Original reporting sourced from itbrief.co.nz. Publication date: March 2020.
Zerto 8.0: IT Resilience Across Hybrid and Multi-Cloud Environments
Zerto released version 8.0 of its IT resilience platform, targeting disaster recovery, data protection, and workload mobility across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The release is notable for introducing first-class Google Cloud support and expanding existing integrations with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and VMware.
Google Cloud Integration via Continuous Data Protection
The headline feature of Zerto 8.0 is support for Google Cloud Platform (GCP), delivered through Zerto’s Continuous Data Protection (CDP) technology. Specifically, the integration targets Google Cloud’s VMware-as-a-Service offering, allowing organisations to protect and migrate native VMware workloads running on GCP without abandoning the VMware tooling they already use on-premises.
According to Zerto, the GCP integration supports the company’s headline recovery metrics — Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs), Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs), and workload mobility — bringing them to VMware workloads hosted on Google Cloud.
Google Cloud’s director of partnerships, Manvinder Singh, commented on the launch:
“We’re excited to partner with Zerto and to integrate its capabilities in disaster recovery and backup with Google Cloud. Zerto’s expertise in supporting and securing VMware workloads in the cloud will be a benefit to organisations that are increasingly running mission-critical workloads on Google Cloud.”
Manvinder Singh, Director of Partnerships, Google Cloud
Expanded VMware Support: vVols and vCloud Director
Zerto 8.0 adds support for VMware vSphere Virtual Volumes (vVols), enabling storage policy-based management to coexist with Zerto’s data protection layer across both traditional storage and hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). This is relevant to VMware environments where consistent storage policies are enforced at the VM level rather than the datastore level.
The release also expands the VMware vCloud Director (vCD) integration, adding a self-service recovery portal aimed at Managed Service Providers (MSPs). This gives MSP customers more autonomy when initiating recovery operations without needing direct access to the underlying infrastructure.
A VMware VP of marketing for HCI noted the significance of the vVols support:
“Zerto support for VMware Virtual Volumes (vVols) helps our mutual customers protect their digital infrastructure. As an Advanced tier Technology Alliance Partner, Zerto is helping customers realise the unique VMware ability to offer consistent storage policy-based management across traditional storage and hyperconverged infrastructure.”
VMware VP Marketing, HCI BU
Microsoft Azure: Hyper-V Gen 2 VM Support and Failback Improvements
Zerto 8.0 deepens its Microsoft Azure integration with two significant additions:
- Hyper-V Gen 2 VM support: Organisations using UEFI-based virtual machines in on-premises Hyper-V environments can now use Azure as a disaster recovery target directly, without converting those VMs to legacy BIOS formats. This removes a common friction point for enterprises standardising on Gen 2 VMs.
- Incremental snapshots and failback across all regions: Zerto’s failback functionality, built on incremental snapshots of Azure managed disks, is now available across all Azure regions rather than a subset, broadening coverage for geographically distributed deployments.
AWS Storage Gateway as a Cloud Archive Target
On the AWS side, Zerto 8.0 introduces support for AWS Storage Gateway as a target site for cloud archive and data protection workloads. This allows organisations to route long-term retention data through Storage Gateway into AWS object or tape storage tiers, extending Zerto’s Virtual Protection Group (VPG) framework to archival use cases alongside live recovery scenarios.
New Data Protection and Operational Management Features
Beyond cloud integrations, Zerto 8.0 introduces several operational improvements:
- Single pane of glass reporting: A unified reporting view covers the status, performance, and capacity of all protected workloads managed through VPGs, reducing the need to correlate data from multiple consoles.
- Unified alert management: A prioritised alert view surfaces critical alerts with customisable notification settings, helping operations teams focus on events that require immediate action.
- Impact analysis: New capability allows teams to assess both protected and unprotected environments, whether on-premises or in the cloud, to understand exposure and prioritise protection efforts.
- Resource planning: A dedicated view surfaces unprotected VMs across the environment, giving teams a clear picture of gaps in their protection posture.
- Automated failover configuration: Zerto added automated OS configuration and automatic failback configuration to streamline failover and recovery workflows in public cloud environments, reducing manual steps during high-pressure recovery events.
Leadership Perspective
Zerto CEO Ziv Kedem framed the release in the context of the company’s long-term direction:
“With Zerto 8.0, our mission is to deliver IT resilience everywhere, by introducing a range of new and powerful features along with deeper integration with market-leading public cloud providers. We give customers the protection they want, wherever they need it. Zerto has been moving the dial on resilience for the past decade, and the ongoing development and wider integration of our platform shows the importance of technology leadership in an era where businesses can never stand still on data protection and recovery.”
Ziv Kedem, CEO, Zerto
Summary of Key Zerto 8.0 Changes
| Area | What’s New in 8.0 |
|---|---|
| Google Cloud | CDP support for VMware-as-a-Service on GCP; workload protection and migration |
| VMware | vVols support; expanded vCloud Director with MSP self-service portal |
| Microsoft Azure | Hyper-V Gen 2 VM support; global failback via incremental managed disk snapshots |
| AWS | AWS Storage Gateway as archive/data protection target |
| Operations | Unified alerting, impact analysis, resource planning, automated failover config |
Zerto was subsequently acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in 2021. Readers researching current product versions and feature availability should consult the HPE Zerto documentation directly.