I use HPE Zerto Software for planning disaster recovery and for provisioning the CIs, especially during the exercise phase. We use HPE Zerto Software to protect VMs in our environment. Regarding HPE Zerto Software for disaster recovery, minor challenges exist, but it meets the requirement at approximately 80%. We do not look into HPE Zerto Software for incident downtimes; we only use it for crisis situations. HPE Zerto Software is saving time, especially with RTOs and RPOs being reduced for business-level applications, which has brought down recovery time. Most often, support issues are handled internally; if we require anything, we raise a case, and the operational team follows up.
HPE Zerto Software for AWS - Disaster Recovery
Hewlett Packard EnterpriseExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Enhancements in recovery processes and operational efficiency achieved
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
One advantage of HPE Zerto Software is that it helps in provisioning, becomes easy, much faster, and it also stores historical information. It's good; I won't say it's excellent, but it's meeting some requirements, though for other requirements, I have to rely on other software as well.
There has been a significant impact from using HPE Zerto Software because our provisioning times have reduced drastically. The time to complete the exercises has come down, and we were able to identify and cross-check the RTO and RPO values as well. Using HPE Zerto Software has helped us in reducing the RTO and RPO values.
Overall, it still requires reliance on other software for manual work such as cross-checking and validations, which takes additional time, but the runbook execution is quicker. The 20% challenges relate to reliance on other software for cross-checking the logs. After implementation, the recovery times have improved by approximately 50% to 60%.
What needs improvement?
The main improvements needed are related to historical data comparison and analytics, and the challenges involve reliance on other software and cross-checking logs. If we could have an end-to-end DR solution in one environment, it would be much easier without relying on multiple tools. The biggest area for improvement in HPE Zerto Software is probably in historical data comparison and enhanced analytics. Future features should reduce reliance on cross-checking logs and other solutions.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for three years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I find HPE Zerto Software relatively stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software is also scalable.
How are customer service and support?
I haven't checked the technical support part for HPE Zerto Software; I need to talk to my team about it. Most often, support issues are handled internally; if we require anything, we raise a case, and the operational team follows up.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Regarding ease of use and recovery speed, I recall IBM being used previously, but I wasn't there then, so I didn't get a chance to compare HPE Zerto Software with that. I think HPE Zerto Software was better compared to IBM, as the RTOs and RPOs are improving continuously, with the ability to execute exercises becoming quicker.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I haven't looked into options apart from HPE Zerto Software yet, but before the license renewal, we shall start that activity within six months. We typically refer to Gartner's quadrant to identify market leaders for comparison, focusing on the leaders part. There are no specific security examples that made me decide to switch solutions; my main concerns are around costing and compatibility with different environments.
Currently, our team has implemented another solution because HPE Zerto Software couldn't be expanded to that environment, so capability is a restricting factor. A unified solution would be a good bet for future comparisons.
What other advice do I have?
HPE Zerto Software helps in provisioning, making it easy and faster, and it also stores historical information. It's good but not excellent, as it meets some requirements while requiring other software for additional functionalities. I use a solution for disaster recovery in the cloud, but that's specific to the cloud environment. I don't get into the pricing layer for HPE Zerto Software and haven't gathered much information from the vendor. I would rate HPE Zerto Software as 8 out of 10.
Automated failover facilitates rapid recovery between data centers
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for using the HPE Zerto Software is disaster recovery.
How has it helped my organization?
The ability to fail workloads over between data centers has benefited my organization significantly. HPE Zerto Software's continuous data replication is very important to my organization.
What is most valuable?
The features I appreciate the most about HPE Zerto Software are the automated failover and orchestration, and then the journal for point-in-time recovery.
I don't use HPE Zerto Software directly; it's used by my team, however, they're very complimentary of it.
It's easy to use and does what it says.
HPE Zerto Software has impacted my RTOs or RPOs, and the recovery speed has improved significantly compared to other disaster recovery solutions I've used; it's been really good. An example is that our snapshots were only every 15 minutes, but with HPE Zerto Software replication, our recovery times are in seconds, not minutes.
The solution has helped to reduce my organization's DR testing. I do not know by how much. We haven't reallocated the time saved to other tasks; it just allows us to do more DR testing and recovery, enabling us to go faster in that space.
