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 solution is very flexible."
"The most valuable feature is the simplicity of operations."
"It is a very stable solution...I was involved in VMware SRM's deployment phase two years ago, and it was an easy process."
"The solution is strong when it comes to protection and analytics, with the latter being added later on."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the integration part, along with the subsequent hardware."
"The replication is a key feature."
"The most valuable feature is the integration with our Nutanix environment."
"SRM's best feature is automation."
"We own another solution called VMware Site Recovery Manager, SRM. We have licenses for our entire environment and we still decided not to use it. That's how big the difference was in the experience that Zerto provides."
"One of the most valuable features, something that I wasn't even anticipating, is the file backups. We weren't even considering Zerto to do restores, but it actually is able to do that. Eventually, we could just use this as our backup solution."
"Live replication and up to the second type of failover are valuable. The fact that we can do test failovers and failbacks is important for our ISO certification."
"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 Zerto university for training staff is very useful."
"For us, the most valuable features are the quick upload time and how the sync works... We have VMware SRM and Veeam, and they have been pretty slow and sluggish."
"If we lost our data center and had to recover it, Zerto would save us a great deal of time. In our testing, we have found that recovering the entire data center would be completed within a day."
"I would give it an eight out of 10, if not a nine out of 10, when it comes to ease of use."
"The primary site lacks adequate equipment, such as power backup and cooling, which can lead to downtime during issues like power outages or overheating."
"In my view, if VMware comes up with an appliance-based solution like vCenter Server (which was also Windows-based), it will be much easier for deployment. I"
"In my opinion, the integration with Peer Persistent Storage could be improved."
"The product's dashboard is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"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."
"SRM may hit some OS issues related to IP changes, but they are usually OS related, especially in the 2008 realm."
"If you have a failover case, you need to work on it manually. It would be helpful if this could be automated. It would simplify things."
"The administration guides can be complicated and difficult to use, so it would be helpful if it was made easier."
"If they already do not have it, they can have some APIs for the Horizon environment. Instead of having to use some scripts to get around, they can make it a lot more user-friendly for integration."
"The limitation with Zerto is that you're required to have one Zerto Manager per virtual center, and this means that you're only able to replicate one way. Technical support for this product was fantastic, before they were acquired by HP. You're now able to tell that the company is becoming too big, in terms of the support they provide."
"It took me a little bit of time to get used to Zerto's terminology and to relate it back to how you do a backup traditionally. It was a little different. It took a little while to understand what a VPG is and what it does. That's an area that they could probably improve on a little, making the documentation easier to understand."
"The only thing we've noticed that needs improvement is the backend cleanup within VMware. There are some little issues there. I would like to see tighter integration with Vmware... orphan data is an issue within VMware. It doesn't clean up properly when you're moving stuff around."
"Zerto should add the capability to replicate the same VM to multiple sites."
"When building out a VPG and doing the machine types within Azure, they were not coming across correctly. It would say it had a CPU and memory of a specific type, but it was not accurate... It was a bug and they were working on it."
"We had a situation where we had to relicense VMs once they were moved over. We later found out that that feature is built-in, but it's not easy to find. The way it's done is that you have to go to the target site to turn it on. If that were explained a little bit better up front, that would be helpful."
"Zerto's effect on our RPO can be improved."
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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