Zerto Virtual Replication 5.0 Enterprise DR Built on Microsoft Azure

Zerto Ltd. introduced Virtual Replication 5.0 enabling enterprise DR with Microsoft Azure.

This milestone helps enterprises by utilising the Microsoft Azure cloud platform for BC and DR. Other 5.0 innovations include the industry’s first hypervisor-based ‘one-to-many’ replication for protection of multiple workloads across different datacentre sites, extended 30-day journaling and a new mobile application.

Virtual Replication 5.0 is expected to be available in Q4 2016.

Features within Virtual Replication 5.0 include:

• Microsoft Azure support expands hybrid cloud capabilities – Virtual Replication 5.0 adds support for Microsoft Azure as a public cloud target. This expands the existing capabilities of company’s Cloud Continuity Platform, which supports application protection and workload migration for private, public, and hybrid clouds. This release provides consistency groups, block-level replication, and point-in-time recovery journaling from vSphere and Hyper-V environments to Microsoft Azure. The latest version is easy to deploy with pre-installed Microsoft Azure drivers in all Windows OSes post-Microsoft Vista, as well as a list of supported Linux OSes. RPO and RTO are achieved while creating instant copies of the replicated disks – even while disk size has no impact on RTO.

• ‘One-to-many’ replication improves SLA flexibility – The one-to-many feature provides improved migration protection, longer cloud-based retention, and individual VM recovery. The latest version simultaneously replicates a VM to multiple target platforms that are supported, which includes local or remote vSphere, Hyper-V, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and company’s Cloud Service Provider infrastructures. This feature helps recover entire sites consistently, provides longer cloud-based retention, as well as protection during migrations to new DR sites with no downtime. A VM can be placed into multiple virtual protection groups (VPGs) to enable simultaneous replication of the VM to the same or different target sites with the ability to configure different SLAs per VPG. In this way, more cost-effective cloud storage can be used for longer term retention while minimising the impact on local production storage usage.

• Extended journal capabilities reduce backup constraints and storage costs – For businesses that require longer retention of data, Virtual Replication 5.0 provides point-in-time recovery from the journal that extends up to 30 days – extended from the previous 14 day setting. This expands recovery of any file system object, including but not limited to SQL, Oracle, Exchange, and user data, from any point in time up to one month in the past to remove the impact of data loss from using infrequent backup solutions. When coupled with journaling compression and the ‘one-to-many’ feature, each VM can have a different journal history which can be configured on a per-VPG basis to improve SLAs, while enabling efficient usage of local storage or cheaper remote cloud storage. The journaling compression of changed block data stored in the recovery site saves on average 60% of disk space utilised for enabling point in time recovery of data and applications.

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• Firm’s mobile BC/DR application supports ‘anywhere, anytime’ IT environment monitoring – The application helps IT professionals stay connected, be proactive, and maintain SLAs by extending IT environment monitoring to their mobile device to ensure critical applications are protected. It provides a single pane view into the status of all Zerto Virtual Managers (ZVMs), Virtual Protection Groups (VPGs), alerts, and running tasks on any Android or iOS mobile device.

“The release of Zerto Virtual Replication 5.0 is a noteworthy BC/DR industry milestone in that it helps enterprises seamlessly maintain resilience of their critical-business operations,” said Matthew Kates, country manager, Australia and New Zealand, Zerto. “By extending Zerto’s hybrid cloud software capabilities to Azure, introducing customer-requested features, and improving ease of use, our customers and partners can move their businesses forward with the confidence that they are protected from anything that may come their way.“

Dominic Anschutz, director, global cloud team, Microsoft Corp., said: “As cloud-based and software-defined infrastructures become more pervasive in today’s IT-enabled businesses, we’re pleased to work with Zerto to offer their DR and migration capabilities on Microsoft Azure. Protecting and recovering critical IT infrastructures and data has never been more important, and Zerto’s commitment to ongoing innovations in the areas of cloud protection, migration, and IT resilience benefits our mutual customers.“

Virtual Replication 5.0 Beta (registration required)