I am currently using a cyber vault solution for immutable data copies to ensure recovery from a cyberattack. We have multiple solutions: we use Commvault, Cloud MRR, and we also use safe mode on all of our pure storage. When considering a cyber vault solution, cost is probably the most important factor first, and then simplicity to implement.
What needs improvement?
To improve HPE Zerto Software, I would suggest that the upgrade process is a little bit average and challenging at the moment, rather than necessarily adding features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the HPE Zerto Software for two and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I assess the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software as being fine. I only had one small issue a while ago, and that was fixed eventually; it was just one small issue. It didn't cause an outage.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
To date, HPE Zerto Software has scaled fine for the growing needs of my organization. I have expanded usage. The expansion process was very smooth.
How are customer service and support?
I evaluate the technical support for HPE Zerto Software as okay, about average. On a scale of one to ten for technical support/customer service, I would give them a seven.
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 another solution that addresses similar needs: storage replication. The factor that led me to consider a change was capability.
How was the initial setup?
We didn't really go through an evaluation process, so I can't elaborate on what stood out in that regard.
What about the implementation team?
We used a partner to support us, and it took us a while to get it working. Now it's embedded and it's working.
What was our ROI?
I have not seen a return on investment with HPE Zerto Software, and nothing specific comes to mind.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing has been fine.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, I considered just standard backup solutions.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to another organization considering using HPE Zerto Software is to go for it.
Overall, I would rate HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Deploys disaster recovery quickly and improves recovery speed while reducing testing time
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for HPE Zerto Software are disaster recovery and replication.
What is most valuable?
The features of HPE Zerto Software that I enjoy the most are the ease of setting up the protection groups and the ease of doing testing, such as failover tests.
The near-synchronous replication is crucial as we don't want any data loss, which is critical.
The quick setup of disaster recovery environments helps streamline our DR testing.
HPE Zerto Software has reduced both my RTOs and RPOs. Its recovery speed is much faster than other disaster recovery solutions and much easier to use. I can recover one of our tier zero SQL servers and have it up and running in under ten minutes. If I were using one of our backup products, that would take hours.
It has helped to reduce the time it takes for our organization's DR testing, reducing it by days. The big benefit is that I can set up that environment and people can test, but if something happened and we needed to redeploy that environment, it's very quick and easy. It has reduced the overall time for the DR testing, including the testing process to make sure the applications are working.
HPE Zerto Software, as far as the replication, had near-synchronous replication, which made our RPOs better. It was easier to use, easier to recover from, so it was far superior for that purpose. Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, we were using our backup system to test DR.
What needs improvement?
I don't have any recommendations regarding how HPE Zerto Software can be improved or what additional features should be included in the next release.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for a year and a half, about 18 months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have experienced issues with downtime, crashes, and performance with HPE Zerto Software. When we first deployed it, we were replicating to AVS, and we've done DR tests where we've left that test environment running for a significant period and had issues with the amount of storage space it was using. Sometimes the VMs become unstable when they're running too long.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software scales well with the growing needs of my organization because we haven't had any issues there.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate customer service and technical support for HPE Zerto Software as good. Any case I've opened, they've been very responsive. I would give them a ten out of ten. They're very responsive and knowledgeable. They've helped me with all my issues.
How would you rate customer service and support?
How was the initial setup?
I found the deployment to be easy.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for HPE Zerto Software was great. It was not overly expensive, and deployment was easy.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, I considered Rubrik, which has orchestrated recovery plans, and we've tried using those. HPE Zerto Software was much easier to use.
What other advice do I have?
The solution has not helped to reduce downtime in any situations.
The advice I would give to other organizations considering HPE Zerto Software is to do it. If you need a good recovery product, HPE Zerto Software is fantastic.
I rate HPE Zerto Software a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Facilitates seamless disaster recovery simulations and rapid application migrations
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for HPE Zerto Software involve active-passive application setups since I can't do an active-active; we do a standby and use Zerto to replicate that across to an alternate data center to practice as a DR.
I practice it to migrate to new IPs as needed and things like that. I haven't experienced any ransomware issues yet, so I haven't had to use HPE Zerto Software in a data recovery situation. It wasn't applicable for our exercises against the CrowdStrike failure that impacted the entire world, however, we recovered from that in different ways. The only time we've actually had to use this as a DR event was during practice; we haven't had to use it as active DR since we have active-active solutions that rely on global traffic managers.
