RPOs with amazing results; they're in seconds. Compared to the other DR solutions I've used, the others seemed slow, manual, and clunky. HPE Zerto Software is fast, simple, and fits in our hybrid cloud model.
The solution has helped to reduce our organization's DR testing time. DR used to take hours to fail over servers. We fail over 800 servers for our DR test, which would take hours with older or legacy DR solutions. Now, it takes minutes. We can leave it up there, get our test smoke test in the isolated environment and it just works.
I have a really good impression of HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication. It works very efficiently. Sometimes it gets choppy, but once implemented, it's fast. Replication is fast and the journal copy allows picking minutes and seconds for failover timing.
Near-synchronous replication is very important to our organization. In the healthcare industry, there are three main things: care, claims, and trust. If you can't process claims or do transactions, the company is in a bad state. The solution has saved us time in data recovery situations due to moving from on-prem to Azure.
I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues over the last three months. However, over my eight years working with HPE Zerto Software, I have experienced some downtime and crashes during upgrades.
What needs improvement?
HPE Zerto Software can be improved for automation. I would appreciate more integration with vCenter in the next release and how we can protect our production servers and automatically get them put into a VPG. That's what I'm working with right now to try to build automation for it. If HPE Zerto Software has it built-in where we're going to vCenter and you click on it, it will build the VPG and indicate configuration requirements, that would be amazing.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've been using HPE Zerto Software for about eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would assess the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software as very stable. We had a rough patch during the migration from Windows to Linux. Now it's great. It's very stable and easy to use, and it helps me whenever I'm in a bind.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software scales with the growing needs of my organization very efficiently. If you need to add anything, either memory or CPU, you can shut down servers while everything continues replicating in the background. As long as you have your VRA set up correctly on the host, you're good. We have expanded our usage significantly. We have about seven servers on-prem, and we have about 15 servers in Azure. Before that, we had four. We just had to add three more recently to keep up with what the firm wanted.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate customer service and technical support as having had a rough patch. Since the beginning of this year, it's been amazing. I would prefer more customer service focused in the Azure realm. I've found there aren't many cloud, Azure, HPE Zerto support techs. Other than that, it's been great. I always get help. Someone always knows what to do, and if I have any issues, I bring the issues to them.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Negative
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, I was using VMware to address similar needs. It came down to performance, cost, support, and scalability. HPE Zerto Software handled all of these factors.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience with deploying HPE Zerto Software as easy. Going over to the OVA, setting the IP address, and going straight to the webpage to start building your VPGs is straightforward. If you have a server on Windows, you can install the OVA on Windows as also. The OVA setup process involves putting in your IP, setting it up, getting your IP address, putting your subnet mask, and proceeding from there.
What was our ROI?
I can't speak of return on investment with HPE Zerto Software. My understanding is it has provided value through helping with our disaster recovery testing.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing and setup cost for HPE Zerto Software is great. I've had help with Sean, Avishai, and Ashton Meyers. They have been tremendous with helping with the licensing and pricing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I've looked at many different DR solutions before selecting HPE Zerto Software. I've used solutions from Microsoft and VMware, and HPE Zerto Software has been the best so far. What stood out to me in my evaluation process were the speed of recovery, cloud flexibility, and the way that it can keep up with the changing pace of my company.
What other advice do I have?
Any company looking for a disaster recovery solution should give HPE Zerto Software a try. The ease of use and multi-cloud capabilities with AWS, Azure, Google, and private cloud integration are valuable features. Now that they're with HPE, they remain hypervisor agnostic. Companies should conduct a POC to see how it works and how easy it is to use.
I rate HPE Zerto Software nine out of ten.
Failover testing ensures seamless operation with swift recovery
What is our primary use case?
We have two data centers, so we use HPE Zerto Software for site recovery. We fail over, run out of one data center, then we fail back and run out of the other, and we do failover testing.
How has it helped my organization?
We were using VMC on AWS with VMware replication. The challenge was it had a five-minute RTO and we wanted something faster. At the time, HPE Zerto Software didn't support VMC on AWS, which was actually our first choice. Then we had a mandate to build a new data center.
We wanted both physical locations, so we went that direction and decided to go with HPE Zerto Software. We wanted something that we could fail over quickly, have minimal recovery times, and make sure that we could come up quickly. We use the move feature in HPE Zerto Software probably the most, moving from data center to data center. It allows us to meet with our compliance regulations to test our DR site and run in our DR site with seamless operation.
We've proven a few times that we can fail over within a very short window, and it works very well. Our RTO with HPE Zerto Software is less than five seconds. It is extremely important. We work in the financial industry, and being able to fail over and know that we can bring that server up within a very short window and that the data is going to be accurate means we're not having to go back and rework a day's worth of data. That's what we wanted and that's what we got.
What is most valuable?
