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HPE Zerto Software
Your nightly backup is hours old by lunchtime. A disaster at 4 p.m. shouldn’t cost a day of work — HPE Zerto Software replicates every write from your VMs as it happens, keeps checkpoints seconds apart, and fails whole applications over to your own site, a VMware cloud, Azure or AWS — then brings them back.
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Same software. Better outcome — at a lower cost.
How it’s rated
Full scoreboard ↓Quick answer
The Zerto platform family
This page covers HPE Zerto Software — both editions (ECE and ARE) and the Migration licence. The rest:
Quick facts
30-second orientation- Product
- CDP replication, failover orchestration and migration software
- Maker
- Zerto, an HPE company since HPE closed the deal on 1 Sep 2021
- Editions
- Enterprise Cloud (ECE) and Advanced Resilience (ARE)
- Price
- Not published; per protected VM, perpetual or 1/3/5-year term
- Platforms
- vSphere, AVS, GCVE, OCVS, Azure, AWS, HPE VM Essentials
- Not covered
- Nutanix AHV, physical servers, Kubernetes; Hyper-V only on 9.7
- Recovery
- RPOs of seconds, RTOs of minutes (HPE’s claim); journal ≤ 30 days
- Analysts
- Not placed in any Gartner Magic Quadrant from 2024 to 2026
- India
- Zerto hosts no data; the DR site is your own, a cloud’s or an MSP’s
- In India via
- TechBag — DR design, HPE partner quote in INR, first failover test
Understand continuous data protection before you buy it
Most product pages skip this. We start here — so you buy a capability, not a buzzword.
What is continuous data protection?
Continuous data protection copies every write as it happens, so a recovery can start from seconds ago instead of from the last backup.
Nightly backups and a restore plan vs HPE Zerto Software — the honest table
What consolidation actually replaces, dimension by dimension.
| Dimension | Nightly backups and a restore plan | HPE Zerto Software |
|---|---|---|
| Data lost in a disaster | Everything since last night’s job | Seconds, from a continuously written journal |
| Bringing an app back | VMs restored one by one, in the wrong order | A protection group or plan fails over as one |
| Proving DR works | A yearly test that needs an outage | Isolated test failovers while replication runs |
| Ransomware rollback | Hope a clean backup survived | Checkpoints tagged by encryption detection |
| Moving to a new platform | A separate migration tool and project | Move to a new site, cloud or VM Essentials |
| What it is NOT | — | Backup, long-term retention, or a hosted DR site |
The cheapest test is one isolated failover: protect a single critical application, fail it over without touching production, and time it.
The five pieces of the platform
Vendors love diagrams; buyers need to know what they’re actually operating. Here’s the whole platform, demystified.
Manager
A hardened Linux appliance (ZVMA) that pairs with vCenter or the cloud, holds the protection settings and drives failover; the old Windows manager has been discontinued.
Replication
A small VM on each hypervisor host copies every write as it happens and streams it to the recovery site, so production VMs carry no agent and no snapshot load.
Journal
Writes land in a journal with checkpoints seconds apart, kept from an hour up to 30 days, and Virtual Protection Groups keep multi-VM apps write-order consistent.
Cloud
A Linux appliance in your Azure or AWS account receives replication and starts recovered VMs as native instances; one AWS appliance can protect up to 5,000 VMs.
A replication appliance on every host and a journal at the target — recovery to any checkpoint, seconds apart.
Nine capabilities. Replicate, orchestrate, recover.
HPE Zerto Software turns disaster recovery from last night’s backup into the last few seconds.
Continuous, not scheduled
Every write is replicated as it happens, with no snapshot window, which is how HPE claims recovery points only seconds old.
Rewind to any checkpoint
A journal keeps checkpoints seconds apart for up to 30 days, so you can recover from just before corruption, not last night.
Spots encryption as it starts
Real-time detection flags anomalous encryption in the replication stream and tags the checkpoints taken before it began.
Applications recover as one
Virtual Protection Groups bind an app’s VMs with write-order fidelity, so the database and web tier come back at the same moment.
