vRealize Network Insight Reviews

Name: vRealize Network Insight
Brand: VMware
Rating: 4 (45 reviews)

4.3 out of 5

45 reviews
89% willing to recommend

943 followers

What is vRealize Network Insight?

VMware vRealize Network Insight delivers intelligent operations for software-defined networking and security. It helps customers build an optimized, highly-available and secure network infrastructure across multi-cloud environments. It accelerates micro-segmentation planning and deployment, enables visibility across virtual and physical networks and provides operational views to manage and scale VMware NSX deployments.

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vRealize Network Insight is the #19 ranked solution in Infrastructure Monitoring tools and #23 ranked solution in best Network Monitoring Tools. PeerSpot users give vRealize Network Insight an average rating of 8.6 out of 10. vRealize Network Insight is most commonly compared to Splunk Enterprise Security: vRealize Network Insight vs Splunk Enterprise Security. vRealize Network Insight is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 71% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a financial services firm, accounting for 16% of all views.

Buyer's Guide

vRealize Network Insight

September 2024

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Helped 813,418 peers since 2012

Featured reviews

NiteshKumar1

Principle consultant at Infosys

The product is highly regarded, and many customers have been using it along with other VMware products like vSphere and VMware vCloud Usage Insight. However, recently, there's been a trend among customers, especially those using VMware for a considerable period, to explore the potential of migrating to the public cloud. The common concern among these customers is how the VMware products will perform in the public cloud environment. Migrating instances from VMware to different platforms is not easy, especially when dealing with many instances across multiple customers. Customers are keen to maintain the functionality of their existing VMware products but prefer to run them on the public cloud instead of on-premise servers. Our clients for vRealize Network Insight are enterprise businesses. I rate it a nine out of ten.

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Javed Koor

VMware Administrator L3 Support at Diyar United Company

I thought that when we deployed vRealize Network Insight in our environment, we had to wait for four weeks or so for the solution to capture all the traffic in and out from each connected component. Then, we had to extract the data into an Excel format and analyze it. After that, we had to manually enter the data into NSX-T Manager. If there was an integration between vRNI and NSX-T Manager, we could extract all the firewall rules directly from NSX-T Manager. This would reduce the workload in half since we would not have to manually enter the same data into both systems. In my experience, the main purpose of vRNI was to obtain firewall rules for NSX-T Manager. If this was integrated, it would have been much easier, since the documentation work was too much. vRNI captures every traffic in and out, so the file can become huge if we have many components and machines in our environment. Integration would help identify the legitimate ports on vRNI and extract the final rules to push them directly to NSX-T Manager, which would make the task much easier. The only issue we have is that the solution does not always capture the host names. We asked VMware for an explanation and they provided us with some reasons. Ideally, the DNS name should be captured, however, when we extracted the data onto an Excel sheet, we found that around 20 to 30 entries only had IP addresses. Therefore, we had to manually track those IP addresses and then input their hostname and username to identify what the IP address represented. It seems that something may not have captured this part, but there was a reason for it, and that has room for improvement.

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Claudio Sousa

Network Engineer at a consultancy with 1,001-5,000 employees

vRealize is used to help our development team by producing detailed reports of the network flow and layout. This includes details like the TCP network keys and the RTT It has helped improve our organization by directing the network traffic using SDN. The most valuable feature is the application…

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vRealize Network Insight mindshare

Product category:

As of October 2024, the mindshare of vRealize Network Insight in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category stands at 0.6%, down from 0.8% compared to the previous year, according to calculations based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Key learnings from peers

Valuable Features

The most valuable features of vRealize Network Insight include its ability to provide detailed information about east-west traffic within the data center, identify communication patterns between virtual machines, generate customized reports, and capture all network traffic.

Additionally, it offers network assurance, good data integration with other products, and a simple initial setup and user-friendly interface.

"The automation collects all the relationships between servers, allowing us to visualize these relationships and organize the migration into waves."
"The tool's ease of configuration and use and the availability of information and artifacts through professional services and the web are key factors that customers find valuable."
"With this product, we can precisely identify communication patterns between virtual machines within our data center, whether it's east-east or east-west communication."

