Our clients use VROps to monitor their virtual machine performance, create reports, do capacity planning, and do project planning. We also use the tenant-student app for billing purposes.
Solutions Architect at BCX
Efficient reporting and analytics features
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup process is fairly simple, especially if you are only setting up a standalone instance."
- "It requires a lot of knowledge to manage. For example, if you are collecting a lot of data for analysis, the virtual appliance drive spaces can fill up. In this case, you need engineers who know how to expand those spaces."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
I've found the reporting and analytics features to be the most valuable.
What needs improvement?
The latest release of VMware Aria Operations has some great new automation features, but I think the pricing could be improved. It's quite expensive, especially for the entire VM workload.
In future releases, I would like to see VMware Aria Operations integrate with Ansible. I understand that VMware has their own orchestration and automation product, but I think it would be valuable to be able to integrate with Ansible as well. This would give users the flexibility to choose the best tool for the job, without having to invest in two separate products.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VROps for about eight years.
Buyer's Guide
VMware Aria Operations
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about VMware Aria Operations. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a very stable solution. But it requires a lot of knowledge to manage. For example, if you are collecting a lot of data for analysis, the virtual appliance drive spaces can fill up. In this case, you need engineers who know how to expand those spaces. The procedure is simple: you just add a new VMDK and start the appliance. The appliance will automatically expand the drives with the NVMe and stuff. However, the problem is that you need engineers who know how to manage and clear up the logs and ensure that they are sent as a stop.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten. I did have some scalability issues when working with the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) stack. For example, if I deployed one instance and needed to scale out to a second instance, I would sometimes run into problems.
VROps is most suitable for enterprise-level companies.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup process is fairly simple, especially if you are only setting up a standalone instance. However, if you are setting up a multi-tenant or multi-cluster environment, the setup process can take longer.
Our clients have hosted it on cloud as well as on-premises.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing is quite expensive for our company. I would probably give it a rating of seven out of ten, where one being expensive and ten being affordable.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I've used both VMware Aria Operations and Veeam ONE.
If I need to troubleshoot a problem, I would use VMware Aria Operations. If I need to get a complete overview of my environment and generate reports, I would use Veeam ONE.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. There is only one area of improvement for me.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
IT Projects at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Useful for performance monitoring, alert monitoring, and capacity planning
Pros and Cons
- "I have integrated vROps with vRealize Log Insight and vRealize automation. After integrating vRealize, we tried to split and combine the logs from the login sites for more alerts and information to organize the whole infrastructure and have automation. We used many different types of scripts trying to orchestrate them all together into one solution, replacing, for example, Elasticsearch and some other scripts."
- "The solution can improve by offering more flexible integration with other platforms or products, such as Hyper-V or Azure. Not everyone uses VMware. It would be beneficial to have a more open-source concept for integration, creating more visibility across multiple clouds."
What is our primary use case?
We use vROps as a monitoring solution because it is good at that. It is designed to monitor VMware data centers.
I am using AWS and Azure. I prefer AWS, but it depends on the budget of the company as well. Having customers in the cloud is cheaper than on-premises, but it is completely different.
How has it helped my organization?
Many of the features in this solution have helped out and improved my customer's organizations, such as creating, monitoring, splitting, modifying, playing with the VLRs and alarm definitions, notifications, performance analysis, cost analysis, and cost-calculations report comparisons.
Improves performance for the CPU. Helps us develop a future plan.
The VMware data center has helped us be more proactive in anticipating and solving problems by splitting the production servers. I can combine it with other solutions, like Horizons Cloud. This helps in general.
vRealize Log Insight has affected our overall troubleshooting by allowing us to have a single point to check everything. For example, when I was using Dell EMC RecoveryPoint for virtual machines, which is protection software, they had a single dashboard inside the vCenter in order to check the overall information on the dashboard, such as storage. Previously, I would need to connect to vCenter to check every single log or if there was an alert. With this solution, I do not need to connect to the dashboard or vCenter. By using the UI of vRealize, I can connect independently from my home computer with no need to access vCenter. I have a single dashboard where I can check everything I need, such as alerts, emails, any critical situation, or Log Insight, all from one single place.
What is most valuable?
The most favorable features of the solution are it has a good design, is easy to use, and can be used for a large variety of solutions. You are able to combine it with many tools and solutions, such as LDAP, Active Directory, and automation solutions.