Whole-site failover in order
Since 10.9, Recovery Plans fail over several protection groups in ordered blocks with one action, with boot order and re-IP set ahead.
Drills that touch nothing live
Failover Test boots replicas in an isolated network while replication continues, so a DR rehearsal needs no outage window.
Fail over, then come back
Failover Live brings the app up at the recovery site, and Reverse Protect replicates it home again for a clean, planned failback.
Move workloads, not just save them
Move migrates VMs between sites and clouds with a short cutover, and 10.9 adds a one-way path from VMware to HPE VM Essentials.
An isolated copy for the worst day
The Advanced Resilience Edition adds offline recovery into an isolated vault, the basis of HPE’s Cyber Resilience Vault design.
Watch HPE Zerto Software in action
A two-minute product demo, Recovery Plans, the 10 Update 8 release, and replicating VMware into HPE VM Essentials. All from HPE’s official channel.
Demo- HPE Zerto Software in 2 minutes
Protection groups, the journal and a failover, in under two minutes.
HPE Zerto recovery plans demo
Ordered, multi-group failover with the Recovery Plans added in 10.9.
HPE Zerto Software Version 10 Update 8
What 10 Update 8 changed, from cloud regions to threat integrations.
HPE Zerto VMware to HVM demo
Replicating VMware VMs into HPE Morpheus VM Essentials with 10.9.
Want a live, India-context walkthrough for your environment?
Book a guided demo →Backups tell you what you had last night. Zerto recovers what you had seconds ago.
Here’s what genuinely sets it apart — and exactly where it stops.
Recovery points measured in seconds
Backup-based DR loses everything since the last job. Zerto replicates each write as it happens into a journal, so HPE claims RPOs of seconds and RTOs of minutes. TenCate, an HPE customer, says ransomware data loss fell from 12 hours to 10 seconds. Treat both as claims and time your own failover.
One tool for your site, VMware clouds, Azure and AWS
The same licence protects vSphere to a second site, to Azure VMware Solution, Google or Oracle VMware clouds, or into native Azure and AWS, and since 10.8.11 HPE VM Essentials too. That makes it a migration tool as much as a DR tool, which is why it keeps a separate 6-month Migration licence.
Ransomware recovery without guessing the point
Encryption detection watches the replication stream and tags checkpoints when something starts encrypting, and since 10.8 and 10.9 CrowdStrike Falcon and Microsoft Defender alerts tag them too. You recover to seconds before the attack from a journal kept up to 30 days, not to whichever backup survived.
Where it stops
It is not backup: the journal holds 30 days at most. Current 10.x releases do not run on Hyper-V (only the older 9.7 line does), and it does not protect Nutanix AHV, physical servers or Kubernetes. HPE publishes no list price, Zerto has no Gartner MQ placement, and the DR site is yours to build and pay for.
The numbers behind the platform
What your HPE Zerto Software rollout looks like
Map apps and recovery targets
Group VMs by application, set an RPO and RTO for each, and confirm every host runs a platform current Zerto supports.
Pick the target and edition
Choose your own Indian site, a cloud region or an MSP, then ECE or ARE and the term, and compare HPE partner quotes.
Deploy and size the journal
Install the manager and replication appliances, size journal storage from your change rate, and start the first groups.
Run an isolated failover test
Fail over a critical application into an isolated network, time it against your RTO, and check re-IP and boot order.
Build plans and drill often
Group applications into Recovery Plans, wire EDR alerts to checkpoint tags, and schedule a test failover each quarter.
The review scoreboard
Modelled on Gartner Peer Insights structure. *Counts and breakdowns are illustrative pending verified review collection.
Quick poll — what’s driving your evaluation?
Talk to an advisor“Our core banking VMs replicate to the DR site with a lag of a few seconds. The quarterly drill now takes an afternoon, not a weekend.”
“A file server got encrypted overnight. We picked a checkpoint from 2:14 a.m., just before it started, and lost about a minute of work.”
“We used Move to shift 300 VMs to a new data centre over three weekends. Each cutover was a few minutes per protection group.”