The data is already in place; they just open up to see it in a different environment. So we haven't had to use it as DR, but in our DR practice, it has been working very effectively.
How has it helped my organization?
An example of how the replication feature has benefited my organization is when we were migrating from a legacy stack of hardware to a new stack using HPE Zerto Software. We were able to move hundreds of VMs at a time during a change window because the replication had already moved the data there; we just needed to cut over the active workload. It was as simple as turning it off, migrating, and turning it back on in a new space, which enabled us to run 200 plus applications in each change window during our migration from a 16-month deployment down to a three-month deployment.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect of HPE Zerto Software is that it solves an impossible solution that VMware did not. We previously used a storage-based replication tool and coordinated with SRM for the cutover. That storage tool was no longer available when we started using VSAN. We no longer have a Fibre Channel system in the mix and were used to getting kind of DVR level, rolling it back to a millisecond to write-by-write level of recovery. VMware didn't have that available to us in vSphere replication, leaving us with a 10-minute choice while we needed sub-one minute. Zerto provides us with a seven-to-eight-second RTO and which allows us to meet the needs of our application teams with very sensitive applications.
The feature I appreciate the most about HPE Zerto Software is its fantastic replication and advanced problem-solving capabilities. We use it for both migration and DR.
It's easy to use; my POC took half a day to set up.
Zerto's near synchronous replication works very, very well.
What needs improvement?
I hesitate to offer improvements for HPE Zerto Software since I appreciate it so much; the user interface is good, and the actual data under the hood is good. It keeps working, it's fast.
However, it could benefit from tighter integration with VMware. They have a head start on proving that the new version will work. When cybersecurity events happen and we have a new release that we need to deploy quickly, they have a 90-day window to remediate that, but I need to deploy it before them, and I can't.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using HPE Zerto Software for about two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I assess the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software as 100%.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software has been able to scale with our growing needs, and I've been happy with how it's been scaling; it's been smooth. The scaling has been smooth and satisfactory.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support has always responded well when we have a problem, although that has gotten a little bit less since HPE purchased it. It was a bit better when it was Zerto before the acquisition; we get into the main queue more often now, but we can escalate very quickly.
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 used a combination solution with vSphere Replication and SRM alongside a Fibre Channel solution from EMC called the Virtual Replication Appliance. It had really good RTO, which we were trying to match with our new infrastructure, and the only solution we found to meet that need was HPE Zerto Software.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience with the deployment of HPE Zerto Software as very smooth and very easy.
What was our ROI?
It's hard to say if I've seen a return on investment; we haven't had anything break yet, so quantifying a return on investment for insurance is quite difficult. We have a solution that's ready to play, and we hope we never have to use it, similar to buying insurance on a house—you don't want to find out if it truly has to pay.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The setup cost for HPE Zerto Software was very favorable, and pricing wasn't much of an issue since it was the only choice available.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, the only other solution we considered was vSphere Replication with SRM; that was the only one that fit into our environment, and I don't care what its new name is since we're not using it.
What other advice do I have?
Having a solid solution like HPE Zerto Software means we can effectively solve our DR problem. We can't reduce our DR testing since all our vital apps do it twice a year, and the less vital ones do it once a year.
I am currently using a Cyber Vault solution or immutable data copies to ensure recovery from a cyber threat, integrated with the backup solution we have today, which is a Cohesity product they call Fort Knox. The approach for that is in the storage department's domain, and I leave them to do their own business.
The most important capabilities for me when choosing a Cyber Vault solution would again be continuity, even though this is outside my scope.
HPE Zerto Software hasn't yet reduced our downtime in any situation; we haven't had an event where it would be helpful. We've built in suspenders kind of things. We are managed service providers and use HPE Zerto Software on-prem with a private setup. We're not using any cloud providers for that; we have a cloud-at-customer solution.
Overall, I assess HPE Zerto Software as a product and would give it about 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?
Continuous data protection and rapid recovery improve disaster recovery processes significantly
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for the HPE Zerto Software are VMware, to do DR to the cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
We wanted less time for recovery, which this solution provided.
Luckily, we haven't had a disaster yet, however, during our DR tests. It provides us with peace of mind.
What is most valuable?
The features of HPE Zerto Software that I appreciate the most are the continuous data protection and the ability to test.
The continuous replication has been very important to our company.
