The Zerto 10 update also requires customers to migrate to a new Linux-based software appliance, although Zerto is providing a tool to migrate it from Windows, while the HPE company also is announcing its Zerto 10 for Microsoft Azure offering.
On Thursday, Zerto, which was acquired by HPE in 2021 but has operated since as an independent division within the company, announced the new Zerto 10 version of their software. It adds a new real-time tool for encryption detection, thus enhancing ransomware resilience. Also new is an air-gapped Cyber Resilience Vault for clean copy recovery. Zerto also announced the launch of Zerto 10 for Microsoft Azure, which includes a new replication architecture for scale-out efficiency and native protection of Azure Virtual Machines.
“Customers have told us that their top challenges begin with the evolving nature of threats, like ransomware as a service,” said Caroline Seymour, Vice President of Product Marketing at Zerto. “They also said that ransomware has too long a recovery period to get back to normal. Right now, it’s a month, and they want it up faster. In addition, only 4% of those who paid got their data back.”
The real-time encryption detection tool is superior to alternatives available in the market, said Deepak Verma, Zerto’s VP of products.
“There are generally two global approaches to detection,” he said. “One is to slow things down. The other and more common way is to use a secondary copy of data to detect threats. What we are adding in Zerto 10 is a set of algorithms to the Elastic Journal that detect if anything in a block is encrypted. This makes it an effective early warning system.”
The advantage here, is the ability to detect changes in backups within seconds, which lets admins find files encrypted by ransomware before it can do any damage.
“Our customers will also like that this is all included at no cost,” Verma said.
A complementary new solution is the new Zerto Cyber Resilience Vault, which adds another layer of security with the real-time early warning system. It has three core pillars: replicate and detect, isolate and lock, and test and recover, which combined with the vault’s zero trust architecture, enables rapid air-gapped recovery in a highly secure environment.
“The vault gives you an air gapped and production immutable copy, so you can get up and running very quickly,” Verma noted.
In addition, Zerto 10 offers a turnkey Zerto Virtual Manager Appliance, which deploys quickly and securely as a new, security-hardened virtual appliance. For Windows users, there is a catch, however. The Zerto Virtual Manager Appliance is Linux-based, and replaces the legacy Windows-based Zerto Virtual Manager. While Zerto emphasizes that the new Linux-based appliance is easier to deploy and more secure, customers will have to switch from a Windows device to a Linux one.
“We are providing a migration tool to move customers from Windows,” Verma noted. While the tool is free, the HPE hardware required for the appliance is not, however.
What will likely please Microsoft customers though is the announcement of Zerto 10 for Microsoft Azure, with the key enhancement being a new replication architecture for scale-out efficiency and native protection of Azure Virtual Machines
“Zerto 10 has changed its replication architecture for Azure,” Verma said. “It will let you protect thousands of VMs at a lower operational cost. This was a major ask from Azure customers, and it will be in the Azure Marketplace.”
Zerto 10 now also supports multi-disk consistency for VMs in Microsoft Azure to protect an organization’s data, not just to and from Azure, but also across Azure regions within the cloud.
“Using this multi-disk consistency API that we developed with Microsoft, as Azure rolls into more regions, you will be able to use Zerto to protect your data there,” Verma indicated.
