Zerto offering hypervisor-level replication

The brothers who founded replication start-up Kashya – sold to EMC in 2006 – aim to replicate their replication success with Zerto, a start-up integrating replication into VMware's hypervisor.

Instead of replication being done at the storage array-level, with a need for identical arrays either side of the replication network link, and a lack of awareness of virtual machine (VM) software structures and file set relationships, it can be carried out by ESX, and be fully VM-aware and use dissimilar arrays.

Zerto is a privately owned Israeli company, started up in 2009 by Ziv and Oded Kedem. They founded Kashya, which EMC bought for $153m in 2006, whose product is now called RecoverPoint.

Zerto is now out of stealth mode and "will soon launch the first hypervisor-based, virtual-aware replication solution specifically designed for enterprise-class, tier-one applications". The company claims it will be VM-aware and thus replicate at the VM-level, which storage arrays cannot inherently do as their controlling software is not VM-aware.

By presenting replication as a hypervisor-level service applications running in VMs can request replication as and when they need it. Similarly an ESX administrator will be able, in theory, to set replication policies for VMs and have replication runs scheduled. Such policies can be moved with a VM in a vMotion session.

Zerto says its Virtual Replication technology will make it easier for businesses to move mission-critical applications to the cloud. It can replicate from vCenter to vCloud, is software only, supports multi-tenancy and offers continuous replication, a low RTO/RPO and journal-based, point-in-time recovery. There is an API providing integration with proprietary cloud management systems and built-in WAN compression.

Zerto says cloud service providers will be able to offer disaster recovery as a service by using its technology. Find out more details of Zerto's technology here (2-page PDF/242KB). The product is in beta test and we might expect its formal announcement by the end of the year. ®