HPE/Zerto is at VMware Explore 2023 in Barcelona again this year. The software vendor is now part of the HPE company and I was able to do an interview with Chris Rogers from HPE about the importance of DR, ransomware protection, and how Zerto can help restore your data with very low RPO and RTO.
Zerto is a disaster recovery and data protection software that provides continuous data protection (CDP) and replication technology for virtualized infrastructure and cloud environments. The platform is designed to help organizations protect their data and applications from downtime, data loss, and ransomware attacks.
Photo during VMware Explore Barcelona 2023 with Chris Rogers.
Zerto has recently released a new version of its platform that includes several improvements to help IT managers fight ransomware. One of the key features of the new release is real-time ransomware detection, which uses Zerto’s CDP engine to detect data encryption from a ransomware attack within seconds. The platform can then send real-time alerts to incident response teams to isolate and mitigate the attack and begin the recovery process. This feature can help organizations reduce the cost and impact of a ransomware attack by detecting it more quickly and recovering more quickly with real-time detection.
Note: Zerto is not using hypervisor snapshots and as such there is no pressure for the underlying storage system. The changes are stored in the journal that can be rewind back in time for recovery of particular VMs placed in a protection group. With its Virtual Protection Groups (VPGs), you can group VMs and virtual disks to be protected and recovered together to the same point in time. The continuous data protection will have zero production impact because there are no snapshots or agents.
Another important feature of the new release is automated restores, which can recover corrupted applications and data within minutes of initial infection. This feature can help organizations dramatically mitigate the risks and impact of cyberattacks by having the right ransomware strategy in place.
Zerto’s platform also includes several other features that can help IT managers fight ransomware. For example, the platform provides continuous replication of data between sites, which can help organizations recover quickly from a ransomware attack by failing over to a secondary site.
Usually, where there is encryption, there might be a ransomware attack happening, right? And that's exactly what Zerto's new feature is all about – detect encryption at the early stage! When most, if not all, of your data, is already encrypted and you're looking to recover, that's already too late….
The detection is done at the block level so where a possibly encrypted block is detected, it happens in the very early stage.
The detection system is actually sitting within the Zerto VRA appliance (the appliance that is responsible for moving the data at the block level), so all you have to do is activate a single check box, which activates the inline detection that collects the encryption metrics data. Those data can be then sent via a new API to ZVM, or to other systems.
Additionally, Zerto’s journaling technology allows organizations to recover their data to a point in time just seconds prior to an attack. This feature can help organizations minimize data loss and resume operations more quickly after an attack.
In conclusion, Zerto’s platform provides several features that can help IT managers fight ransomware attacks. The latest release includes real-time ransomware detection, automated restores, continuous replication of data between sites, and journaling technology for quick recovery. These features can help organizations reduce the cost and impact of a ransomware attack by detecting it more quickly, minimizing data loss, and resuming operations more quickly after an attack.
Here is a video from VMware EXPLORE Barcelona 2023, with Chris Rogers.
More about Zerto on ESX Virtualization
- Zerto 10 announced with a Real-Time Ransomware Detection and Air Gap Vault with immutability
- Zerto Platform 9.7 U1 supports vSphere 8.0
- Zerto Platform Demo – VMware EXPLORE Barcelona 2022
- Zerto 9.5 U1 Transition to Linux to reduce surface attack
- Protect 10 VMs for Free with Zerto
- Zerto Virtual Replication 9 adds Immutability and Instant Restore from long-term retention repository
More posts from ESX Virtualization:
- VMware vSphere 8.0 U2 Released – ESXi 8.0 U2 and VCSA 8.0 U2 How to update (NEW)
- What’s the purpose of those 17 virtual hard disks within VMware vCenter Server Appliance (VCSA) 8.0?
- VMware vSphere 8 Update 2 New Upgrade Process for vCenter Server details
- VMware vSAN 8 Update 2 with many enhancements announced during VMware Explore
- What’s New in VMware Virtual Hardware v21 and vSphere 8 Update 2?
- Homelab v 8.0
- vSphere 8.0 Page
- Veeam Bare Metal Recovery Without using USB Stick (TIP)
- ESXi 7.x to 8.x upgrade scenarios
- A really FREE VPN that doesn’t suck
- Patch your ESXi 7.x again
- VMware vCenter Server 7.03 U3g – Download and patch
- Upgrade VMware ESXi to 7.0 U3 via command line
- VMware vCenter Server 7.0 U3e released – another maintenance release fixing vSphere with Tanzu
- What is The Difference between VMware vSphere, ESXi and vCenter
- How to Configure VMware High Availability (HA) Cluster
Stay tuned through RSS, and social media channels (Twitter, FB, YouTube)