The UI is user-friendly and easy to use. For example, with a colleague that has just started in the IT field, I can easily explain how to use this solution. It is very intuitive. It has graphics and a lot of details. When comparing it to other vendor monitoring tools. It is much simpler to manage, configure, automate, and do reporting.
It is useful for performance monitoring, alert monitoring, and capacity planning. In the latest version, you have the ability to calculate how much you are spending on your infrastructure for every single machine or the final price of one of your virtual machines. Additionally, you can look at the information between on-premises and AWS, then compare the differences.
There is proactive monitoring available. You need to adjust the appropriate settings, accordingly.
What needs improvement?
The solution can improve by offering more flexible integration with other platforms or products, such as Hyper-V or Azure. Not everyone uses VMware. It would be beneficial to have a more open-source concept for integration, creating more visibility across multiple clouds.
Sometimes, from a normal user's perspective, I feel like I want to get to the main dashboard faster because there are a lot of options to get to the final step. To get to our main dashboard on Windows machines, you need to click about 10 times and change a lot of options. It would be better if they could organize it to be only three to five steps.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) for approximately five years. I apply and implement it in different businesses and companies as a consultant.
I use vROps daily as a user and administrator. I also explain the solution to colleagues.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable without downtime. They have improved the solution over previous versions.
I do the daily tasks, like monitoring. Since I am using the version, I haven't had to apply any upgrades, do any migrations to new appliances, or apply remote collectors.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
You can scale up by combining all your vCenters and add collectors. It is very flexible.
In the small companies that I work with, there are about 50 users who are using it for monitoring critical solutions, like finance programs, SQL Servers, IIS, NGINX, Data Domain, and Avamar.
How are customer service and technical support?
In general, VMware has good technical support. They have top guys.
I have contacted VMware about Dell EMC issues, but they only focus on vROps support.
There is a strong user community with blogs, which is very important. The community is really extensive. A lot of people help you. We share information there.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used other solutions previously and it was impossible to get the dashboard from Dell EMC appliances. We found this solution does it perfectly.
I was previously using other tools combined with Windows, such as RVTools. Now, I only use one solution that has an all-inclusive virtual appliance. vROps is always improving, e.g., the UI, and a benefit to our operations. In general, it is a great product.
I have integrated vROps with vRealize Log Insight and vRealize automation. After integrating vRealize, we tried to split and combine the logs from the login sites for more alerts and information to organize the whole infrastructure and have automation. We used many different types of scripts trying to orchestrate them all together into one solution, replacing, for example, Elasticsearch and some other scripts.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of the solution is easy.
The deployment takes less than 20 minutes.
What about the implementation team?
It is easy to deploy the settings. It is not complex at all. You can start all over and organize everything differently.
First, I choose on-premises because I want to feel in first person how difficult or easy the installation or deployment is from other data centers. Also, I combine it with Active Directory as well as VMware Workspace. Even if it is a PoC, I do the installation to production.
I also work with third-parties and providers.
What was our ROI?
vROps has helped decrease downtime by approximately 35% by giving me a warning when the VMs are down.
We are receiving approximately 75% workload placement efficiency. vROps is good in this case.
By using the cloud solution, it helps save on costs. We did not have to allocate money or resources for what is typically associated with on-premise solutions, such as installations, upgrades, maintenance, and network hardware.
The virtual appliance is not power-intensive. It does not use a lot of CPU, RAM, etc.
It gets better with every version.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing is not clear at the moment if the on-premises pricing is the same as on the cloud. I am checking on the pricing. However, you can save a lot of money with the cloud solution because you need to spend time installing, upgrading, and connecting with the on-premises solution. Also, you don't need to spend time scheduling the maintenance and maintaining the solution when using the cloud version.
I recommend it to colleagues and companies, but people have complained that it is expensive. I think the pricing is fair.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I tested SolarWinds, ManageEngine, and HPE. I was looking for a product to help with monitoring of some special appliances from Dell EMC. I tested different products, and this solution was the only one that helped my customers and me to get the final solution that I was looking for. It is really difficult, practically impossible, to get a monitoring system for these types of Dell EMC physical appliances: Avamar, Data Domain, and RecoverPoint. I tried different products, like Zabbix, Nagios, and PRTG. Whereas, vROps is perfect for this type of job.
