There are all kinds of elements to consider when you’re setting up a server for your company. No detail can go overlooked or your business may suffer dire consequences some day. That being said, most people would argue that the features concerning your disaster recovery plan are easily some of the most important ones you have to think about, beginning with the software you choose.
In short, if your disaster recovery as a service plan is lacking, your company could be without its digital infrastructure someday, perhaps permanently. Right now, the two most popular platforms offering this kind of service are Veeam and Zerto.
Veeam
This company entered the market in 2006 and, from the beginning, has made virtualization its focus. While it started out making products for monitoring, Veeam eventually moved on to manufacture the replication and backup platforms they have since become known for.
The company combines VMware snapshot elements with CBT (Changed Block Tracking) to replicate a virtual machine. While the snapshot is being taken, a redo file is made that is imprinted with the data from that snapshot. Then, the next time a replication process is started, the replica virtual machine only records the changes that have been made since the last time the process was run.
Zerto
In the other corner, we have Zerto, which is just a bit younger, having been founded in 2009. This company also made virtualization and disaster recovery their main priorities. Despite having arguably one of the best products in the entire market, Zerto is also known for creating extremely user-friendly, streamlined products. You shouldn’t have any trouble implementing and using this software even if it’s the first time you’ve ever used a disaster recovery service.
The mechanism that Zerto uses for replication is one major difference between the two products. With this platform, a small virtual machine is actually deployed on each physical node. These virtual machines then go to work by capturing the data that is written to the host before sending a copy of it to the replication site.
While not synchronous, this process is nearly synchronous. The replication is continuous, so as soon as it’s set, it will replicate a change as it happens in the virtual machine using the company’s change tracking technology.
Which One Is Better?
Now that you understand the main differences between these two disaster recovery platforms, let’s talk about which one is better.
This is an incredibly tough call to make because, as we mentioned before, both are considered industry leaders.
Although everyone’s situation is unique, there are two points you need to consider when making your decision.
The first is their respective RPOs (Recovery Point Objectives) for business justification and the way they carry out replication for technical justification. Veeam’s approach will take at least 10 minutes, whereas Zerto only needs seconds.
However, the other thing you’re going to need to consider is the pricing. Given Zerto’s superior speed, you shouldn’t be surprised to learn that it costs a lot more, too. Of course, for many companies, that price tag is completely worth it. Others are perfectly satisfied with Veeam’s offering, though, and enjoy protecting their budget.
It should also be pointed out that many organizations actually use both. This gives them a combination of RTO and RPO. If you have the capital and want to sleep a bit easier at night, this might be the route to take.
In the end, you can’t go wrong by picking either. If money is a bit tight at the moment, you could go with Veeam for now and upgrade to or add Zerto later on when your budget has a bit more room.