Room for Improvement

When it comes to vRealize Network Insight, there are several areas that could be improved. Firstly, the pricing model needs to be more accommodating, especially for customers in countries with weaker currencies like Brazil. Additionally, the solution should aim to enhance its reliability and accuracy, as there are instances where it does not match properly.

While the current version seems fine for now, users suggest trying the newer version to test for improvements. Some users also believe that deeper analytics and machine learning capabilities could be implemented to better inspect packet flows and identify potential threats.

Furthermore, integration with other systems, such as NSX-T Manager, would greatly reduce manual work and improve efficiency. Currently, there are some issues with capturing host names, which require manual tracking and inputting of information.

The solution should also focus on better compatibility with other brands for seamless integration.

"Since Broadcom acquired VMware, it has been experiencing challenges. Many sales processes are not well defined."
"The IT infrastructure industry is expected to evolve towards a hybrid cloud model in the next five to ten years. In this model, most of the customer's resources reside on-premise within a private cloud setup, such as VMware. Another segment operates within public cloud environments like Azure and AWS, and a portion remains in traditional data centers.There should be seamless interoperability between public and private clouds. AWS and VMware need to work together to make it possible. Whether users interact with on-premise infrastructure or configure resources in the public cloud, the user experience must be seamless."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to pricing because we pay here in Brazil, and all the costs are based on the dollar."

ROI

Teams have experienced increased efficiency and productivity with vRealize Network Insight. They have been able to accomplish more tasks with the same number of team members, resulting in time savings.

Pricing

The pricing for vRealize Network Insight can be improved and lowered. The presence of a distributor between the reseller and the manufacturer in some places significantly impacts the final cost. While all VMware products are generally expensive, the cost of vRealize Network Insight is considered a trade-off for the value it provides.

"I rate vRealize Network Insight's pricing a seven point five out of ten."
"vRealize Network Insight is expensive."
"It's a little expensive, but for what you're getting out of the product, you often see the trade-off. It depends on the type of licensing you have. It might be a little too pricey for some."

Popular Use Cases

The primary use case of vRealize Network Insight is to assist in network architecture and planning before deploying NSX. It is used to gather data, determine firewall rules, and analyze communication between virtual machines. Additionally, it is used for virtualization, monitoring, troubleshooting network performance issues, providing deeper analytical insights into network traffic, and making recommendations for micro-segmentation.

It is also utilized for dependency mappings during migration projects and ensuring consistent replication. Another use case is to analyze and provide firewall rules for achieving micro-segmentation in NSX-T Manager. It can be used to generate detailed reports of network flow and layout, including TCP network keys and RTT.

Service and Support

The technical support provided is efficient and competent, resolving issues promptly. The support received from VMware, the company behind vRealize Network Insight, is also commended for its effectiveness. However, there are some instances where issues were not resolved, particularly for non-native English speakers, suggesting a need for improved communication and additional attention in such cases.

Deployment

The setup process for vRealize Network Insight is compared to a plug-and-play experience where deploying virtual appliances and making a few configurations is all that's needed to start collecting data. The only challenge mentioned is analyzing the data, however, network consultants provide assistance with reports and filters for NSX firewalls.

Maintenance requires only one person, and additional personnel is not necessary for small environments.

The setup can be done both on-premises and on the cloud, with the complexity increasing as more advanced features are utilized.

Scalability

The solution of vRealize Network Insight has received positive feedback regarding its scalability. It is scalable, especially in larger environments where additional nodes may be needed. Adding more licenses also enhances the scalability of the solution. Some users have successfully deployed it as clusters in certain projects, indicating its adaptability to customer environments.

Stability

Based on the provided answers, the solution of vRealize Network Insight is considered stable and functional. Users have reported minimal to no issues, with newer versions being more stable than older ones. The product is described as not excessively buggy or glitchy, and it does not crash or freeze.

These insights are based on the in-depth reviews provided by peers to help you make a better buying decision.

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