“The journal needs real storage at the DR site. Size it on your change rate, not your VM count, or the history you keep gets shorter.”
“Two of our clusters are still Hyper-V, so they stay on the older 9.7 release. Running two Zerto lines is not ideal.”
“No price list meant three partner quotes per VM. Once agreed, the per-VM subscription was simple to budget against our VM count.”
Where everyone sits — the grids
Analyst firms bury this view behind paywalls, and G2 retired its Grid. So here’s TechBag’s synthesis of the disaster recovery market — tap any vendor to see why it sits where it does.
TechBag Disaster Recovery Grid
Execution strength vs product vision — the classic market map, minus the paywall.
Quote per protected VM; perpetual or 1, 3 or 5-year subscription.
Failover Choice × Replication Depth
The grid nobody publishes — how many places a product can fail your workloads over to vs how fresh and how orchestrated the recovery is.
Continuous journal; own site, VMware clouds, Azure, AWS, VM Essentials.
Positions are TechBag’s illustrative synthesis of public review-platform data and vendor documentation — not a reproduction of any analyst graphic. Verify before relying on it.
HPE Zerto Software vs the disaster recovery field
Against VMware Live Recovery, Veeam, Azure Site Recovery, Commvault Cloud DR and Cohesity SiteContinuity — on replication, orchestration, price, ransomware defence, support and India.
| Dimension | HPE Zerto Software | VMware Live Recovery | Veeam | Azure Site Recovery | Commvault Cloud DR | Cohesity SiteContinuity |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | CDP-based DR software | vSphere DR orchestration | Backup suite with DR | Native Azure DR service | DR inside a backup suite | DR on the Cohesity stack |
| Deployment | Appliances at each site | Beside vCenter, each end | Self-run, anywhere | Azure-hosted service | SaaS or software | Cohesity clusters |
| Workloads covered | VMs; no AHV or physical | vSphere VMs only | Hypervisors + physical | Azure, VMware, Hyper-V | Broadest workload list | CDP for VMware only |
| Replication and RPO | Continuous, seconds | 5 min in VCF; less extra | CDP, VMware-only | Points every 5 minutes | Periodic, minutes | Near-zero for VMware |
| Orchestration and tests | Plans, VPGs, live tests | Recovery plans, tests | Orchestrator is Premium | Plans with runbooks | Recovery groups | Runbooks, failback |
| Pricing model | Per protected VM | No list price; quoted | Per workload (VUL) | Per instance, monthly | Per VM or front-end TB | Platform capacity |
| Published entry price | Not published | Not published | ~$350–450 reported | $25 a month, 31 free | Quote only | Quote only |
| Included vs add-on | Vault needs ARE | Fast RPO is an add-on | Runbooks in Premium | Compute billed apart | DR in Autonomous tier | Target is yours |
| Ransomware defence | Inline encryption alerts | Snapshots in the add-on | Immutable repos, checks | No stream detection | Anomaly and threat scans | Immutable, threat-aware |
| Integrations | EDR, AI, MCP server | Array replication (SRA) | Six hypervisors, ONE | Azure Automation | 4 clouds; resells Zerto | Joined with Veritas |
| India DR site | Wherever you choose | Your second vSphere site | Your site; Vault India | Azure India regions | Azure India, or yours | Your cluster or AWS |
| Support | HPE Tech Care, myZerto | 24x7, 30-min Sev 1 | 24/7 production support | Azure support plans | 24x7x365, 30-min Sev 1 | 24x7, 1-hour P1 |
| Lock-in and exit | Native VMs at the target | vSphere at both ends | Portable licence | Azure as the target | One platform for all | Cohesity on both ends |
| Best fit | VMware estates, low RPO | All-VMware, on VCF | Veeam shops, mixed VMs | Azure-first businesses | Commvault estates | Cohesity estates |
Which approach fits you?
Honest fit signals — because the fastest way to lose your trust is to pretend one product wins every scenario.
