Why I like Zerto best
Overall Satisfaction with Zerto Virtual Replication
We are a Disaster Recovery specialty company providing the spectrum of DR - BC planning to implementation, including best of class products to enhance our clients' ability to restore data quickly and minimize downtime. As a Zerto reseller and MSP, we provide a DR site for our customers. Specifically, Zerto provides easy recovery of a failed virtual machine, with the restore point option up to 14 days and a high granularity of restore points.
Zerto can provide One-2-Many backups up to 3 local and/or DR sites. With infections like Crypto-Locker, Zerto provides a fast resumption of a VM (or group of VMs) at the click of a few buttons, to select the machine and time of the restore. And Zerto does this without snapshotting the VMware environment. Zerto can also [move] to Hyper-V in a similar manner and move Hyper-V to VMware or vice-versa.
Pros
- 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.
Cons
- Zerto is in the process of update their "Offsite Backup" process. This is a scheduled snapshot of a VM that extends the "point in time" beyond the up to 14 days of granular recovery. For those wanting to have a "compliance copy" of a vm (db or exchange or files) this is mechanism that will be improving.
- Zerto is an evolving product that takes user input seriously. They encourage recommended improvements and features from customers.
- One thing Zerto can't do is backup a turned off VM. Many snapshot based backup software products can backup a turned off VM.
- While many backup products are install, create backups and go, Zerto requires a bit of planning on the initial network configuration. Installing the software and configuration is actually easy, setting up a VPN between sites needs planning, particularly for MSPs. Once the VPN is set up the rest is quite easy. This is being addressed.
- For us, we are having more customers with RPO and RTO concerns liking the capabilities provided by Zerto.
- We have built a DR Vmware cluster for our DR business where we maintain a "Private Cloud" for our customers.
- Zerto is our premier offering, and a customer sites grow, we and Zerto will grow with them.
Zerto solves issues with snapshot-based backups and provides continuous data protection up to 14 days with an astonishing granularity. Zerto's One-2-Many can provide local and offsite backups with near real-time and fast restore of a VM
Zerto does not backup physical machines or VMs that are turned off, but there are other products to do that.
Other backup products are stepping up with ease of deployment and small organizations would find them a little easier to use as there are fewer configuration options.
Zerto Virtual Replication Support
Pros | Cons |
---|---|
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Immediate help available Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response | Need to explain problems multiple times |
No - We get great support
For a particular problem, they have called in a developer to assist with a unique cleanup issue.
They also recommended a free Vmware tool to assist in maintenance.
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