HPE Zerto Software has positively impacted my RTOs and RPOs. With the old software, we were talking a few hours to maybe a couple of days to recover a server, whereas with HPE Zerto Software, it's just a matter of minutes.
The solution has significantly helped to reduce my organization's DR testing. Our full DR test has been reduced to a couple of hours instead of a few days. The actual test in HPE Zerto Software itself is just a matter of six, seven hours.
My organization wanted near-real-time backup and recovery by implementing the HPE Zerto Software. A lot of that saved time has been allocated to value-add tasks; it's been great. We've been able to do other things.
What needs improvement?
The HPE Zerto Software can be improved with more visibility. It's really hard to find out what stores and what drives I'm using, and then to translate that over to the cloud solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the HPE Zerto Software for about a year and a half now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I assess the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software as excellent. We have not had any issues with the solution at all.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software scales really with the growing needs of my organization. I've just moved to different clusters of VMs.
How are customer service and support?
I evaluate my customer service and technical support experience as great. On a scale from one being the worst to ten being the best, I would rate my customer service/technical support as a ten out of ten. They've been great.
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 was using another solution to address similar needs, and it was mainly for performance. The RTO and RPO for our critical systems were just too long with the other solutions.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience with deploying HPE Zerto Software as positive. The install went smoothly. I didn't really need support at all.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with HPE Zerto Software.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing of the HPE Zerto Software was positive. We were one of the lucky ones who got it before the price hikes, so it was a pretty good price. It costs a lot more now.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, I considered using Veeam. We're still using it for our backups, but for DR, it just wasn't cutting it.
What other advice do I have?
The capability that is most important when choosing my Cyber Vault solution is the ability to be completely air-gapped from your network. It would probably have taken a couple of hours to a few days for me to recover with a different solution that I have used. The solution has not helped me reduce downtime in any situation before I had HPE Zerto Software.
I am currently using a Cyber Vault solution or immutable data copies to ensure recovery from cyber threats.
My advice to another organization that's considering the HPE Zerto Software is to do it without a second thought.
On a scale of one to ten, I rate the HPE Zerto Software a nine.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Continuous backup capabilities and peace of mind through effective data protection against ransomware
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for HPE Zerto Software are to replicate the VM machines to a disaster recovery center and for disaster recovery scenarios.
How has it helped my organization?
While I cannot provide a specific example where these features helped my organization since we haven't had a real recovery scenario, it provides peace of mind knowing our data is protected and we can always return to previous checkpoints.
What is most valuable?
The features of HPE Zerto Software that I value most are its continuous backup capabilities, its effectiveness against ransomware, and the ability to return to any checkpoint in the past. That is probably the best feature. My impressions of HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication are that it provides numerous checkpoints with the ability to go back, which I think is the most important feature.
What needs improvement?
We encountered some issues with HPE Zerto Software.
The main concern involves the Delta Sync that triggers when changing the recovery direction. For large virtual machines of several terabytes, this process can take considerable time. As a bank, we are required by regulators to run regular DRC scenario testing for one week from the DRC site.
When changing replication, the Delta Sync takes approximately six hours for six terabyte virtual machines. During this time, the virtual machine is inaccessible. If another major issue arose requiring us to return to the PDC, we would have to wait six hours for the Delta Sync to complete, which would result in a test failure. This represents our biggest challenge.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for approximately one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Regarding the stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software, there are occasional warnings and sometimes replication stops for various reasons. However, overall, it is stable and reliable. I would rate it eight points out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support for HPE Zerto Software is very good. I have opened several cases, and their responses were consistently quick. In most instances, we resolved the issue or they provided proper guidance on how to proceed.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before implementing HPE Zerto Software, we used SRM, the VMware solution. We also considered building all machines in the DRC as alternatives. However, we abandoned this design as it would have created more complications, requiring the application team to release applications on both sides.
Our organization implemented HPE Zerto Software to address the challenge of maintaining a functional disaster recovery scenario. Prior to HPE Zerto Software, we used VMware, but due to VMware's license policy changes, we anticipated significantly higher costs for future license renewals.
How was the initial setup?
The solution's ease of use with HPE Zerto Software is exceptional. Compared to SRM, it is much more intuitive. The setup process took only a few hours to complete everything. The recovery process is also very straightforward, requiring just a few clicks.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing for HPE Zerto Software, I do not have information about the prices.