Dell EMC doesn't have any idea how to monitor. They offer coding, scripting, APIs, and connecting to vCenter. They don't offer a knowledge base or advice for monitoring problems. I discovered vROps for monitoring their problems.
While open sources are free, you have to spend a lot of time training and explaining to people how to use them.
I am reading and checking for different solutions all the time.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is to test the product.
I am monitoring VxRail from vROps.
Our average time for resolution depends on the issue. For example, if I receive a notification, and there is a large latency or the hard disk is filling up too fast, it will depend on the end administrator who is monitoring it.
I rate VMware vROps vRealize Operations an eight out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Buyer's Guide
VMware Aria Operations
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about VMware Aria Operations. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Associate Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Provides us with detailed VMware infrastructure monitoring and recommendations for resource utilization
Pros and Cons
- "One of the best features is the monitoring. It gives you proactive recommendations, based on the information that you have. It recommends changes. For example, if an ESX service is heavily loaded, it will tell you to make some changes, such as storage optimizations. Every tool does monitoring, but this one gives you more proactive monitoring, with the recommendations and actions that are needed."
- "If it could help with calculating on-prem costs, based on their experience, it would help customers determine whether to remain on-prem or move to the cloud."
What is our primary use case?
We are using vROps for its monitoring and alerting mechanisms, for the entire VMware environment. We use the analytics and recommendations.
How has it helped my organization?
It's a monitoring tool. It is very common, but in my last eight years of using it, what I have seen is that it gives detailed monitoring information for your entire VMware infrastructure. It gives recommendations in terms of resource utilization.
A major part of its functionality now is business cases. I can identify them now, meaning if we migrate to the public cloud, what the business case would be.
In addition, the proactive monitoring and recommendations always help you to avoid unwanted downtime. If I see that a machine is heavily loaded, I can apply the recommendation and balance the load across all the nodes. And if the machine is under-utilized or over-utilized, it will tell you whether to optimize or to increase the resources accordingly. It improves the operational experience as well as the performance.
It automatically places workload on the machines where there is any available capacity or more resources are available. You don't need to worry about that. vROps does it. The workload placement has definitely increased VM density. That is part of the VMware DR solution. It enables you to place things automatically on a machine with less load so that you can increase the density, depending upon the resource availability on the machine.
What is most valuable?
One of the best features is the monitoring. It gives you proactive recommendations, based on the information that you have. It recommends changes. For example, if an ESX service is heavily loaded, it will tell you to make some changes, such as storage optimizations. Every tool does monitoring, but this one gives you more proactive monitoring, with the recommendations and actions that are needed.
VMware products are user-friendly, there is no doubt. That goes for all their products. I use multiple VMware products and I don't see any difference among the products in that context. vROPs, specifically, is easy to handle, even if you don't know anything about VMware. If you have some experience in monitoring, the tool will definitely be easy to learn and to get hands-on with it.
Also, if you want to migrate to public cloud, it helps with the business case. The tool gives some rough estimates about migrating to the public cloud or to another cloud.
vROPs is integrated with vRealize Log Insight by default, but we don't use it in our company. But it allows you to keep the logs and go back and identify what the performance was like a month back. That can help with troubleshooting because if you know what things were like a month back, and an issue comes in, you can get into performance metrics for that month. All the log data will be available for troubleshooting and capacity management.
What needs improvement?
Three or four years back, regarding business case data, when looking at migrating to public cloud, we had to feed in the pricing of all the public clouds manually. I don't know whether that information is now available automatically, but that would help.
Similarly, if it could help with calculating on-prem costs, based on their experience, it would help customers determine whether to remain on-prem or move to the cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using VMware vRealize Operations for almost eight years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good. They keep updating it with the new versions and new features. So many features have been added and so many different licensing models have come in. Variations are available for data center requirements and remote site requirements. But the product looks very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I've never had a problem with the scalability of vROps. It can scale to any level. I've never reached the maximum of what it can do.
How was the initial setup?
The setup of vROps and Log Insight is very easy. It's not intensive or very complex. I did it about four years back when we deployed it in my previous organization and it was very easy for a standard VMware environment.
The amount of time it takes depends on how big your VMware environment is. There's no benchmark value. If you have a small environment it shouldn't take more than one or two days. But in a bigger environment, the scanning of data takes time because it has to talk to vCenter, pull all the data, wait for all the data to come in, and see if there are any recommendations. But that should not take more than a week and you should be able to see everything, even in a much bigger environment.
