We use this solution to manage our virtual machines and basic settings.
DevOps Engineer at IOTANS
Can be run on self-hosted systems and is stable
Pros and Cons
- "We can run it on self-hosted systems, and we are happy with the stability of vCloud Director."
- "We use vCloud Director along with Terraform, and it's difficult to make them work together. It takes a long time to deploy virtual machines with Terraform in vCloud Director. For example, it can take about one or two hours to create 10 machines. It takes up a lot of our DevOps' and engineers' time in comparison to that with other solutions. This is an area that they should work on and improve."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
We can run it on self-hosted systems, and we are happy with the stability of vCloud Director.
What needs improvement?
We use vCloud Director along with Terraform, and it's difficult to make them work together. It takes a long time to deploy virtual machines with Terraform in vCloud Director. For example, it can take about one or two hours to create 10 machines. It takes up a lot of our DevOps' and engineers' time in comparison to that with other solutions. This is an area that they should work on and improve.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been dealing with this solution for two to three years.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I'm pretty happy with the stability of this solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing costs are pretty high, but it might depend on the size of the company.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate vCloud Director at nine on a scale from one to ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

Director at Silicon Sky Consulting LLC
Automated virtual resource creation with good options for scaling usage
Pros and Cons
- "There are various options for scaling and that flexibility is a good option."
- "The initial installation and setup are very quick."
- "The stability of the product is better than just 'good.'"
- "The product could use a billing feature so we can automate billing for clients."
What is our primary use case?
We are VMware Verified Cloud providers. So we run vCloud Director. We run NSX (Network Security Platform). We run the whole suite of VMware products to host our customers' various applications.
Our primary use case is to enable our customers to use the vCloud Director platform to drive the portal that they create using compute resources from their side. So, it is used for the automation of resources in the VMware on our VMware platform for customers to create Virtual Datacenters.
What is most valuable?
Our customers host their applications with us like they would host it with AWS or Azure. So, in terms of that, the most valuable part of the product for us is the ease of creating resources for them to run their applications and infrastructure for doing business.
What needs improvement?
The first thing that I would say if someone asked me for what nice feature I would like to see, it would be a billing feature. To be able to automate our billing for clients would be a nice feature for us and save us a lot of time.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using vCloud Director for eleven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability of the product is very good. It is better than just 'good.'
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We manage our scalability using multiple pods. We have a certain number of servers and available storage, and when a VMware customer gets to a certain size, we just install a whole new pod. We manage our scalability that way rather than scaling sideways which we do not want to do. If we scale sideways and you have an issue on your platform, then all your customers are affected. We manage the risk for our customers and our uptime by scaling out the pods.
How are customer service and technical support?
In my position, I do not deal with technical support directly, but I have not heard any bad stories about them. Based on that, I would say the technical support must be pretty good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial installation and setup are very quick. It takes minutes rather than hours or days.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I can not tell you exactly how much it costs, but I know our bill is in the millions (rand) every month.
What other advice do I have?
I think the product has come a long way since its introduction. It is stable now. In the early days, there were some teething problems. At this point, I would definitely recommend it. It has become a mature product now and it works well.
On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate the vCloud product as a good eight or nine-out-of-ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
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Ingeniero De Preventa De Cloud Y Servicios Profesionales at Licencias OnLine
Has an easy installation process and provides efficient security features
Pros and Cons
- "It helps ensure security across our cloud environments."
- "The product installation process could be easier for new users as well."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case for vCloud Director is deploying a cloud infrastructure in collaboration with partners to provide a data center environment for clients.
What is most valuable?
The platform's most valuable feature is security.
What needs improvement?
The product installation process could be easier for new users as well.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the platform's stability a ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the platform's scalability a nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support team always responds with a resolution in case of queries.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
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.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. However, it requires essential work experience and information to understand the platform.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is inexpensive compared to AWS, Azure, and GCP.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
Sales Director at Abentro
Reliable in usage and beneficial support provided
Pros and Cons
- "vCloud Director is a stable solution."
- "The initial setup of the vCloud Director was not complex and not easy, it was in the middle range of difficulty. It could be made easier."
What is our primary use case?
vCloud Director is used for our customers and my company for the cloud.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using vCloud Director for approximately one year.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
vCloud Director is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
We have approximately three people using vCloud Director in my company.
