Zerto unzips to reveal ROBO replicating factory

Automated hypervisor-resident disaster recovery

Zerto (zero RTO, geddit?) produces Zerto Virtual Replication (ZVR) which is a hypervisor-resident and VM-aware replication facility providing VM-level disaster recovery (DR). Version 3.0 has just come around the block and it produces a set of goodies to make VM DR easier and more certain.

Version 1.0 ZVR was a single site facility. Version 2.0 in late summer 2012 introduced a multi-site function so you could replicate between locations. There was also a multi-tenant angle so you could replicate to a shared infrastructure from multiple customers without network conflicts. It also had VMware vCloud Director integration.

Version 3.0 introduces ROBO replication - that's Remote Office/Branch Office - so DR gets extended to environments managed by a single vCenter. There is a "test-before-you-commit" capability allowing specific failover points be tested before you actually commit to them. What else?

• There is a parallel recovery feature that speeds up large application recovery.
• Recovery reports have been introduced.
• Cloud providers of ZVR can have their customers use a Zerto Self-Service Portal that integrates with the service provider's own portal.
• There is a Zerto Cloud Manager to manage customer resources and service levels across physical locations.
• There is seamless integration with vCloud 5.1 and VMware vCAC integration.

All in all, Zerto says that you can now include all virtualised workloads into ZVR, whether these consist of a single VM or thousands, reside in local or remote branch offices, and are based in virtualised data centres or hosted in clouds. ZVR 3.0 will be generally available in the second quarter of 2013. ®