We performed a comparison between VMware SRM (Site Recovery Manager) and Zerto based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Zerto wins out in this competition. Its consistent sub-second response for RTO and RPO makes it one of the most responsive and fastest in the marketplace today. Users are able to easily run tests and change scenarios without any effect on an organization's production.
"The replication is a key feature."
"It eliminates the need for complex compliance requirements, making it a highly effective solution."
"VMware is one of the best products in the industry when it comes to virtualization."
"The most valuable feature is the automation, where you press a button and everything fails over seamlessly."
"VMware SRM is a very nice tool for disaster recovery for virtual environments."
"The product is evolving and the vendor is committed to change."
"It made the DR process a lot faster and easier for recovery after we were familiar with the product operation."
"Virtual Machine Recovery during DR situation, with automation and easy to use menus and options."
"Zerto saved us a lot of money compared to the cost of replicating at the LUN level. It also really simplified it and gave us shorter RTOs and RPOs."
"It is the backbone of our DR solution for critical databases that hold the data we can't afford to lose. It provided new opportunities to change how we approach disaster recovery."
"The ease of failover and test environments has proven invaluable."
"Zerto is essential for protecting critical workloads. We don't protect all of our VMs, but some need to be recovered in a timely manner. The recovery time is almost immediate."
"Zerto's ability to test failovers with a record of how long it takes to fail the motor is beneficial, as it allows us to know the timing in the event we have to do it live."
"It helps us keep our required retention period for specific documents and allows us to recover older documents if we have to compare and recreate those."
"The main purpose of this tool is to allow failover between different data centers and different locations. When one site is unavailable, we can start the failover activity and perform the failover task. When a primary location is unavailable, or there is some hardware or logical issue at the primary location, it allows us to resolve the problem. We are able to start services at safe locations. We handle the disaster recovery process, and this is the main function for which we are using it all the time."
"We relocated all our virtual machines from Belgium to Budapest, Hungary. I am not sure how we would have done it without Zerto, because we were able to keep the data in sync. We would have needed to have a lot more expensive storage products online at the time that could have kept that replication. From what I have seen from other methods, that would have required a much higher amount of bandwidth as well, then the cost would have been extreme. The mechanisms available to us with a storage space replication would have been more labor-intensive and prone to error. It was much easier and more successful with Zerto than other ways at our disposal."
"The interface is not easy to use and can be made more user-friendly."
"It would be better if we could get more reporting features in VMware SRM."
"The primary site lacks adequate equipment, such as power backup and cooling, which can lead to downtime during issues like power outages or overheating."
"SRM may hit some OS issues related to IP changes, but they are usually OS related, especially in the 2008 realm."
"What I think can be improved is the data replication aspect."
"VMware SRM's platform agnostics should support on-cloud usage as well."
"The solution currently has a five-minute RPO, meaning if the VM goes down we can lose up to five minutes of data which is a big deal when it relates to database replication."
"This product is not appropriate for those moving to a broader cloud footprint."
"With the VPG (virtual protected group) it would be nice if you could pick individuals in the grouping instead of having to failover the whole group."
"Long-term retention of files is a function that isn't available yet that I'm looking forward to them providing. The long-term retention is the only other thing that I think needs improvement."
"When we do failover and failback, it doesn't maintain some of the settings that it should and I don't really understand why that happens."
"There should be an automatic installation in a cluster. When I add a virtual client or ESX source to the cluster, it should automatically install that. There should be automatic installation. Currently, I have to do that manually."
"If I had to pick anything, it would be the documentation for upgrades. They need to make it easier for users to do upgrades without having to contact support, by providing better documentation for that."
"There should be more comprehensive cyber recovery capabilities."
"The overall management plan could improve. If something happens with the VM on the vSphere side, the error codes are pretty weak. If there was a way to click on something within the UI that takes us to a support page or article, that would be very beneficial."
"We learned that we got a new account representative supporting our account. I found this out today. Apparently, this is something that they kicked off at the beginning of this year, but there has been a failure in communication in letting us know who is the proper channel for us to reach out to if we need assistance."
VMware SRM is ranked 6th in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software with 71 reviews while Zerto is ranked 2nd in Disaster Recovery (DR) Software with 235 reviews. VMware SRM is rated 8.0, while Zerto is rated 9.0. The top reviewer of VMware SRM writes "A scalable solution that integrates well with the VMware platform, but its platform agnostics do not support on-cloud usage". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zerto writes "Gives us business continuity capabilities during hurricane season and in case of ransomware". VMware SRM is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines, Azure Site Recovery, VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery and Nutanix Disaster Recovery as a Service , whereas Zerto is most compared with Veeam Backup & Replication, Rubrik, Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines, Commvault Cloud and VMware Cloud Disaster Recovery. See our VMware SRM vs. Zerto report.
See our list of best Disaster Recovery (DR) Software vendors.
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