What other advice do I have?
We haven't experienced any real recovery scenarios yet, and our testing showed similar recovery times between SRM and HPE Zerto Software. I am currently not using a Cyber Vault solution.
Overall, I would rate HPE Zerto Software eight 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?
Exceptional reliability and robust failover strategy ensure rapid recovery
What is our primary use case?
At the time, we were using HPE Zerto Software for failover of our VMware environment.
How has it helped my organization?
The failover features improved our organization by allowing us the capabilities to fail over.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of HPE Zerto Software was its failover capabilities. The failover capabilities were the most valuable feature because, in the event of a disaster, we'd be able to power everything up on the other side.
The aspect of HPE Zerto Software that I liked most was just that capability when you didn't have a hardware platform to perform these functions, you had a software platform to do it.
My impressions of HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication were good; I could see where it was a little bit better, especially on the testing side of the synchronization. Near-synchronous replication is crucial to my organization due to the uptime requirements of some critical environments.
HPE Zerto Software did save me time in data recovery situations due to ransomware or other causes. You can't put a dollar figure on it; we never ran into any ransomware or other circumstance, but in the event that it did, it would probably save us about 80% of the time necessary to stand it back up.
HPE Zerto Software has helped to reduce downtime in various situations. I can't put a number on how much downtime was reduced, but when it came to patching and updating environments, I was able to transfer everything from one side to the other and update that environment.
Overall, HPE Zerto Software impacted my RTOs and RPOs positively; for an environment where I did not have hardware, it ran really to perform those functions.
What needs improvement?
That could be an area where HPE Zerto Software could improve; it could be easier to use. The setup and maintenance of it moving forward is where I had a lot of issues.
When I compare it to hardware that can also do the same thing, it lacks its luster for the simple reason that the hardware is built to do it.HPE Zerto Software didn't help to reduce my organization's DR testing; I was shocked by it since whenever I actually performed the DR test, it took my environments down.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using HPE Zerto Software for about six years, maybe even longer, before we turned it off.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability and reliability of HPE Zerto Software was very reliable; I would give it a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
At that time, HPE Zerto Software scaled pretty with the growing needs of my organization; it was very easy to buy the license packs to perform that, although I had to buy it in a 25-license pack when I only needed one at that point.
How are customer service and support?
The support that I received from HPE Zerto Software was very helpful during those times; I'd give them a nine out of ten.
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 not using another solution addressing similar needs.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment was a little cumbersome. That said, once you understood it and the functionality of it, it was easy to move it throughout.
What was our ROI?
We did see a return on investment from HPE Zerto Software; it was probably two to one.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with the pricing, licensing, and setup cost of HPE Zerto Software was fair for what functions it performs.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, I considered just VMware's Recovery Manager itself, and we found that this product was superior to that.
What other advice do I have?
We are using a different product now.
On a scale of one to ten, I would rate HPE Zerto Software in the nine category for a software recovery platform.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Enables near-instantaneous replication and offers powerful analytics for streamlined global management
What is our primary use case?
My main use cases for HPE Zerto Software are business continuity and disaster recovery.
What is most valuable?
The features of HPE Zerto Software that I appreciate the most include its core function, where I can replicate near instantaneously, which guarantees that I have X RTO, Y RPO, and that actually works.
The core functionality is what's beautiful about it.
HPE Zerto Software Analytics enables me to see my entire global real estate from one SaaS portal—that's powerful. We are still less than a year into using HPE Zerto Software, currently in the deployment phase, with the plan to have a unified global deployment. It will be a cookie-cutter template for every single site, where based on the application's criticality, that type of provisioning is determined. HPE Zerto Software would automatically inherit the workload, protect it, and create a DR for it.
HPE Zerto Software also works based off of tags, in an automatic fashion, saving a lot of time for my engineers where they don't have to babysit a tool, as it automatically takes care of itself.
HPE Zerto Software's recovery speed to other disaster recovery solutions shows that it's superior. The native technology is stream-based replication, instantaneous replication, whereas the other technologies I've used in the past are purely snapshot-based, which impact the production. HPE Zerto Software is transparent, as the production is not impacted, and it's a live write to a destination.
My impression of HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication is that it's a great technology, and that's what we're really counting on for the DR teams.
We're still in the process of reducing our organization's DR testing. We anticipate that, since, it doesn't impact production, we should be able to test more frequently on the DR side.