To deploy, you need to have a VMware guy and it depends on where the data is being integrated to. If it's only a VMware environment, you need only one or two people, max.
What about the implementation team?
If the deployment is being integrated with some enterprise tools or third-party vendors, you may need to work with their separate teams.
What was our ROI?
In terms of value, it depends on how you look at it. Is there really any other solution for VMware? I don't think so. If you bring in something else then you have to think about the support matrix, compatibility, and you multiple vendors involved. You go with VMware because of the easy integration and support. It's a big product and it costs, but the value depends on your point of view. If you look at it from a cost-perspective, it's costly. If you look at it from a compatibility/support perspective, it meets all your requirements.
Because we are a valued customer, we got a good discount from VMware on the pricing. What they offered and what we have gotten as a return on our investment are reasonable.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Every VMware product is a licensing challenge. It's always costly. It's based on processors. From a technical side, the product is very good. The challenging part is always the licensing.
They should have some kind of alternate pricing models. They have a simple model, CPU-based. They should do something to make it more reasonable there. And they have too many variations. I think there are three different models that depend on different form factors. They should make it easier. With three different versions—standard, advanced, and enterprise—it's confusing.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
This tool gives us everything we need. I don't see any alternatives to it.
What other advice do I have?
We don't use VMware's Tanzu solution along with this solution for Kubernetes monitoring and management, but we have had discussions with the VMware team about it. It is still in discussion.
Leaving the issue of cost aside, I would rate vROps at eight out of 10, in terms of the technical side, integration, and support.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Has been rock solid since we installed it, we've had no issues with stability
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature would be the ability to plug into the data feeds that we have and pull information from physical hardware as well as the virtual layer. The best feature is the visualization of what's going on, so we can take a very quick look and see if there are any issues that stand out."
- "As they're able to add in more vendors for hardware to be able to pull information from different firewalls, switches, or other vendors, I would like to see where we can get more of a complete view of what's going on in the network. That would make this solution better."
What is our primary use case?
We are branching into NSX. This solution was purchased with NSX to give us more insight into our environment. We're looking to do a lot more microsegmentation and figure out what the workflows are or what the data flow is between applications and between hardware so that we can minimize bottlenecks, get a better idea of performance issues, and be able to really lock down what we're doing for security. We're also looking to make sure that our microsegmentation is set up correctly and that we don't have data leakage in places that we don't want.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature would be the ability to plug into the data feeds that we have and pull information from physical hardware as well as the virtual layer. The best feature is the visualization of what's going on, so we can take a very quick look and see if there are any issues that stand out.
In terms of being intuitive and user-friendly, this solution is getting better. When we first installed it they had upgraded a few times, and just the overall layout is better and easier to manage. It's easy to learn, so once you get in there and start looking around, it is fairly intuitive to figure out what you want to do.
What needs improvement?
As they're able to add in more vendors for hardware to be able to pull information from different firewalls, switches, or other vendors, I would like to see where we can get more of a complete view of what's going on in the network. That would make this solution better.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a virtual appliance and it's been rock solid since we installed it. We've had no issues with stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We don't have a huge network and a huge environment, so I don't see us having to grow it too much in the future. If we do, I don't think it will be a problem.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support has been good so far. All of our VMware support has been really good and it's easy to get our questions answered. We have a technical account manager as well through VMware which helps. If we need first line support for things and additional help, he will get answers for us faster. It's been great.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We weren't previously using another solution. Other than just general NetFlow products, nothing really shows the visualization of the network flow like what we're seeing with Network Insight.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was fairly straightforward. There were instructions for it that were easy to follow. There's video tutorials and things like that online, so it was fairly easy to set up. We didn't need any support to get it installed.
What was our ROI?
We haven't really seen ROI yet. We haven't been using it that long and we're still building out our NSX environment. The visualization of what we're doing and what it provides is a good place to go and see so we don't have to use multiple tools. It consolidates multiple things into one so that makes my staff and the network team's job easier.
What other advice do I have?
I have seen the demos and what it can provide is fantastic. It more than makes it worth it to use the product. I would rate it between a nine to ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Principle System Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
The trending analysis of our environment helps us make capacity-planning decisions
Pros and Cons
- "The analysis features available with it allow us to do very high-level, enhanced root-cause analysis on events and issues that arise."