The failover test option in HPE Zerto Software is the most valuable at this point since we can validate that things are going to come up, that the data is valid, and then tear it back down without having to interrupt the users.
It's extremely easy to use HPE Zerto Software.
Our first failover test went flawlessly. We failed over our entire data center, approximately 200 VMs in half an hour - very fast. This last fast failover, we ran into a couple of hiccups. Working with support, we found we need to do more testing in between our main failovers since we've actually had an 11% failure rate of things not coming up. They advised us to test, validate, and then resync if needed, so we're learning from it.
We haven't experienced any ransomware yet with HPE Zerto Software. Regarding time savings, it has definitely been beneficial. Once we've got it set up and can manage it, it really is a time saver.
We haven't had a situation where we've had to use it to reduce downtime. Comparing it to our other failover solution, the speed is notable. We used to schedule an eight-hour day to do this, and now we're scheduling a half an hour, which saves us significant time on weekends.
Regarding RTOs and RPOs with HPE Zerto Software, we can look at it and know exactly where every VPG is regarding recovery time. The speed to move it over and bring it up is extremely efficient for us.
The solution has helped reduce our organization's DR testing. Previously, we would isolate our DR and test in a defined bubble just to validate the data was there and users could access it. Now we can fail it over to our backup data center and actively run there. We can fail it back and run both locations in an active-active mode with HPE Zerto Software, which we hadn't been able to do before.
It has allowed us to trim the team down and focus on other tasks without constantly worrying about disaster recovery. We know it's there and we can validate and test it through our monthly procedures.
What needs improvement?
When we did our test this year with HPE Zerto Software, we had some failures that we weren't expecting. The challenge was realizing there was data corruption, and fortunately we found it before we committed the failover, so we could fail back. We could resync it, and we weren't in an actual disaster. If there's any way to validate that data on the recovery site without having to manually go in and do failover testing and try to validate, that would be a feature that would be really nice. We're not sure why we had some corruption, however, we did the resync and it seemed to bring it back up and fix the problem. That's probably the biggest area I'd ask about - some way of validating the recovery sites in an automated fashion.
For how long have I used the solution?
We started using HPE Zerto Software in April last year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't had any crashes or performance issues with HPE Zerto Software, except trying to figure out why we had some data corruption. Overall, it seems to be functioning very well. Support's biggest recommendation was that we just need to do more failover testing and validate.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have not expanded our usage of HPE Zerto Software.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support I received from HPE Zerto Software has been very good. I haven't had any complaints about the support we receive. I would rate it a nine or ten. When I ask them a question, they give me a very quick response.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were using SRM before selecting HPE Zerto Software. From attending different conferences, HPE Zerto Software was where I wanted to get to, however, at the time, our disaster recovery site wasn't allowing for it. Comparing SRM to HPE Zerto Software, I really prefer using HPE Zerto Software. It's easier to group, set up. I can see really quickly what things are doing and I feel a lot more comfortable that things are working.
How was the initial setup?
Setup was extremely fast, and we had the system up and running within a couple of days. Our biggest hold-up was getting the network configured correctly. For training, we were able to take some online courses that got us up to speed very quickly.
What about the implementation team?
During the setup for HPE Zerto Software, we were working with a technician who could walk us through it and that worked really well for us.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Since we just got HPE Zerto Software, our pricing didn't seem too high. Our renewal is next year.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We used SRM before adopting HPE Zerto Software to address similar needs.
What other advice do I have?
My rating for HPE Zerto Software would be ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Efficiently manages data replication and reduces downtime in our corporate IT environment
What is our primary use case?
We started using HPE Zerto Software for the disaster recovery (DR) segment. For DR implementation, we are using the HPE Zerto Software tool.
How has it helped my organization?
HPE Zerto Software helped to reduce downtime in our corporate IT environment, and it was a very smooth dry run. In our corporate IT environment where we used HPE Zerto Software, it was a good experience regarding RTOs and RPOs.
HPE Zerto Software is very quick. It reduces our DR testing and takes less than 30 minutes.
What is most valuable?
To copy the data from one site to another site, HPE Zerto Software is a very powerful tool. We have two environments, Dell and HPE, so now it's very easy to move files from one place to another with HPE Zerto Software.
HPE Zerto Software is a very good tool with ease of access. We can easily move data from one place to another and replicate it. To manage two types of data centers, DC and DR, HPE Zerto Software is a very useful tool. Replication with the HPE Zerto Software is very smooth.
What needs improvement?
The migration part of the HPE Zerto Software is already there. In terms of improvement, we have VMware and Nutanix, and we are looking for solutions to perform migration between these two setups to save costs.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used HPE Zerto Software for more than a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues with HPE Zerto Software.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We are expanding the usage of HPE Zerto Software currently from a two-node to more nodes.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support for the HPE Zerto Software is good and very quick. Whenever we raise tickets, we generally get the solution fast. I would rate the technical support of HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten because when we raise technical issues, they can take a little time but they do provide a solution.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Earlier we were not using any other solution for DR. We recently started using HPE Zerto Software for DR.
