vRealize Business for Cloud [EOL] Reviews

We use vRealize for automation, orchestration, and lifecycle management. Those are the three main components of version 8. The solution is deployed on premises at the local data center. I'm deploying it for licensing companies. So I have a contract with the customer before this is deployed within the customer environment.

The customer is using for example a Citrix workplace environment. So, with the pandemic, there are some situations where the customer needs all his staff in one meeting. All of the team must be working remotely online in the customer environment, which increases the data center's resource requirements. 

So we have scheduled automation to allow the customer to set up the meeting. Let's say on Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., we will have a meeting with 1,000 colleagues. The system will automatically deploy Citrix systems and list them on the central Citrix server. And after the meeting, the system will delete the Citrix servers, then free up the resources for standard applications.

Integration is straightforward, but it's a lot of work. First, you have to implement scripts to communicate with the Citrix environment, but that's relatively easy. And then, the customer can do it with one or two clicks. For example, say we need a Citrix server for an additional 1,000 users on Friday at 10 a.m. The resources on the Citrix server will be deployed and be there on Friday at 10. No problem. And when the meeting stops at noon or 2 p.m., the resources will be freed up for other things.

Our primary use case is to build a free communication environment for our customers and to validate the services of all organizations connected to the customer in different locations. Each location has its own IT, IT staff and IT infrastructure and we go to each of these to set up for them. The first step is implementing native ERS, IS, IAAS services, followed by PAAF or a similar solution. I'm a solution architect and project manager and we're a customer of vRealize.

The most valuable feature is that it has a very easy and adaptive look and feel, compared with some other cloud solutions. So it's very easy to set up the first IAAS services for a cloud-aware consultant. If you have to set up very complex services with dependencies between the parameters, you have to do this programmatically in the Orchestrator Space of the Solution (in our used 7.6 version only JavaScript is available, but it is a well-known programming language.

We have the complete VMware suite, including vRealize. We are using this solution as a chargeback tool for billing the respective business groups and project teams for our VM solutions.

Our interaction with clients begins with planning. We meet with the client to discuss project requirements, expectations, and use cases. We collate the information and use this to recommend how much compute, storage, and neutral bandwidth they will need.  Once we have those numbers in hand, we can easily size and bill the customers based on what was discussed. For example, a customer may want 100TB of storage with 2TB of memory, and vRealize will help us to bill these resources.

The most valuable feature is that it allows us to compare the billing between the clouds. It gives us a graphical representation of the difference between clouds like AWS, Azure, and other private or public cloud providers. This gives us a ballpark figure and it makes it easy for our clients to decide whether to go with a public or private cloud. Furthermore, we are the trusted advisors inside the organization and this tool enables us to decide whether to spin the virtual machines on-premises or off-site.

In terms of security and manageability, we have not had any difficulties.

We primarily use the solution for our internal cloud or private cloud as well as for the external clouds. I also use it at home for my private cloud.

In terms of budgeting, we were able to better understand the cost to budget the yearly financials better. We could understand what we were using so we could eliminate what we didn't need or decommission it from the public cloud.

The primary case use of this solution is to learn about the provisioning of the virtual machine and for asset management of our hardware.

The deployment model we are using is on-premises.

This solution made us aware that we are over-provisioning virtual machines. 

Automation and obviously the commercial aspects of the product are our primary use cases.   

Traditionally, we were mostly using an on-premise infrastructure, but in the last few years, we have done more with hybrid deployments. So we are generally traditional on-premise deployments but combined with cloud technology. Our model has significantly changed in the last few years as per the needs of the market and advancements in technology.  

The flexibility of the solution is the most valuable feature.  

We are service cloud providers. 

Our company has approximately 150 employees, and in our cloud, we manage approximately 6,000 users.

I like the openness of the solution. The hybrid feature to combine different types of cloud providers is useful, and it can be orchestrated in one central point.

The way the dashboard works with the main orchestrator to combine different types of cloud providers is helpful.

The features I find most valuable about this solution is it helps us to automate all the provisioning activities on the platform. I like the integration with other applications or vendors. 

I think it is a very good solution because the technology is very consolidated with third parties. VMware is a top solution for virtualizing infrastructure. If I have to suggest to someone to use a cloud platform technologies, I would suggest VMware or OpenStack for infrastructure, because with VMware you have a perfect way to have support for your issues. You also have a consolidated technology. With OpenStack, you have a cloud public platform like Amazon Web Services, because OpenStack is based on AWS philosophy. It is open so you're sure that in the future you can use the platform without problems and without locking.