What needs improvement?
An improvement I would like to see in HPE Zerto Software is the ability to start protecting bare-metal configurations, as today it only handles virtualized workloads. I would love to see some progress in bare-metal protection. Several bare-metal use cases also need similar RTO, RPO, and business criticality thinking, which would be fantastic if HPE Zerto Software ventures into the bare-metal space.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for less than a year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We haven't had any challenges so far, so it's pretty robust. There have been no downtime, crashes, or performance issues with HPE Zerto Software.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software scales with the growing needs of my organization, as the licensing model is pretty good, and I'm happy with what I have, leveraging economies of scale through my team, making it positioned for us to match our scaling and buy more licenses as we grow.
How are customer service and support?
I evaluate the customer service and technical support for HPE Zerto Software as satisfactory. We have a virtual TAM with a lot of experience in the space, and we have frequent meetings with the technology team, plus the customer support is also very responsive.
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 another solution to address similar needs, specifically RecoverPoint for VMs and VMware Live Recovery, which I plan to replace. I'm also familiar with Rubrik.
The factors that led me to consider a change were the core architecture, where one solution utilized snapshot-based replication while another used stream-based replication, and HPE Zerto Software's approach is more effective than snapshot-based replication.
How was the initial setup?
The way its architecture is formatted, deployment is fairly easy for us to get started. We can get set up and be production-ready very fast.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup, costs, and licensing for HPE Zerto Software was pretty good and in line with what I expected.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before HPE Zerto Software, I considered other solutions such as RecoverPoint for VMs, VMware Cloud on AWS with the VMLR tool, and a few other industry-standard options, mostly snapshot-based, and a few replication-based, but HPE Zerto Software was the better of all of them. What stood out with HPE Zerto Software is that when making a purchase, it's a combination of great technology and the price matching my expectations, so HPE Zerto Software fit the bill in both cases, which is why I went ahead and purchased it.
What other advice do I have?
Regarding expanded usage of HPE Zerto Software, it's too soon to tell if we will, as we've been using it for less than a year.
I rate HPE Zerto Software overall as eight out of ten.
I won't advise other organizations since everyone has to evaluate their own footprints to understand what's the right fit for them.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Efficient replication ensures swift data recovery for mission-critical servers
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for HPE Zerto Software is the replication of mission-critical servers.
How has it helped my organization?
My organization was trying to solve the challenge of a day loss of data by implementing HPE Zerto Software. Zerto features benefit my organization, since, in case I lose a major server, I can bring it back to life in a matter of 30 minutes to an hour instead of days.
What is most valuable?
The features of HPE Zerto Software that I appreciate most are that it's straightforward, and the console is clear, allowing me to assign it to my staff members who can generally tell the health of the Zerto implementation.
It's easy to use once the setup is done. The updates have become easier over time.
My impressions of HPE Zerto Software's near-synchronous replication are that it works effectively. Near-synchronous replication is extremely important to my organization as I work for a healthcare organization, so we have to keep up-to-the-minute health records; if a provider were documenting a visit and we lost that information, that would be a patient safety issue.
The solution has saved me time in data recovery situations due to a corrupt server, as I used HPE Zerto Software to do the restoration.
I've had a server get corrupt and I used Zerto to do the restoration. It only took a couple of hours. It gives us almost real-time recovery.
It's reduced downtime. I was able to avoid losing a full day of data. The amount of loss and downtime would have been significant.
We've been able to reduce DR testing. If I run a snapshot and I know Zerto's working, I can just pass forward.
What needs improvement?
To improve HPE Zerto Software, it would be helpful to make it more affordable. In the next release, I would like to see additional interfaces with HPE, as I talked to HPE about some storage solutions and know there is something in the works possibly between HPE Zerto Software and HPE that would make my life easier.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HPE Zerto Software for about five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
As long as I don't try to replicate a cluster, I haven't experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues; it works fine.
How are customer service and support?
I would evaluate customer service and technical support as better than average.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before selecting HPE Zerto Software, we were considering VMware Site Replication Manager, but it didn't work as effectively. Prior to adopting HPE Zerto Software, we tried using our Veeam software for some replication, but it was snapshot-based, which caused performance issues while HPE Zerto Software doesn't do that.
How was the initial setup?