How was the initial setup?
We have two environments. There's a corporate IT environment and a smart city environment. We have done the implementation in the corporate IT, and it was very smooth. We had a good experience with the solution.
During the implementation, we encountered no major challenges. Everything is working smoothly, and the implementation process is very quick. The partner support has been excellent. Currently, we are using an on-premises setup with two data centers. One data center serves as our primary data center, while the other acts as a disaster recovery site.
What was our ROI?
It's still in the implementation stage, but we have seen an ROI.
We have not had any incidents of ransomware. The cost of any downtime for our organization would be approximately $10,000.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for the HPE Zerto Software was good.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We started the communication with HPE for HPE Zerto Software for DR, and did not look around at other solutions. HPE Zerto Software was already in place, so we started using it for DR.
What other advice do I have?
We are using Fortinet as a cyber vault solution, but in the future, we can explore other options. DDoS attacks and other aspects have to be covered in the next version of our cyber vault solution approach.
I would rate HPE Zerto Software a ten out of ten. It offers ease of access and fast implementation.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Impressive performance and peace of mind with robust connectivity capabilities
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for HPE Zerto Software include multiple applications. Fortunately, I haven't needed to use it for disaster recovery yet.
We use it to recover from badly developed software that we implement in production. We use it to clone machines to other hypervisors. Additionally, we have it replicated in case we need disaster recovery.
How has it helped my organization?
HPE Zerto Software's features have benefited my organization significantly. I can sleep peacefully now. If I encounter a problem in the future, I have a solution since I have two data centers connected to a WAN connection, and all my business-critical machines are replicated on that side. We are also making a plan to include this in a cloud vault to be more secure.
For instance, we had to use it once when a developer put some problematic code into production over a weekend. This broke the entire database and the sales software we had in production. It took us only 1.5 minutes to restore everything.
What is most valuable?
The feature of HPE Zerto Software that I find most impressive is its ability to work with one connection. This is remarkable. Normally, you need a full fiber connection, such as a dark fiber, to go point-to-point to have low RPO. Currently, we are achieving an eight-second RPO with just a 100 megabit connection.
It's easy to use. We don't need formal training.
It performs its intended functions effectively. In my country, we often have discussions with people who believe it's a backup system. It isn't.
The near-synchronous replication is very good. It's amazing. It's important for us in the manufacturing industry, and we cannot lose our systems for more than a few minutes. Every minute means a lot of money wasted.
It's helped reduce downtime in certain situations. We now have a 1.5-minute recovery time. It's saving us tons of money. For every ten minutes down, we can lose thousands of dollars in production.
It's positively affected our RTOs and RPOs. I've never seen anything like this. It's almost like magic. It's very good. In the worst case, we might have 11 seconds of RPOs.
What needs improvement?
HPE Zerto Software could be improved by including everything in the same package. If I had to suggest an improvement, I would want everything in the same package, such as HPE Zerto Software and Veeam together. Currently, I have to administer them separately, which can be more complicated for the infrastructure team. That would be beneficial.
Regarding critical features, I don't see anything more than what HPE Zerto Software is already providing.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I assess the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software as good. I haven't experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues. Though it's not perfect, when HPE Zerto Software encounters problems, they provide a notice or email, and the system recovers automatically.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's easy to scale simply by buying more licenses.
How are customer service and support?
I evaluate customer service and technical support for HPE Zerto Software as very good. The service in my country has been excellent.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate customer service and technical support as ten because the HP team addresses all our problems and questions. They visit our plant and assist with installation and everything else.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, we are planning to implement Alletra. We need full flash for the next step in our infrastructure planning to make it more resilient and faster.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience deploying HPE Zerto Software as very easy and efficient. We implemented it into production in just two hours.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with HPE Zerto Software, though it's difficult to quantify as our business is not IT-based. The company will certainly see the value if we encounter issues with ransomware or similar problems.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with HPE Zerto Software regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been positive. The pricing is favorable, especially when compared to a metro cluster.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, I didn't see another comparable solution. It currently stands unique in the market.
What other advice do I have?
My advice for other organizations considering HPE Zerto Software is to try it and prepare to be surprised. You will lower your costs. That's the ultimate goal.
On a scale of one to ten, this solution deserves a rating of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Efficient data recovery and robust file restoration streamline operations
What is our primary use case?
We use the HPE Zerto Software for multiple different things, including real-time monitoring and restoring and recovering of files, long-term retention of restoring long-term backups, and disaster recovery, where we store things into the vault and things of that nature. We also have the Zerto vault outside of that, so we use Zerto and the Zerto vault.