- "One of the most valuable features is the trending analysis of our environment to make capacity-planning decisions, in addition to providing real-time analysis of events."
- "Through the trending analysis that we can do, it allowed us to quickly and easily right-size the capacity from a cluster."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case of vROps is to balance our infrastructure, both from a predictive and reactive standpoint, for outage and maintenance.
How has it helped my organization?
The solution has allowed us to become more predictive, versus reactive, in terms of our infrastructure management.
It has helped to reduce the time needed to troubleshoot issues, improved quality of service to users, and provided cost savings through higher capacity. The primary benefit we're getting is from an operational standpoint. It has helped us to operationalize our processes and procedures. It has also helped us to stay ahead of our capacity planning so that we become more predictive, versus reactive. And then, the analysis features available with it allow us to do very high-level, enhanced root-cause analysis on events and issues that arise.
What is most valuable?
One of the most valuable features is the trending analysis of our environment to make capacity-planning decisions, in addition to providing real-time analysis of events.
I find it to also be intuitive and user-friendly. The layout, from a GUI standpoint, is somewhat logical. There are definitely some improvements made in the latest version, but I have not worked with the latest version yet. Overall, we find it relatively straightforward to work with.
What needs improvement?
One thing we'd like to see, although I think they already have done so, is moving away from Flash.
In terms of additional features, we'd like to see more integration with management packs, because one of the challenges we have is, depending on our third-party, we'll have to go outside of VMware to purchase management packs. If VMware increased the native management packs library, that would obviously help save us money and not have to rely on third-party solutions.
For how long have I used the solution?
One to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
When it comes to stability, we haven't had any issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For the most part, the solution is within our initial requirements, although our requirements are changing and evolving. One definite item we would like is the capability to expand the license count per solution. That would help us to ensure we have a single pane of glass for the entire company, versus having various solutions for different environments within the company.
How are customer service and technical support?
We are BCS (business critical support) customers and, for the most part, they have been able to help us when we do have issues, and escalate as needed. The only concern that we do have, at times, is the availability of that support. There have been times where, when we've needed support, we've had to, unfortunately, wait for that support, for an available engineer. But it's improving, and we'll continue using it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
It became apparent we needed to switch when our tickets-to-resolve timeline was significantly higher. We weren't meeting SLAs as we needed to. With the introduction of this solution, we were able to meet the demand, rather than just meet SLAs. Through the trending analysis that we can do, it allowed us to quickly and easily right-size the capacity from a cluster.
In addition, when issues did arise, it helped us to quickly identify what those problems actually were. The main advantage was time. We got a lot of time back that we could then use to innovate and optimize our environment.
How was the initial setup?
I initially deployed the solution for our company. It's relatively straightforward. There's a lot of good online documentation and there's YouTube.
What was our ROI?
Our ROI is time. It has reduced the amount of time it takes to troubleshoot an issue.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at a couple of VMware's competitors. One of them was VMTurbo (now called Turbonomic). The main reason we went with vROps was the ease of integration, ease of use, and the support behind it. The community behind vRealize is relatively large and that just made the decision that much simpler for us.
Also, from a cost standpoint, we were able to negotiate with VMware. And, with VMware, the deployment process was a lot simpler for us, and the training-learning curve for vRealize versus the other solution tended to be the easier, so that was also a factor.
What other advice do I have?
We've been using it for approximately two years now. We originally upgraded from vCOps to vROps. We have also expanded our platform to include vRealize Log Insight which further helped us to understand and perform RCAs as needed, when events occur.
Get involved in the community. Get involved in performing hands-on labs. And, quite frankly, deploy it. Create use cases, create your test cases, and validate them.
The reasons I rate vROps at eight out of 10 are because there are always areas for improvement. In addition, the limited amount of management packs natively available through vROps is a huge factor. As you can imagine, as with most companies, we do use a gambit of other solutions and other hardware, and the ability to use vROps as a single pane of glass would allow us to have one solution for all, and make for easier integration.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Sr. IT Analyst, Virtualization Infrastructure at Southern Company
Video Review
Helps Us Understand VSAN Storage, Compute And CPU Capacities In Our Environment
Pros and Cons
- "We use vRealize Operations Manager primarily for capacity management within our environment."