Choose HPE Zerto Software if…
- ✓Losing even an hour of data is unacceptable, and you need RPOs of seconds rather than a backup interval
- ✓You want one tool for DR to your own site, VMware clouds, Azure and AWS, and for migrations too
- ✓Ransomware recovery must roll back to the seconds before encryption began, with drills that need no outage
Compare alternatives if…
- ✓You run Hyper-V or Nutanix AHV — Veeam and Commvault cover both; current Zerto releases do not
- ✓Azure is your only target and you want a published rate — Azure Site Recovery is $25 per instance a month
- ✓You want DR on the licence you already own — Veeam, Commvault and Cohesity sell it with backup
Do not expect…
- ✓Backup or long-term retention — the journal keeps 30 days at most
- ✓A published per-VM price, or a DR site that Zerto hosts for you
- ✓Protection for physical servers, Kubernetes, or a Gartner Magic Quadrant placement
HPE Zerto Software is one of 27 disaster recovery products TechBag carries. The Disaster Recovery guide narrows them to a shortlist and shows the reasoning. →
What does slow, hand-run disaster recovery cost you?
Drag the sliders (VMs you protect; IT staff-hour cost). Estimates model staff time lost to manual DR runbooks, outage-window failover tests and re-keying data lost since the last backup, at an assumed 1.5 hours per VM a year, with 70% of it removed by continuous replication, ordered failover and isolated tests. Both figures are assumptions. Illustrative.
Loaded cost = salary + overheads per productive hour. Illustrative only — your TechBag quote models your actual environment and modules.
Three ways to consume it
Not published. HPE licenses Zerto per protected VM — perpetual with HPE Tech Care (at least one year), or a 1, 3 or 5-year subscription with Tech Care included, co-termed from 1 to 59 months. The HPE India store lists the SKUs but shows a quote button, not an INR price. The only public Zerto figure is AWS Marketplace’s In-Cloud pack, $17,970 for 10 EC2 instances over 36 months, which is a different product. The DR site, its storage and its compute are your own cost. TechBag maps your VMs to an edition first, then compares HPE partner quotes in INR.
Enterprise Cloud Edition
Best for DR and migration across sites and clouds
- Per protected VM, quoted by HPE partners
- Perpetual or 1, 3 or 5-year subscription
- Replication, failover, live tests, Move
+ Platform add-ons
Best for a broader rollout
- Scoped to your estate
- Add-on modules as needed
- Phased, right-sized deployment
Advanced Resilience Edition
Best for an isolated cyber-recovery vault
- Everything in ECE, per protected VM
- Offline recovery and Cyber Recovery VPGs
- Basis of HPE Cyber Resilience Vault
Buy it for less — TechBag pricing beats list
Whatever the list prices above, TechBag negotiates a significantly better deal — with GST-compliant INR invoicing and local support. Ask us for your discounted quote.
Get an India-ready quote
Tell us your requirements and current tools — we’ll model it against what you spend today.
The 8 questions to ask every vendor
Take this into your next vendor call — including ours.
Which applications need seconds of RPO, and which can live with a nightly backup? Pay per VM only where it matters.
Do any hosts run Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV or bare metal? Current Zerto covers none of them; Hyper-V stays on 9.7.
Where will replicas run — your own Indian site, an Indian cloud region or an MSP? Zerto does not host them.
How many days of history do you need, up to 30, and how much storage will your daily change rate consume?
Do you need offline recovery into an isolated vault? That needs the Advanced Resilience Edition, not ECE.
Perpetual with Tech Care, or a 1, 3 or 5-year subscription? Ask partners to co-term it with your other HPE support.
What keeps data beyond 30 days? Zerto is not backup, so pair it with a backup product for long-term retention.
Who owns the quarterly failover test, and who receives the evidence your auditors or regulator will ask for?
Questions buyers ask
Ready to evaluate HPE Zerto Software?
Map your applications to RPO targets first, or let a TechBag advisor size the journal, choose an Indian DR site and compare HPE partner quotes for you.
Stats, ratings, review counts and pricing are illustrative and sourced from public materials; verify before purchase.