VMware Cloud Director Reviews

vCloud Director: To name a few, ease of use, robust security and easy extensibility to VMware's Hybrid cloud platform; VMware vCloud Air and public cloud space.

vCAC (vCloud Automation Center): Now known as 'vRealize Automation' is the best in class, high profile automation for your cloud workflows. Vendor neutral; Apart from VMware Cloud suits, it can be used with other vendor cloud platforms like Amazon, OpenStack, Azure etc.

vROps (vCenter Operations Manager): Now known as 'vRealize Operations'; vROps is the best in class most granular, high penetration monitoring, investigative and troubleshooting tool for your Cloud, datacenter, VDI environments Used for Capacity planning, Performance monitoring and troubleshooting etc.

vSphere: vSphere being the foundation for vCloud, there are many takeaways; Long distance vMotion, HA, FT, DRS, Storage DRS, Storage profiles, dual heartbeat in cluster environments. 4X capacity increase in 6.0 compared to version 5. vCenter Server Appliance now has the same scalability numbers as the Windows installable vCenter Server: 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual machines. FT now supports 4 vCPUs VMs and 64GB memory with Storage redundancy.

vSphere: vMotion (ease of migrating VMs from one host to another), DRS (ease of migrating VMs from one host to another automatically to balance out workloads in cluster environments), Storage DRS (ease of migrating VMs from one Datastore to another automatically to balance out workloads in storage cluster environments, HA (High availability is ensured by the newly developed FDM construct. FT (Ensuring 100% up-times reliably), Storage profiles (to bifurcate storage tiers accoring to the SLAs etc., dual heartbeat in cluster environments for confirmed Host isolation avoiding false alarms/isolation responses; key to maintain SLAs.

FT capacity issues are resolved now in vSphere 6.0. Cheers!!

I've been using vSphere, vCloud Director, vCOPs suits and vCAC for almost 4 years.

None.

None.

FT capacity issues are resolved now in vSphere 6.0. Cheers!

Excellent.

Excellent.

Yes; Microsoft's Azure for cloud and Hyper-V for virtualization. The reason for switching was indeed the efficiency crisis with Hyper-V resulting in subsequent service issues ->service tickets-> increased number of troubleshooting tasks -> increased number of breaches in the SLAs

Straightforward, as it's designed at a more abstract level.

Vendor as-well-as in-house. I give them a 5-star rating.

Depends on the licences purchased per ESXi, vCenter for vSphere and licences purchased for vCloud Director, vCOPs suites.

Yes; Microsoft's Azure for cloud and Hyper-V for virtualization.

Go for it. Follow the bottom-up approach; VMware's Implementation Guide for each product and you will sail through.

The real multi tenancy and distributed administration for vDCs is the goal of this product, which combines consuming resources as a service with a great governance model for different customers.

Suppose you need to build one or more virtual datacenter, and meet the demands of customers, supplier and departments. In a traditional architecture (vCenter and esxi hosts) you need hard integration work to answer this problem.

vCloud director solves this problem weaving computational resources, storage and networking with consumption requests from companies, departments and individual operators in a dynamic and safe way.

We combine this architecture with existing vDCs with limited business impact (because vMotion could aid to limit or eliminate downtime). Now selling VM, request demo or trying an environment is very simple: just a few clicks to go!

Improvement in IT departments regarding the delivery of virtual datacenters for Business, Government and Captive area (holding headquarters and associated companies). Hospitals and Governments could use this because data is under their control, with very low risks for stability and security: governance still remains with the cloud consumer.

In my scenario I'm using 2 vDCs (marked as gold and platinum) in 2 different places and allow an organization (our customer) to use parts of these vDCs to stretch VM distribution across a datacenter, make DR on-demand (and without up-front costs) and respond quickly to business demands.

I've been using this solution for 3 years.

Deployment is very simple, but I suggest a little design and hardening phase to meet security and licensing compliance.

Product is mature enough to support huge loads: the underlining technology is the best in class to meet many customer needs. The product is very stable.

Product is born to be scalable, because it should be used in different modes (cloud provider and private cloud environment).

People say that VMware customer service is very helpful and quick to solve issues. In my life I've use this service only for administrative issues (contracts, portals, licensing); this is because documentation, their knowledge base and community always are enough for problem solving.

Official documentation is very good, and could give you skill to deploy, run and improve your vCD system (VMware always work hard for this phase).

Setup was quite straightforward, because VMware always provides great documentation for deployment, configuration and troubleshooting.

I deployed and set up this system in-house (my team staff: virtualization area), because this is a company core-business, and it is the minimum to do to learn and solve problems quickly.

Our ROI was reached considering 2 factors:

- A service provider model built on VMWare contracts and many resource delivery models, cost are as-a-service and bound to the VM vRAM: licensing cost is 1:1 to the assigned resource. Considering 50% of infrastructure cost per VM in 3 years, 10% of VMware cost and 10% of infrastructure cost, break even could be in 1.5 years.

- In both private and public scenarios many administrative tasks are solved by on-demand models that could be elastic and efficient. Considered a manpower reduction of about 40% and a potential reduction of 99% for provisioning tasks. IT Virtual administrator staff finally do the real job: troubleshoot, provision and do only heavy activities with less effort.

One more important thing: vCloud works with his chargeback product to show and take many costs under control.

As mentioned above, the service provider model costs are calculated considering:

- physical environment cost (up front cost or by loan)

- licensing cost 1:1 to vRAM

- setup requires no more than 1 week.

Before installing vCloud director, I suggest:

1. Check HCL and compatibility matrix between vCloud director, vSphere and vCloud network and security (ex: vShield manager)

2. Use vDC resources only for vCloud director purpose, don't mix traditional vSphere and vCloud director usage.

We use VMware Cloud Director on our big service providers that allow different tenants to coexist from the same operational infrastructure. Each of our customers has their own tenant, so we can manage their workloads separately.