- "vROps is, by its nature, a very complex product."
What is most valuable?
We use vRealize Operations Manager primarily for capacity management within our environment. To understand the capacity that we're using for vSAN storage, for compute and CPU capacity within our virtualization environment.
What needs improvement?
vROps is, by its nature, a very complex product. We have seen a lot of improvements around the usability of the product. With each subsequent version, the product is becoming much more user friendly. It's much faster to get up to the speed on the product, to become familiar with it, and to use the built-in dashboards. Especially, the included dashboards around the vSAN Management Pack, that are now integrated into the product, and are available to use immediately upon installation, without any additional configuration.
Those are areas that the product has been improving drastically, and we are working with VMware as a reference customer, and as design partner, based on our experience, to help continue improving the product.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
vROps is stable, it's a mature product. We're using the latest release, which is 6.6.1
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
vROps is extremely scalable. It can size from a small, to a medium, to a large environment. There are options to have HA enabled or disabled, so the product scales extremely well.
How is customer service and technical support?
VMware has a number of support options related to vROps. It's supported as standard production support. It's also supported out of VCS and MCS support. We are a VCS business-critical support customer, and we have had a good support relationship with the product.
How was the initial setup?
With newer versions of vROps, VMware has improved the setup experience drastically. The new versions of the product install very quickly, very cleanly. Adding additional nodes to the environment is very fast, very easy to do.
What other advice do I have?
For us, the most important criteria when selecting a vendor are that we look for a company that's going to support our business cases, that has an established track record of stability, and performance. Someone that's going to stand behind us and support us as we utilize their product. Those things are extremely important as we're evaluating whether to make a purchase.
I rate vRealize Operations as a nine out of 10 today. There are still some areas to improve around the initial user experience. But, the product has improved significantly with the more recent releases.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Senior IT Systems Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Every day, or every hour, we look at the backend to see what is going on. We use it reactively.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature is mainly having a single point where you can see all of the performance of the whole cluster; see the CPU bottlenecks, the memory bottlenecks, apps on the storage side, on the network side.
Right now, we use it mainly for performance management, so we know what's happening, although we use it more reactively; we're not in a proactive mode. Meaning, every day, or every hour, we look at the backend to see what has happened, but it's not like a predictive DRS.
I have heard that vROps 6.3 will be able to integrate with DRS, and I think that will help us automate the DRS from vROps, and make the configuration change from vROps.
How has it helped my organization?
Before vROps, we didn't have any view into what's happening inside VMware. We had some monitoring on the OS level. Meaning, we had Zenoss, Hobbit, and other things that monitor the operating system on Windows or Linux, but we didn't have anything on the ESX side.
I do not have any specific cases where it helped us avoid an outage or reduce outage time, but it does provide a good view of root cause analysis, after the fact. It has helped me a lot with root cause analysis. When something happens and I go back and I want to see what exactly went on, I can really clearly get it from vROps.
There have been cases when the capacity management has helped me, but again it's all reactive, not predictive. Meaning, when I get an alert, I then look at vROps and see what it says. From there, I can figure out I have an issue. If I don't address it in a week, it could become a disaster.
The same thing with performance management. For us, everything is in more of a reactive mode; we know after the fact and it helps us with investigation.
What needs improvement?
I think that user interface needs to change a little bit. It's too technical. You need to be a really technical person who has worked with VMware a lot to really be able to navigate your way through. If you are, say, a junior sys admin, you might get lost. You have to really know your stuff. The user interface needs to be intuitive.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I wasn't impressed with the stability in 5.5. But 6.2 is much better.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have 1600 VMs, and scalability is good. We used to run two instances in 5.5. With 6.2, I'm running one instance; I'm fine. It does not slow down at all.
How are customer service and technical support?
I occasionally use VMware technical support, and it is bad, to be honest. Sometimes when I create a ticket sometimes, it takes them 12 hours, 24 hours, to get back to me. I have clearly said that production is down, and they didn’t get back to me. We have to engage the team to get a resource to work on it.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We were previously using Foglight. At some point, we realized that Foglight is too slow; it doesn't give us what we're looking for and we started looking for another solution. The time came to renew VMware licenses, so we just added it. The main reason was to get away from Foglight because it wasn't good.
How was the initial setup?
