VMware Aria Automation Reviews

DevOps is our primary use case. It's performing okay. We're getting ready to upgrade and move into an HA environment, so it will be much better.

The benefit to our organization is time to market. It has streamlined the process so that they can deploy systems, test the systems, and get the product to market faster. Speed of provision is much faster than what we used to manage, especially when we incorporate Day 2 Operations. We can get that into the automation and allow for that to take place, as opposed to the DevOps teams doing that all manually.

It has absolutely helped to increase infrastructure agility - not to its capacity by any stretch, but we're working towards that. It definitely has allowed us to be a little bit more agile.

The most valued feature is the streamlining of the DevOps process, automation and orchestration. It provides the ability for the entire Dev lifecycle to actually be incorporated into a single stream. That's our primary focus.

We still struggle a little bit with the configuration as far as making sure that we have all the endpoints where they need to be, because that's not as agile as we'd like in the back-end. We're working towards that with our DevOps teams to make sure that we're touching the right endpoints and getting the right data.

Also, what we would like to see is a lot more integration across platforms, multi-cloud. I think that's coming.

in general, it took us a long time to get it off the ground. We had a lot of issues upfront and we determined that we just needed to scrap it. I think we scrapped it two or three times before we actually got it built the way we wanted, and we're still not where we need to be. We have had downtime. There have been some issues, but we're also two iterations behind on version. We're getting ready to move to a new HA environment and go on to the newest product line.

Right now, it doesn't scale for us, but it will once we move into the new environment. It will probably scale five years out, especially with the way that we can integrate different endpoints.

Technical support has been phenomenal. Most of the time we get to the right person, but not always. We eventually do because we know who we need to talk to.

Previously, we used a product called LiveManager. It was not across the entire organization, it was just a subset, so there was nothing really prior to this.

When looking at a vendor, the most important criterion is how good a partner will they be? Will they be around? Is it somebody that we can trust and that has been utilized in the marketplace? In addition, is the solution scalable? And then we'll look at cost.

No way was the initial setup straightforward. We scrapped it multiple times. Going through some of the sessions today, here at VMworld 2018, we see that they're incorporating some of the certificate management and so forth. That's where our biggest challenge was.

Upgrading was pretty straightforward. In-place upgrades worked really well for what we've done. There wasn't a whole lot to that. It worked well.

Really, it's all about the initial setup and making sure that it is set up right.

We haven't calculated an ROI but we've realized ROI in manpower.

At the time, there wasn't really any competition when we decided to go this route. It was really only VMware.

In general, I'd recommend vRA but make sure that your framework is set, that you understand what your processes are so that you can fit into the framework.

It's not intuitive and user-friendly but we've made it that way. We've allowed the DevOps teams to incorporate some of their components inside of the catalogs themselves, so we give them a little bit more flexibility, rather than dictating what they need to do. That way, it really runs true to their process.

I rate vRA about an eight out of ten because of the inability to get this thing stood up, initially. We weren't the first to actually do it, and yet, it seemed like we were the first to do it. But because of its scalability, it's a product that we decided to go with.

Our primary use case for this solution is for making a cloud through ICDC. We have to integrate them into many VM masses with vRA.

Before it would take months to deploy a VM, now, with this solution, we can deploy many VMs in one hour. We can do a stack of them with Mediaware.

This solution has definitely helped increase the speed of provisioning. We can now deploy many VMs in one hour. We also don't need to call in as many teams to deploy them. Now it's just one team and they can deploy the machines way faster. It's very good.

We like that it gives the user the possibility to deploy on their own, we have found that to be a very valuable feature.

We have and we haven't found this solution to be user-friendly. In this case, we have another portal in the front because we have some use cases we can add to the products so we use another portal for that to reply to all of the requirements.

This version has all of the features we want. 

Stability is good. It helps us provide more services and give more capacities. It improved our infrastructure and gives us more possibilities to provide our users. It's a very good product.

Scalability is good. We also use other solutions and we are still beginners with these products. We still have to set the time to configure it so that we can maximize its benefits.

We had to use their technical support only once. We didn't have any issues with them, they were great.

The setup was complex in many ways. The first reason is that we have many teams who work on it so it gets complicated gathering all of the people needed. The second reason is that it can be complicated to install it quickly, and within a reasonable amount of time.  

We have a VMware PSO at work who is very good. He was experienced and had good knowledge so we were very happy. We are very enthusiastic to continue with VMware in the future.

I would rate this solution a nine because we've had a good experience with their consultants. Also, because the product is evolving. 

I would advise someone looking into this or a similar solution, to test the solution beforehand and to be in contact with VMware for advice and help with configuration. You'll realize this solution isn't so complicated.

We're using it to automate the lifecycle of all the VMs that we are managing.