Offloading workloads to such large platforms allows for better economies of scale, facilitating management from a customer perspective that does not need to maintain their own infrastructure.

The reliability and flexibility of networking are valuable. You can do a lot with NSX, which is the VMware component that manages all networking. It integrates well with enterprise-level backup solutions, like Veeam or Vault.

VMware should simplify the whole solution as it comprises many different components, making management hard. Reducing the number of components would make it easier to manage.

Currently, it's more or less a year.

It is really reliable and works well.

As a technician, it's easier to work on VMware because there are many online sources for support, and it has more maturity on the market. At Nutanix, you need a lot of support from a partner, whereas the engagement with a partner for VMware is much less.

Positive

I'm considering that it might be worth looking into Nutanix since they are new in the market.

We work hand in hand with our customers to work on primarily Big Cloud Director platforms.

Since Broadcom's acquisition, the prices of VMware solutions have changed a lot. I'm mostly technical and don't deal much with budgeting and billing, so I can't really judge them.

I did evaluate other solutions like Nutanix.

Starting from scratch, it could be worth looking into Nutanix. The VMware acquisition by Broadcom has left some uncertainty, and Broadcom did a terrible PR job following the acquisition.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The primary use case for vCloud Director is deploying a cloud infrastructure in collaboration with partners to provide a data center environment for clients.

The platform's most valuable feature is security.

The product installation process could be easier for new users as well. 

I rate the platform's stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the platform's scalability a nine out of ten.

The technical support team always responds with a resolution in case of queries.

Positive

I previously used Azure and AWS databases for cloud management. The main reason I switched to VMware, particularly vCloud Director, was the need for better flexibility and stability in managing my infrastructure.The product is inexpensive compared to AWS, Azure, and GCP.

The initial setup is easy. However, it requires essential work experience and information to understand the platform.

The product is inexpensive compared to AWS, Azure, and GCP.

VMware's vCloud Director solution has been instrumental in addressing multi-tenancy needs within my organization. By leveraging the product alongside VMware's vSphere BitLocker Center, my clients can securely utilize their dedicated data centers while benefiting from scalability. Additionally, it helps ensure security across our cloud environments.

It primarily caters to public cloud environments. I rate it a ten out of ten.

We use it and have several customers who use it. 

It has performed well. We don't have any real problems with it.

The product helped us get more customers, so that worked out quite well. It saves us a lot of time provisioning new clients.

vCloud Director works and makes my life easier. Its self-service capabilities allow us to give resources to our customers. They can spin up as many or as few machines as they like, and it works. We don't have to worry about it. We maintain the platform, and our customers take care of the rest.

I am happy with the data protection.

So far, we have had no problems at all, as it has been very stable. It is working well.

I always worry about disaster recovery. I can't afford for it to break.

It is very scalable, which is one of the reasons that we use it. We have not had to increase the resources that we have thrown at it yet. However, when we do, the process should be straightforward.

We have never really needed any technical support. 

When we were first creating the cloud, we asked for some input from some VMware specialists. Since then, we haven't had any issues.

We were using VMware already, then some of our customers asked if we could give them a cloud solution

In the end, the initial setup was straightforward, but we had to try to do it a few times.

There seemed to be different bits of paperwork or instructions available from various places. We always had to go looking for what to do next. There didn't seem to be any type of integrated path on how to do the initial setup.

We used a consultant for the deployment.

We had experience with VMware, so we stuck with VMware.

I would recommend VMware and vCloud Director, if they want to go cloud.

vCloud Director is a stable solution.

The solution's installation is difficult, and you need somebody with the solution's knowledge to do the installation.

I have been using vCloud Director for three years.

I have around 20 to 25 customers for vCloud Director.

vCloud Director is a very expensive solution. Before January, you had to pay for what you use. A single CPU call costs 200 euros, and we currently need to license 3,500 CPU calls, which is a lot of money.

VMware took the decision one day to change all the usage types and gave us only three months to change, which is a really bad thing.

Overall, I rate the solution a five out of ten.

We use the solution to connect clouds to different clouds. 

It would be great if Microsoft and VMware come together and become a common tool. 

I have been working with the product for ten years. 

The solution is stable. 

The product is scalable. 

The solution's support depends on the partnership. We do not attend to level 1 and level 2 support cases but level 3 support cases. 

Positive

The solution's price is the market standard and depends on usage. 

I would rate the product a nine out of ten. The tool is simple and easy to use. The solution provides API and GUI interfaces. 

The most valuable features are the UI, the interface, and accessibility.

It's easy to manage, it's stable, there are fewer bugs, and the version is upgradable.

We are using 8.0 which is going out of support and will need to upgrade to 10, which would not take much time to upgrade.

There is no support for versions below 10.x. Support for previous versions would be nice, but it's the end of support which is the company policy. We cannot debate it and they provide us with extended support as well, for a year.

This is is more than enough time for an organization to upgrade to the latest version to be secure and protected.

There is always room for improvement.

In the next release, we would like to see improvements with the pricing. It could be reduced.

I have been using this solution for five years.

It's a stable solution.

vCloud Director is scalable.

We have over 1000 people in our organization who are using this solution.

Technical support is good for version 10.x. There is support through the vendor but not for the previous versions. 

For versions 9.0 and above, there is support available.

The initial setup is straightforward.

The time it takes to deploy depends on the number of cells. For example, if you have two cells it will take 40 to 45 minutes. Not more than that.

This is an expensive solution.

We will upgrade and continue our usage of this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using this solution. It's a very good product.

I would rate vCloud Director a nine out of ten.