IDERA SQL Safe Backup vs. HPE Zerto Software

SQL Safe is appropriate and well-suited for any backup scenario. Having used SQL Safe, I probably wouldn't want to manage a set of servers in the future without it. If you only have a couple of SQL servers, it might not be worth the spend as there are well-maintained free options that are very functional (though they do require more technical knowledge). But I can't think of a scenario where SQL Safe wouldn't be appropriate.

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

• History visibility
• Very intuitive
• Easy to set up

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

• When you're adding a new SQL server, sometimes the install from the management server to the SQL server will fail. I'm guessing this happens because of some version difference in Windows components or similar. Not a huge deal because you can just copy the agent to the SQL server and install it there, but considering how easy everything else is, I would expect this to be a little more fluid.
• I ran into a situation where part of our business decided to move their servers to a third-party data center. When they took away a SQL server that I was managing with SQL Safe, anything having to do with that policy took forever. Click. Wait 10 minutes. Window reacts. I'm guessing this is because the Management Console is trying super hard to contact the server in question, but I wish it handled losing a server better than it does.

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 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

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

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

IDERA SQL Safe Backup winning thanks to the pricing, nothing more.

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

• SQL Safe allows me to spend less time managing my DR plan and still maintain confidence that my backups and restores are solid. Saving my time means saving money.
• SQL Safe does an amazing job at backup compression over and above SQL's native compression. SQL backups are probably our single largest consumer of network drive space. Any product that helps reduce my network footprint, saves money.

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