I am the one that set it up. I followed the documentation that came with it and it was straightforward.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We looked at VMTurbo, and we loved their product, but it's more expensive. The VMTurbo user interface is phenomenal; very easy to move. It gives you everything you're looking for. Plus, whoever did the user interface testing at VMTurbo was the sys admin; for vROps, it might have been a programmer. You need to have a sys admin as one of the guys who tests the product and its suitability. With vROps, I need to know what I'm looking for.
What other advice do I have?
It's one of the best products that does the job. It hooks into the VMware suites. From that angle, I believe it's more preferable than the others.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Principal Consultant at Systems Limited
Offers ease during the setup phase and with the maintenance part
Pros and Cons
- "The product is highly reliable, and it is easy to deploy and manage."
- "There are some distribution issues, and there is not enough information on the portal."
What is our primary use case?
I use the solution in my company for the virtualization purpose. Basically, the server virtualization is the main purpose. Other purposes are for the cloud part, which is the private cloud. My company has a local telco customer in Pakistan who works on public cloud infrastructure, and they also have VMware Cloud Director product deployed in their environment.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution revolves around vRealize Operations, which is a good tool. The product is highly reliable, and it is easy to deploy and manage.
What needs improvement?
There are some challenges with the tool right now after Broadcom's acquisition.
The major challenges associated with the product stem from the fact that after Broadcom's acquisition of VMware, all partners are no longer VMware partners. One has to reapply for Broadcom's partnership, which is a very time-consuming process. Broadcom seems to be confused since it does not have the exact partner strategies that a product needs to have in place. Broadcom does not provide a good pricing mechanism, and it also has some other issues in areas like distribution. Previously, VMware used to use Aptec, an Ingram Micro company. Broadcom has some issues with Aptec, so currently, it does not have a deal with Aptec, and everything is messed up. Broadcom does not have a proper distribution mechanism, so we have delays in getting codes and all that. After so many reminders, once we get the codes, things are still very time-consuming, and the prices are still not good. My colleagues who work with VMware products were opening support cases on VMware's portal, which has now become Broadcom's portal, which does not have enough information like VMware's portal. Although Broadcom has been trying to integrate all of it with its own portal while also attempting the existing VMware portal with the Broadcom portal, the migration does not seem to be successful. Broadcom has missed out on a lot of data, which means that previous service tickets that were generated under VMware won't have any records. You cannot use a learning mechanism from existing information, which makes it a time-consuming process. We have to go back to the existing information from VMware to figure out what the solution is for a problem. With the acquisition of Vmware by Broadcom, we have to do all things from scratch, and all such things are very painful, and customers, partners, and our company feel troubled. Everyone is trying to see how to get rid of the vendor. We are just trying to find an alternate product.
The pricing mechanism is not available here. There are some distribution issues, and there is not enough information on the portal. The migration process from VMware to Broadcom actually messes up a lot of data.
I believe that the scalability area of the product has scope for improvement, and I say this based on the feedback received from my team.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware Aria Operations for ten years or more. My company has a partnership with VMware. My company is a customer of VMware.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I don't think that the product has any mechanism in the area of analytics.
I rate the tool a ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial setup phase was easy.
The time required to deploy the product is something that varies from one customer's environment to another customer's environment or site. I can say that the product is not a single table that can cure everything.
The solution is easy to maintain.
For a small environment, only one person is required to maintain the product. If the size of the cluster is big, then a few people are required to maintain the product.
What was our ROI?
I have experienced an ROI from the use of the solution, but the prices are still not much economical.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
If one is low price and ten is high price, I rate the product price a ten.
What other advice do I have?
I don't think that the product has any mechanism in the area of analytics.
I rate the tool a ten out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Last updated: Jul 17, 2024
Flag as inappropriateBuyer's Guide
Download our free VMware Aria Operations Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Popular Comparisons
Veeam Data Platform
IBM Turbonomic
Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM)
Nutanix Prism
SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
CloudPhysics
Dell OpenManage Integration for VMware vCenter
Buyer's Guide
Download our free VMware Aria Operations Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- Is VMware Aria Operations a user friendly solution?
- What is the most useful new feature of VMware Aria Operations?
- Which licensing model do you use for VMware Aria Operations?
- What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
- When evaluating Virtualization Management Tools, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
- What are some of the major benefits of using virtualization?
- Why is Virtualization Management Tools important for companies?