afi.ai vs. AWS Backup vs. HPE Zerto Software

1. Data backup for Exchange Online, SharePoint and Teams works very well and reliable. 2. MS Teams support is good, which includes Private channels. 3. Excellent security options ( ransomware detection, encryption keys hosted by us) 4. Self service for end users is a huge time saver for our helpdesk team 5. We kill two birds with one stone with user archiving, compliance and cost savings on MS licenses.

There is a cost involved with data retrieval. AWS Backup is truly that, a backup. If you need to access this data on a regular basis, there are better options out there. For long term, just in case incremental backups, AWS [Backup] checks all the boxes. Just set it up, start your backups, and rest assured your data is safe.

Incentivized

Zerto is well suited for disaster recovery and virtual machine replication between multiple data centers. DR testing for audit or regulations is much easier with Zerto, great reporting, dashboard etc. It is not well suited for physical server replication for disaster recovery or as a primary backup solution.

Incentivized

• Archiving of deleted Microsoft 365 users.
• Backup of SharePoint lists and OneNote books.
• Fast offline export of a mailbox and SharePoint items.

• Centralized management - single pane of glass to manage backups for multiple AWS services.
• Encryption - integrates with KMS to encrypt backup data at rest and in transit.
• Cross Account management - manage backups across multiple AWS accounts with AWS organizations.

Incentivized

• Anyone with a large disk (VMDK) knows the issues of VMware snapshots. Most backup software is a "point in time backup" that uses snapshots. While the backup can be run multiple times per day the stress of the snapshot on the host and storage is eliminated by the continuous protection of Zerto log replication.
• A client had a the disks on a VM go missing for some reason. We had them "flip the switch" for a real fail over and press the fail over button. The VM on our DR site started to come alive as the VM at the customer site was brought down. When the DR VM was fully up, automatic reverse replication started. The DR machine was available in a few minutes (to take into account different host hardware) for access. One the vm at both sites were in sync, we had the customer again repeat the fail over process and the DR site VM was turned off and the Production site VM was brought back on line. This was a 200 GB VM and the whole process was finished in about 3 hours.
• Zerto also allows for "Test" fail overs that can be configured on many different functions, such as host, datastore, network and IP usage. Configuring the IPs is crucial to avoid inadvertent site cross contamination of the same VM.
• Zerto can also retrieve files from any VM disk on the DR site without starting a VM. Very handy for retrieving files or directories.
• Since Zerto is running continuous log replication, changes on the production VM are nearly instantaneously copied to the DR site. As with any data process, having sufficient bandwidth for "churn" peaks minimizes the delay in updating the DR site.

Incentivized

• Reporting API could be improved
• Data center in the UK to be post-Brexit proof would be good (which, as I understand, is planned)

• Restoring the compute nodes of the cluster should be done always
• Having the default Roles all the necessary permission, you have to add some depending on your configurations
• Being able to see the Jobs status in a centralize account more graphically

Incentivized

• Moving a VM from one protection group to another could be simplified.
• I would like to see an executive-style report of recovery and testing for upper management.
• The ability to deploy Zerto as a virtual appliance, without the need for a windows server.

Incentivized

We will continue to renew the service for as long as we continue to use MS 365, unless Microsoft will release native Office 365 backup that provides all necessary features, including multi-geo admin roles, long-term affordable archiving storage tier, auto-conversion of email formats (MBOX, EML etc), point-in-time preview of previous file versions.

We really like the easy setup of this replication solution, as well as the ease of management. Not to mention, our internal IT Economist determined that the Zerto solution would provide the best ROI out of the competing solutions we analyzed. So far, his calculations have been spot on, and we have saved substantially

Incentivized

The UI is very intuitive and requires almost zero training to use. Our end users were able to use it with after just reading a simple one-pager.

Overall because I can sell it white labeled and use my white labeled software like CloudBerry and the native backup apps on my synology NAS servers to store things in real time and do duplication and disaster recovery directly to it was game changing for my client in the advertising world they are never down now.

Incentivized

Zerto is very easy to implement and support. Uses are broad, only issues are once something doesn't sync it is difficult to get assistance until your reach tier 2 or tier 3 support. Basic file and folder recovery is great. Live and test fail overs are also easy to implement without issue.

Incentivized

Support is very technical and always eager to help us. The support team's responses are mostly relevant, with no generic/automated answers that would waste our time. The company's online product documentation is very clear and to the point; it answers most of the user questions in a detailed and clear manner.

Support for AWS Backup is by Amazon itself so it is solid as always. If you have a business or higher level support plan you'll have no trouble getting engineers or other staff on the job to help you with whatever comes up.

Incentivized

Overall support is very good. We sometimes get pushback when asking Level 1 support to escalate to Level 2. This causes undue frustrations when you need a more knowledgeable support person to get involved. We've had to escalate to account reps a few times for this scenario. Zerto is very responsive and normally handles our requests very quickly.

Incentivized

Make sure the end goal is in mind before implementing. That way results meet expectations.

Incentivized

We used Backupify before, and decided to move as the system overall became very unreliable (lost data, inaccessible UI, sluggish, etc.).

I've tried a lot of different products. Backblaze, at least from a birds-eye view is significantly cheaper than AWS/the rest. Backblaze is a little more simpler, but it's well worth it. Linode also provides backup options, however I'm only familiar with their backup on their VPS's (however you make that plural), which never gave me a problem.

Incentivized

We started out using Backup Exec which was in service until we virtualized our environment where it didn't perform as well at the time. Then we switched to Veeam which worked well, but then as we started needing to do migrations and off-site DR, we found ourselves relying on Zerto more often.

Incentivized

For my organization, the pricing model was an upfront investment for the Zerto licenses. My organization prefers to pay upfront and not deal with month-to-month or year-to-year pricing models that most companies are moving to. But for some, the investment may be more than they can afford, and would prefer the year-to-year pricing model.

Incentivized

I mean, it was 6 years ago, but we were up and going with all applications synchronizing in short order. The longest tasks was getting the 30 TB of application data synchronized between the datacenters.

Incentivized

• We have used afi.ai to recover data 3 times since we signed up. The cost of potentially lost data was $1k+.

• Offsite means a failure at our cloud provider means we can redeploy quickly to another data center or another provider quickly.
• The cost can't be best.
• Pay only for what you use. No need to pay for extra data that you don't need.
• No minimums

Incentivized

• Zerto is like having the best possible insurance ... it just works, and often provides the backups taken overnight that are key in recovering data/work between overnight backups.
• Zerto easily enabled the move of primary datacenters by allowing easy failover to a secondary site, and failback to the primary site.

Incentivized