It is possible to completely automatize the creation and removal of a virtual machine. Not just technically, it also automates the monitoring and asset management. It can automate the entire technical and business processes related to it.

The portal is the most valuable feature. The Orchestrator with automation is also valuable. We try to leverage the automation and self-service portal. We trust these two feature allow us to increase time to market, agility, etc.

For the customer, it is intuitive and user-friendly.

The product was bought by VMware and they are trying to add features, which could be improved. For example, there is a Windows component and appliances with two different databases that have to be maintained in sync. This is a pretty nightmare to maintain.

I would like to have infrastructure simplification, such as one box and one appliance which does everything. Having to have a Windows machine with dedicated DBs is sort of crappy.

Now, it's pretty stable, as long as you do not touch it. However, upgrades are always a pain.

We do not need to scale it. One instance is sufficient.

Technical support has improved. Usually it takes some time for an engineer to respond. We try not to open basic tickets. Our tickets are usually linked to the box and can take several weeks to get a solution.

We used the Orchestrator that was free, but started to build some automation on top of it, then we needed to evaluate different tools in the market.

We have something that is very simple to set up: a single instance with minimal infrastructure. However, we have quite some customization.

Always something breaks when we do upgrade them. We tried to install the latest artifacts two weeks ago, then we had to rollback. We sent the log to support, and we're still waiting for a response.

We did the integration directly through VMware.

We assessed the market. We looked at VMware, Cisco, and a third vendor. VMware came out on top because of the integration. The service that we were providing the most is a virtual machine. So, it made more sense to use a VMware product to provide a VM machine.

I recommend going directly to the cloud which already has the self-service portal and other fancy features.

Our primary use case is for our QA department. They use it to deploy machines when they need to test something out. It has performed well. They are able to spin up a new instance of Windows virtual machine and test whatever use case they have, then turn it back down whenever they are done. 

The infrastructure has helped us to greatly increase our agility.

The most valuable feature is that I do not have to create a virtual machine for these people and have them do a small task with it, then dispose of it. 

I find the solution to be intuitive and user-friendly for the end user. For the administrator, it can be a little challenging. For the administrator, there are a lot of moving parts. It is fine once you figure out where the knobs are you need to twiddle, but it can be a challenge to get it up and running.

There are a lot of moving parts. It could be improved if the solution were more consolidated.

The stability is good.

The scalability is fine when you go with the high availability deployment.

I have had to use tech support, and they are really good. 

I was not involved in the initial setup. I was involved in the upgrade, which was fine with support.

I would rate the solution as an eight out of ten. It has been extremely useful for our end users. To administer, it has been a bit more difficult.

Initially, we used it for private cloud. Now, we are trying to go with a hybrid model.

In terms of performance, right now we're making revisions to ensure that it is hybrid-compatible. We have multiple engagements with VMware to facilitate it that.

Productivity has definitely increased. We are not relying on engineers to actually build out the infrastructure anymore. That's the main benefit. From an infrastructure perspective, it has definitely increased productivity, ensuring that the engineers' time is well spent on other, more important tasks, rather than the basic provisioning that they were doing earlier. 

The self-service capabilities are by far the best that we've seen in terms of features. If the user is being able to log in and make requests himself, from the onboarding process all the way to the end, that's very helpful.

I'm curious to test out the features that have been announced. We'll see how that goes from a hybrid perspective. I'm looking forward most to the hybrid capabilities.

The stability needs a lot of work. The troubleshooting component of vRealize is a pain. The administration and the upgrades are not up to the mark. If they were able to improve on that, that would be the best thing and would make it much easier to run it in the enterprise.

Since we are looking at public-cloud scalability, as long as that model works, I think we should be good. We're not too focused on the scalability on-prem but we want to see how it scales out to the public cloud.

Our experience with technical support has not been great. There seem to be multiple rounds of escalations surrounding support for vRealize Automation issues that we have encountered.

I was involved in the initial setup and it was complex. The certificates, the distributed install, wasn't straightforward, I'll just leave it at that. We had Professional Services come in for the first round of install. During the second round of install, when we tried to do the update ourselves, there were multiple points of failure. It was not easy. The install, the upgrade features, are not easy at all. The administration part is what is very problematic with vRealize Automation right now.

The upgrade experience is horrible. It's not straightforward, there are a lot of failures, a lot of support interactions. It's not something that we are able to pull off ourselves. I've been with vRA since it was termed vCSA. We've gone through multiple rounds, and it has never been easy.

We were initially thinking about vCloud Director but we're a VMware shop so we wanted something that is native to VMware technologies. We didn't approach a lot of other vendors. One of the things that is important for us when selecting a vendor is whether it fits in with our footprint or not.

I rate it at six out of ten right now. To get to a ten, they definitely need to improve on the administration and the troubleshooting. From an operations perspective, it is a nightmare. From a user perspective, it is pretty good.

