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VMware Aria Automation vs vCenter Orchestrator comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 8, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

vCenter Orchestrator
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Process Automation (10th)
VMware Aria Automation
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
169
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (1st), Configuration Management (7th), Network Automation (3rd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (16th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

vCenter Orchestrator and VMware Aria Automation aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. vCenter Orchestrator is designed for Process Automation and holds a mindshare of 0.3%, down 0.8% compared to last year.
VMware Aria Automation, on the other hand, focuses on Cloud Management, holds 10.8% mindshare, down 12.5% since last year.
Process Automation
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

David Villota - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides automatic monitoring capabilities that save time for users
In my company's IT environment, we use the tool to deploy production environments for products, including live manufacturing systems. The product improves my company's IT automation processes since we can use fewer resources currently. In my company, we need to spend less time considering that vCenter Orchestrator monitors everything. In general, we don't have to be present in our company to do active monitoring. Automatic monitoring is available for everything with vCenter Orchestrator, so we have proactive alerts in our company. The most valuable feature of the product in streamlining our company's workflow stems from the fact that we need to spend fewer resources and less time in general. Our company can spend time on more effective tasks like working with the plans to improve processes and so on, instead of taking care of the systems. The benefits of the product's integration capabilities were useful for HPE. My company has HPE infrastructure, and we are keen to integrate everything into the host, VMware ESXi. It is really important to have an easy integration method that allows for everything to be installed easily in a matter of minutes. I was not involved in the product's setup process. My colleague took care of the product's setup process. From what I know, I can say that the product's setup phase was straightforward. Some custom setups were to be done manually in the tool, but everything was well documented. I recommend the product to those who plan to use it. One of the benefits of the product is that it is a low-cost and stable solution that offers a lot of resources. I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.
NiteshKumar1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Good stability, supports a hybrid model and easy to use
There is an area of improvement. For example, you are migrating from a customer's existing data center to a new target data center. To facilitate this transition, you'll initially need to evaluate the customer's aging hardware hosting VMware, which is nearing the end of its operational life. The customer expresses the intention to upgrade to a newer version, necessitating an overhaul of everything in the new data center. As a Systems Integrator (SI), consultant, or architect, your recommendation would be to acquire the latest hardware with a specified configuration and then install VMware on top of it. However, there's a crucial aspect related to the infrastructure requirements for VMware to run seamlessly on that hardware. If there's an opportunity to potentially reduce these infrastructure prerequisites, it would be highly beneficial. This is because a higher number of VMware licenses requires more infrastructure capacity from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) or Colocation partners. Consequently, when discussing the operation of this virtualized environment from VMware over a contractual period of five years, the overall cost to the customer is influenced by the infrastructure requirements. If there's a feasible way to decrease these prerequisites for the infrastructure supporting the virtualization layer, it would be advantageous in terms of cost for the customer. Any customer in today's world exists or wants to exist in a hybrid model, so in future releases, we would like to see this. So, going forward, if this virtualized environment would exist, it has to be a combination of on-premise plus public cloud Azure/AWS. It should be more seamless when your interface or when you are interacting with workloads running on-premise VMware/AWS VMware. So it is only there in some capacity and space, and I'm aware of it. And Azure and VMware already have a tie-up on the same lines, but at the same time, if it is more seamless, if it is more interchangeable, if you could move your workloads, or if you can access your workloads or your virtual machines irrespective of whatever platform it is running, whether it is on-premises, or cloud or public cloud, it'll be a lot more comfortable for a user than the user to consume that infrastructure. Firstly, it needs to have a combination of deployment and be more seamless for the customers. Secondly, more software-defined features, more in terms of managing the infrastructure pool in a software-defined way. Managing the infrastructure pool in a more optimized fashion is going to be the key in the upcoming times. It's not just on-premise, but at the same time, it should also be the public cloud as well. Probably because when I meet my customers, this is one thing that I always tell them. I have seen people moving from on-premise public cloud only to realize at the end of the month that they end up paying a higher bill compared to what they were paying when they were running their business on-premise. The reason is that they do not understand or do not realize the full potential of the public cloud, and the way it should be consumed, the way it should be used, and the way it should be scheduled to ensure that the billing at the end of the month is very optimal. You pay for what exactly you need, not everything that you have from the cloud. That's not a way to use the cloud, whether it is on-premise or from the cloud. For example, an enterprise has over 100 applications. Out of that 100 applications, only 25 applications are running the production instances, and the remaining 75 are running non-production instances. It can be a development environment, a test environment, a sandbox, etc. In this case, you need to run only the 25 applications on the public cloud 24/7. You do not need to run your remaining 75 applications 24/7. Because, eventually, your developers, testers, quality managers, and whoever will use the non-production environment only when they're in the office and working on those applications. Then why do we need to have those applications, which are non-production in nature, lower environments? So we're running on the public cloud all the time because, for a cloud provider, it is a virtual machine; whether you are consuming it for production work or non-production work, it is going to charge you the same bill. And if you are not optimizing, if you're not scheduling workloads, you are actually wasting money. You're wasting your money, and your bills, which you are going to pay with the public cloud provider provided, are going to be bad. It's going to be crazy. And then customers do not know what to do in this situation. And you cannot fight with the public cloud provider because they would say, "I had given you all the possibilities, all the opportunities to learn about it, the way you should be functioning it, the way you should be utilizing it. If you are not using it the way it should be used, That's not my problem."

