On September 1, 2021, HPE announced the acquisition of Zerto, a market-leading data protection technology that helps customers recover data within minutes of a ransomware attack. This solution is available as a service via HPE GreenLake and the Data Services Cloud Console. In this article, I would like to present you how Zerto addresses the main cybersecurity challenges nowadays, and the benefits of ‘continuous data protection’.
The evolving approach to data protection
Cyber attacks, natural disasters, human error or failure in the IT architecture – our data is continually at risk. Zerto uses a unique approach – ‘continuous data protection’ – based on journaling, for an unparalleled recovery of virtualised and containerised applications, from the edge to cloud. It offers unified, scalable and automated data management within the Zerto platform, allowing you to transfer workloads and data between public cloud datacentres.
Risks and challenges are ever-increasing
With the emergence of new challenges and the increased risk of existing ones, the approach to protecting and securing systems and data has had to develop significantly. There is a need to protect data wherever it resides, whether that is scattered through layers of a traditional technology stack, or across different locations. An ‘edge to cloud’ approach is required, securing data within our own datacentres as well as public clouds and at the edge of the network.
IT managers today have some basic requirements:
- Continuous access to application data, regardless of location
- Certainty of data recovery
- Instant data recovery
- Data protection focused around the application, wherever its hardware platform is
- Simplicity of managing and maintaining solutions
- An environment designed for hybrid and multi cloud
Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) should be familiar to most IT managers today, with their importance directly related of the continuity of the operations of their organisation. With both an RPO (the age of files recovered from backup) and an RTO (the maximum length of time a system is down), the ideal state should be zero – with applications continually backed up and running without any downtime. However in the real world, this is virtually impossible, and an innovative solution is required to ensure this figure is kept as close to zero as possible.
How does Zerto work?
Zerto works both in the short and long term with continuous data protection; restoring systems and lost data after failure, and also backup storage, archiving and data migration as well as testing both recovery and software development scenarios. It provides simple, scalable protection, with a target RPO and RTO of near zero. Zerto has shown the shortest RPO of just a few seconds, and the fastest RTO of a few minutes from failure. Zerto protects the entire environment and applications, wherever they reside, and can restore both the entire environment, and individual files.
The benefits of Zerto
Today, organisations must run 24/7/365 and are at continuous risk of data breach or other disruption. Zerto delivers cloud data management and protection, with a simple scalable platform to manage, protect, recover and move data and applications across on-premises or any cloud. It is an industry leading ransomware protection solution, providing quick and easy data recovery after an attack, restoring applications, regardless of location. This restoration happens within minutes, minimising downtime and loss of access to critical data and systems. Restoring data to a few seconds before the attack prevents it from being lost, maintaining intellectual property, productivity and revenue.
A post-attack recovery plan is only as good as the ability to implement it successfully. Zerto allows you to test failover and recovery without disrupting your environment, any time, ensuring you are best prepared if an attack should occur.
Solution architecture
Zerto operates at virtualiser level (VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V), and across cloud providers such as AWS, MS Azure and GCP, as well as those supported by Kubernetes. The solution’s basic elements are:
- Zerto Virtual manager (ZVM) – a central management interface for coordinating replication and recovery, deployed on one virtual machine.
- Virtual Replication Appliance (VRA) – ‘scale-out’ architecture consisting of one VRA for each vSphere.
- Virtual Protection Group (VPG) – a group of many virtual machines ensuring application compatibility for recovery purposes.
- vDisk & Journal vDisk – a replica of vDisk data stored in the target vSphere or Hyper-V environment to ensure recovery points over time.
Additional Azure and AWS element:
- Azure & AWS Zerto Cloud Appliance (ZCA) – ZVM and VRA connection that stores a replica of the data with preconfigured virtual machine/instance templates that are created in the event of actual disaster recovery.
Continuous data protection with Zerto
Zerto offers a single, scalable data management platform, operating across multiple clouds and security that saves organisations time and money by automating and simplifying operations, consolidation tools and precision recovery. Zerto’s software-based continuous data protection technology and logging recovery are unmatched, guaranteeing:
- Faster disaster recovery times
- Protection against ransomware and hacker attacks
- Consistent user experience, regardless of hardware or cloud
- Disaster recovery service
- Smooth application mobility in hybrid and multi-cloud environments
See for yourself – Zerto’s evaluation version is available for free, providing protection for 10 virtual machines for a year. Find out m.ore here.
PiotrDrag
HPE Storage Category Manager for Poland. Passionate about primary storage, data protecion, public Cloud, scale out storage systems and Internet of Things.