How has it helped my organization?
The challenges our organization has tried to solve by implementing the HPE Zerto Software revolve around protection, as it's a threat world now, so we're trying to mitigate as much risk as we can and trying to limit downtime. If we do get attacked and there is an infection, we can restore that data quickly and have it up.
What is most valuable?
The feature of the HPE Zerto Software I appreciate the most is the ease of use of single file restores, which is something we use frequently. Zerto features have benefited our organization significantly since we have many end users that delete files, and instead of taking the time to restore whole data stores and implement that, we can actually just click on Zerto and have that file restored from an hour ago in less than a few minutes.
My impressions of the HPE Zerto's near-synchronous replication are that it's hugely important, as that's what keeps me protected. The solution hasn't saved us any time in a data recovery situation due to ransomware or other causes yet, as fortunately, we've never had to use it for that instance.
The HPE Zerto Software has impacted our RTOs and RPOs by reducing our recoveries from days to a few hours, while previously we were using all VMware Nimble snapshots to back up all our data stores, which resulted in a three-day restore, while now we can recover in hours. The solution hasn't decreased our organization's DR testing time; in fact, it has increased it because we use it as a tool in our healthcare business, doing it every month to verify that everything is working correctly.
We actually use the Zerto Cyber Vault solution to ensure recovery from cyber threats. When considering a Cyber Vault solution, the capability of immutable backups is most important to us.
What needs improvement?
The HPE Zerto Software could be improved by including the ability to use FIDO keys or some kind of hard token for local accounts, not just a straight password or an external MFA, but a physical token. Additionally, I'd appreciate the ability for direct-attached storage, not just Nimble storage, VNF, both volumes. I would also prefer to have some way to scan inside the vault of datastores that are already there.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using the HPE Zerto Software for a little over probably a good ten years or so.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I assess the stability and reliability of the HPE Zerto Software as very robust, with no real performance issues experienced; it just works and is easy to use.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and technical support are very good; we've never had any issues, and if we have, it's resolved very quickly. On a scale from one to ten, I rate the customer service or technical support an eight, as it's very quick to respond and get things fixed.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting the HPE Zerto Software, I wasn't using another solution to address familiar needs.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience with deploying the HPE Zerto Software as straightforward and simple.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting the HPE Zerto Software, we considered Veeam, Cohesity, and ExaGrid, and for us, it was a matter of cost and the ease of file-level restores that stood out during the evaluation process.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate the HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten and advise other organizations to consider it due to its ease of use, simple installation, and easy maintenance.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Enables fast restores and optimizes disaster recovery testing
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for HPE Zerto Software is the replication of data to a DR site.
How has it helped my organization?
HPE Zerto Software has helped tremendously with my organization's RTO and RPO, bringing it down to an hour rather than taking 12 hours to restore data the traditional way.
When we were trying to bring the disaster recovery side up, we had an issue with the VMs not coming up. We had to go back and restore. The solution has saved me time in data recovery situations. During DR tests, we were bringing the site up within the first couple of hours. With a different solution I previously used, it would have taken 24 hours to 4 hours to recover.
HPE Zerto Software has helped me reduce my organization's DR testing. Instead of three times, we do it once. Rather than spending time preparing for the test configuration to do a full restore, with HPE Zerto Software replication, it's automatically up within an hour, and then we can start our testing.
What is most valuable?
The feature of HPE Zerto Software that I appreciate the most is its ease of use. This feature has helped tremendously in getting our DR plan easy to implement.
My impressions of HPE Zerto's near-synchronous replication are very good. Near-synchronous replication is very important to my organization, and we are using it every day. It works consistently.
What needs improvement?
HPE Zerto Software could be improved in the future with easier upgrades. I am not aware of any additional features I would like to see included in the next release.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for a long time.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would assess the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software as very stable. I have experienced some issues sometimes during upgrades. Other than that, it runs smoothly.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have expanded usage, and the process was smooth.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate customer service and technical support as second-hand support since I am not the primary customer for HPE Zerto. I use them through my DR services. I would rate the customer service and technical support a nine out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, I was using regular recovery and backup restore systems to address similar needs.
How was the initial setup?
Deployment of HPE Zerto Software was streamlined. It worked quickly and sufficiently.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with HPE Zerto Software. Fast restores are a notable example. It saves us a lot of time and gives us the ability to perform other DR plans for other systems.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's provided by the DR replication vendor, so it's not a direct cost to us.
What other advice do I have?
We are considering a cyber vault solution as part of our infrastructure. When choosing a cyber vault solution, the capabilities that are most important to us are fast recovery against ransomware and the ability to do multiple checkpoints.
My advice to another organization considering HPE Zerto Software is to go for it.
I would rate HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten.