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Zerto Expands Its DR Capabilities to Include Long-Term Backups
Zerto now provides a DR and backup solution with the addition of long-term retention (LTR). This puts data protection on a continuum from short-term retention (to enable very short RPOs for DR) to LTR (to meet traditional backup requirements).
Zerto is already a popular solution for DR, with features such as:
- Block-level data replication at the hypervisor level, enabling it to support any virtual environment on multiple platforms.
- Automated recovery of VMs at a secondary on-premises, co-lo, or cloud environment.
- Virtual protection groups (VPGs) that enable organizations to set specific RTO and RPO capabilities for related VMs.
Zerto 7.0 added LTR and indexing; this addition, along with its existing file-level restore feature, provides traditional backup capabilities:
- LTR: This extends Zerto’s existing continuous data protection that replicates VMs to a secondary site for DR purposes. That replicated data can then be retained long term, providing the equivalent of traditional incremental backups, weekly/monthly full backups, and long-term archive.
- Indexing and Search: The LTR data is indexed, making it searchable so you can identify the specific VM you need to restore in the non-DR scenario (e.g. a user deleted a file or old documents need to be retrieved as part of legal discovery).
- File-Level Restore: Individual files can be restored (rather than restoring the full VM and then retrieving the required file). However, this feature is currently available only for data in the short-term retention time period.
Our Take
Vendors in the traditional backup market have been expanding into Zerto’s DR space, and now Zerto is making a significant foray into the traditional backup market as they look to compete with vendors such as Veeam. Expect existing Zerto customers to explore the possibility of consolidating their DR and backup solutions, at least for VMs.
However, the new LTR feature is v1.0 of this foray, so Zerto is not going to replace your existing backup solution, at least not yet. A key gap that remains is the inability to back up non-VMs.