We use it for deploying, data recovery, and DR.

In terms of recovery, it takes only a tenth of the time that's required compared to a human element. It gives us time savings, which equals cost savings, which equals personnel savings.

Having the visibility of the infrastructure at that level helps greatly with infrastructure agility, application agility, and speed of provisioning.

The most valuable features are the metrics and reporting aspects. The historical data and extraction enable us to tell where the trends are and where contentions may exist in the future.

I also like that it reduces the human interaction and requirement.

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.

Thankfully, where we're at, we don't have the need for the criticality, we don't need a quick reaction to stability issues. But having the right resources available will help the stability.

We have scaled up. For me and my team, it's very easy.

On a scale of one to five, I would rate technical support a four. It's not always associated with the correct team on the first go-round, but eventually, we get the right people to get the right solution taken care of.

There is a war on wasted initiative and on waste of time, more than a concern about environmental resources, unfortunately. The war has been identified on multiple levels, especially deploying in our realm.

When looking to work with a vendor, the important criteria we look for are

• professionalism
• the value of the product for the return on investment
• personally, I look at energy costs and savings as well.
  

Without the right technical expertise, the initial setup can be a little more cumbersome, but with the knowledge and the backing of the infrastructure and the engineering, it's fairly simple.

We have upgraded many times. We know how to do it. It's fairly simple for us. We don't get the admins involved. The engineers take care of it all.

As far as ROI goes, we see it in the human time element in deploying, that's been a really big improvement. Cost savings go with that inherently.

We looked at a couple of other vendors but we went with VMware because VMware is standard. Why not go with the best?

Give it time to save you time.

We use it to deploy virtual machines in our traditional VMware environment. We don't use it as a front-end for our customers but it works fine for us, on the back-end.

We can use some of its functionality to avoid having to write custom code for the placement of virtual machines. That is the main way we get use out of it. Also, the deployment time is less than it was before. It's all automated, it's quicker than when it was done by hand.

The most valuable feature is the automation of the deployment of the whole machine.

We also use it to pre-install the applications that the people selected when they ordered the machine, so they get a fully functional machine.

In terms of usability, It has had its challenges. It requires a lot of custom code to integrate into our environment. It can take a little while to get it to do what we want, takes some code instead of having built-in functionality. Part it is how we use it. It would be a lot easier to use in a greenfield scenario versus brownfield, which is the way we are using it.

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.

The stability is pretty good now; previous versions, not so much, but it has improved. In earlier versions, we had issues with crashes, but the latest version has been much better.

We have not had any problems with scalability. We're not pushing the boundaries on the number of deployments with it, but no issues.

Technical support has been good. We have MCS, the mission-critical support, and they've been good. The occasions when it is taking a while to get back to us is when the technical support person needs to contact engineering. That handoff between engineering and support takes some time, at times.

We had a little homegrown thing but that doesn't really count.

When selecting a vendor, if we already have an established relationship with the vendor, it's easier than going to a new vendor and establishing a new relationship.

Setup in the previous version was not so straightforward. They have made big improvements in the later versions. The first one was a pain but the new one is fine. A couple of versions back, they added an automated install that did not exist in the earlier versions that we deployed.

Upgrading took a little while because we did a side-by-side upgrade. There was a code migration, all our custom code needed to be migrated, so it took a little bit of work. But, overall, it was fine.

Time savings are our ROI, the time to deploy machines. I haven't done any studies on the exact ROI, but saving time is always good.

Right now, it works for what we use it for. We're not using all its features, but the pieces that we use work fine.

Integrating this tool with other technologies/third-party tools, that are not part of the VMware family, is the most valuable feature of this solution.

If we have a product that allows us to communicate with different products that are not part of its family and make things happen in their application, it is a wonderful thing.

It resembles the benefits of cloud computing and is achieving more things by using only one product.

We can automate the infrastructure services, which in turn reduces manual work, saves time, and eventually leads to more productivity.

It can be used effectively for IaaS and PaaS. Thus, there is only one type of software to be managed by various departments/teams in the organization.

vRA is a very good product, that supports different vendors connecting to it. Currently, it feels like a complete product and I don’t have any areas that need to be improved.

It automatically becomes large, when we need to connect different vendors to it.

It can be made larger, so that the organizations can also use it for physical infrastructure.

I have used this solution for a year.

We did encounter some stability issues. I found the GUI that we use in vRA to be unstable sometimes. For example, there was no proper update of the tasks that were provided. Sometimes it took a little longer to provide new updates.

I have not approached technical support yet.

It was easy to set up this product.

As soon as I started using this tool, I started seeing results immediately. This product is flexible and easy to implement. Its multi-tenancy support makes it more effective for use with different customers.