I would describe my experience with deploying HPE Zerto Software as positive.
What was our ROI?
I have seen a return on investment with HPE Zerto Software.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing was that it was really expensive.
What other advice do I have?
If you have mission-critical servers that you need to replicate, HPE Zerto Software is probably the best way to go.
We're currently using a Cyber Vault solution to ensure recovery from a cyber threat. We're using an air gap solution using Veeam right now.
I rate HPE Zerto Software ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Drastically reduces downtime and optimizes recovery times with seamless replication
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for replication.
How has it helped my organization?
By implementing the HPE Zerto Software, we're trying to minimize the RTO and the RPO.
This has benefited our organization as we had a catastrophic system failure where we had to bring up a copy of the production environment. We were able to bring up our application in minutes, whereas previously we had to get a six-second transaction. We didn't need to be storing backups or do any rollback. We just brought it up, turning what could potentially be hours of downtime into maybe 10 minutes.
What is most valuable?
One of the features I appreciate the most about the HPE Zerto Software is the simplicity of the replication, which allows the RPO to be in seconds rather than hours, which is what we were used to. The data loss is never substantial, not reaching minutes or hours.
The way HPE Zerto Software improves our RTOs and RPOs is by being by far the simplest we've used. Prior to HPE Zerto Software, our RTOs were in the hours. We've brought that down to an average of about ten seconds. The RTOs, since we're talking about having to bring a standby site, are in the minutes. We just make the DNS change here and there and we're back online, whereas previously it would require restoring backups to get the data. It's a big difference, going from hours down to minutes and seconds.
It's very easy to use. I have had to oversee rollbacks of infrastructure. We're training all of our IT organization, and I found it very easy. I would say it's getting easier.
This solution has helped to reduce downtime in situations, and we've definitely avoided or minimized downtime. I couldn't put a dollar value to describe that. In our internal operations, there's no financial impact if our entire operation goes offline for a day. However, there's internal staffing that we're paying to do nothing. We have contractors we're paying by the hour to sit idle. It reduces a lot of wasted man-hours.
My impressions of HPE Zerto Software's Near-Sync Replication are that it minimizes the loss of data. This solution has saved time and data for recovery situations due to ransomware or other causes, allowing us to go back from hours of data loss to just ten minutes. About five minutes of that was deciding whether to proceed.
With another solution that we used, it would have taken hours to recover. The previous solutions we used were all backup and recovery, requiring us to build new infrastructure, then restore the backups to that infrastructure. This solution has helped reduce our organization's DR testing significantly, making a lot of our testing now just business testing.
We perform a full DR test at the end of the year. It's made the DR testing a shorter exercise. We can test the entire environment in a weekend, failing it all over to the DR site, testing it, and failing it all back again. Prior to HPE Zerto Software, we could never successfully execute a full DR test in a weekend.
What needs improvement?
As for improvements to the HPE Zerto Software, I can't really think of anything as we have a very specific use case for it and don't use all the functionality.
Potentially integration into some of our other solutions would be beneficial, as we're using ServiceNow as a platform. If we could integrate our AIOps solutions and incident management capabilities within HPE Zerto Software, that would be beneficial, as it would enable us to automatically bring the DR site online when a major incident is detected, eliminating human involvement and making the process quicker than manual decision-making.
For how long have I used the solution?
I am familiar with the HPE Zerto Software for a couple of years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have not experienced any downtime, crashes, or performance issues, which speaks to the stability and reliability of the HPE Zerto Software.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HPE Zerto Software scales with the growing needs of our organization as it just sat there quietly in the background and did its job.
How are customer service and support?
I have not had to use customer service or technical support from the provider, so I cannot evaluate that.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to using the HPE Zerto Software, we were using a Veeam-based disaster recovery solution with cloud, and it was a clunky process.
What was our ROI?
I have not seen a significant return on investment with HPE Zerto Software. That said, the reduction in man-hours of work is probably the ROI we have. The reduction in downtime and standby equipment in our cloud data center means we don't need to keep the equipment running, so there's a cost savings there.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before selecting the HPE Zerto Software, the other solution we considered was Veeam.
What other advice do I have?
I am currently using a Cyber Vault solution. We were using Wasabi for immutable storage, however, that changed in the last couple of months. My experience with the pricing, setup, and licensing for the HPE Zerto Software is positive.
On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution a nine.