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The most valuable feature is workflow automation."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"User-friendly and easy to deploy."
"The product's initial setup phase was easy."
"The most valuable feature is that this solution is complete, and you don't need any add-ons."
"The implementation phase for vCenter Orchestrator was easy."
"vCenter Orchestrator is easy to use."
"The solution is stable."
"It has integration with the rest of VMware solutions."
"I can make a blueprint with an Active Directory deployment. With everything prepared, people can start installing our products."
"We provided the ability to request virtual machines to our end users. Before, this was a very manual process, which took engineers to do. Now, it's an automated process."
"It's much more stable than the highest available variant."
"Scalability is perfect. We haven't had any issues."
"The extensibility of it and the customization of a lot of the Blueprints, that you can customize, and the community as a whole. There's a ton of community-generated Blueprints that might be (helpful) to set up a design for your automation needs, that you can use as a base and go on from there and make changes to it."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"The extensibility of the solution when it comes to writing your own ABX actions is a valuable feature. You can write it in PowerShell, JavaScript, or Python, which is great."
 

Cons

"In the next release, to make it easier to write the workflows, I would l like to see more HTML GUIs."
"We would like more flexibility in sizing data storage and virtual machines, as the current options aren't very adaptable."
"This is an expensive solution."
"The solution's price could be cheaper."
"I would like to see, from within the Web Console, being able to define the project and custom templates per user; almost like how CloudSpec has approached the solution."
"The snapshot technology of VMware is not good compared to other solutions in the market, like Nutanix."
"Its technical support team takes a long time to escalate the issues."
"VMware tools would benefit from more automation. When installing our devices and servers, we often need to install the VMware tools manually. This process should be automated during the VM installation process."
"It would be nice if, at the director level, the manager level, there was a pretty graphic. They don't like to see numbers and line items, they want to see graphs and scales and real world pictures. That would support better reporting."
"The initial setup was complex because we have a high availability cluster. Especially when it comes to upgrades, we have a lot of downtimes and problems. The upgrade experience has been painful."
"Technical support could be improved. I definitely feel that the product is accelerating faster than the support engineers are able to keep up with the knowledge needed to know what's going on. The developers maintaining vRealize Automation are doing a great job improving it, but VMware is not doing a great job of training the people who we call to get support for it."
"I know you can spin up virtual desktops in vRA, but they're not thin-provisioned. I don't know if that's because the other product, Horizon View, is there, but it would be nice to see more integration."
"I would also like to see them streamline the install. It's split between Windows and Linux appliances, and it would be easier if it was all appliances. I think they're going that way."
"In terms of additional features, I would like it to be able to poll my vCenter infrastructure more rapidly and adapt to changes quickly. It should alert me and let me know when there are broken components, as a result of underlying infrastructure changes. It needs to be more stringent."
"It is too broad scale and complicated. It takes too many clicks to do things."
"Stability has gotten a lot better. However, the vRO aspect, when you have a multi vRA head, is a little bit finicky still. vRO still needs to stay on one appliance and be one application, because, when you have two, you can't see runs on the other one that are happening when you're not logged into that one."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is reasonable, and one of the reasons that this product was selected."
"My organization didn't have to pay extra for vCenter Orchestrator. It was already included, so it's basically free. Even VMware regular support is included."
"The product is expensive."
"We provide the VMware solution to our clients, for which they pay a perpetual license."
"My company needs to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the product."
"vCenter Orchestrator is a very expensive solution."
"The concept of hyper-convergence is smart. I don't know if it can be applied with less cost to be more affordable for small or medium-sized companies. The cost is a very important factor for it. We are currently depending on SAN storage. However, the hyper-converged solutions are depending on the storage within the hosts, such as vSAN in the VMware. It is a smart solution."
"The licensing cost is manageable because they have different versions available, standard, essential, and advanced."
"From the customer perspective, the value was worth it."
"The solution has helped to increase infrastructure, agility, speed, and provisioning in the time to market."
"It is an expensive product. After VMware's acquisition by Broadcom, there was a rise in the price of VMware Aria Automation."
"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
"The solution is free of cost."
"I'm very interested in the integration with Puppet. However, my organization doesn't have the funding for something like Puppet right now. If VMware would integrate that feature set (Puppet) into vRA. That would be very awesome."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
23%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Government
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about vCenter Orchestrator?
The stability of the product is very good.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for vCenter Orchestrator?
The pricing for vCenter Orchestrator is high. After the move to Broadcom, new pricing was applied suddenly without any notice. This has caused budget breakdowns multiple times to cover the increase...
What needs improvement with vCenter Orchestrator?
I think it's working fine for me. I don't have any specific areas for improvement. The only point for improvement is the price, which has increased by 135%, making it very expensive.
What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Beiersdorf Shared Services
Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Find out what your peers are saying about Camunda, Pega, BMC and others in Process Automation. Updated: November 2024.
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