How are customer service and support?
The support provided by the vCloud Director is good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of the vCloud Director was not complex and not easy, it was in the middle range of difficulty. It could be made easier.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others is for them to check the requirements before implementation.
I rate vCloud Director a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Senior Engineer with 501-1,000 employees
We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center
Pros and Cons
- "We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center."
- "If you use it for a lot of customers, it is too heavy for this solution."
What is our primary use case?
We use it for hosting our customers: a single environment with a single GUI. Our customers are known to have compute and Eos infrastructure cells.
How has it helped my organization?
We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center.
With vCloud Director, our customers can use the VMs:
- They can destroy them.
- They can create new ones.
- They can change them.
They can do this in simplest and quickest way possible.
What is most valuable?
- Its simplicity
- It is powerful.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
You can use it for a few customers. However, if you use it for a lot of customers, it is too heavy for this solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Concurrent users use tends to go slowly.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support is super.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We decided to automate our actions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was complex because we had more than one solution to implement.
What about the implementation team?
For VMware, we hired an engineer for a couple of days.
What was our ROI?
We are able to provision new clients faster. Every month, we take on more customers.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
HPE and VMware were on our shortlist.
We have also used Microsoft SPLA.
What other advice do I have?
We use vRealize Orchestrator with vCloud Director for creating work flows. You can automate your work.
Using the self-service capabilities, our customers can quickly use the product with instructions and learn it within an hour.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
Organizations can use this product for disaster recovery
Pros and Cons
- "Technical support is great. They help us 24/7."
- "We are having a bit of a problem with vCloud Availability. We know that vRA has a new product, HCX. We would like to know about it, then migrate to the product."
What is our primary use case?
It's a virtual data center for customers, and it's performing well.
How has it helped my organization?
Organizations can use this product for disaster recovery or for migration to our cloud.
This solution enables us to provision new clients more quickly.
What is most valuable?
We are using it like a virtual data center for customers with all the benefits.
What needs improvement?
We are having a bit of a problem with vCloud Availability. We know that vRA has a new product, HCX. We would like to know about it, then migrate to the product.
We are also looking for upgraded VMware environments to the latest versions.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is very good. We are working now to increase the size of our environment.
How is customer service and technical support?
Technical support is great. They help us 24/7.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend this solution. It is a very good product.
We would like to start using the container feature and PKS. We are mostly using the vCloud Director, vSAN, and vCloud Availability.
Right now, we are not using their self-service. We implemented our self-services. Developers in our company make a self-service portal. However, we are also looking at the self-service of VMware products.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
Technical Lead Engineer at a transportation company with 10,001+ employees
It is dead simple, but it still feels like duct taped solutions in a lot of aspects.
It's definitely beta and I'm not a big fan of some aspects of the implementation, specifically that I might find myself jumping between this and the provided vCloud director a lot. It's not all bad though. Click through if you'd like to read my overview/opinion of the service.
Main Page: To start, I could not get to the management using Chrome or Safari on my Mac. Only when I used Firefox was I finally able to get to the management page.
Once logged in I was provided w/ essentially two obvious options. Make a Virtual Private Cloud OnDemand or view My Subscriptions. Once clicking the "Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) OnDemand" option and choosing a geographic location, I was committed to paying 'a cost', just to make a VPC. Technically, I 'get' it, but to charge for what is essentially an imaginary boundary to start with is well, 'petty'. It wasn't really clear what that 'cost' was, but I'll just assume 'beta'.
Resource Usage Tab (aka billing): IP billing doesn't make sense to me. My VPC has 461.99 IP's reserved or is that a per hour cost? I don't get it.
I'm just going to assume this gets cleaned up and provides more explanation in GA code. This may be a Beta bug, but I wasn't able to see historically what was using storage that I was billed for after I deleted the VM's that were using it.
You'll also notice a dropdown for region. If you select a different region that you didn't select upon your original VPC deployment, you're prompted as to whether you want to create one.
Uhh, yes? How much is this going to cost me?
Doing so, you'll need to wait while it's created. It took about a good 30 minutes for me, but again 'beta'. Hoping GA spins things up much faster.
Virtual Machines Tab:
On this tab is where I can create virtual machines and view a list of my created virtual machines. Standard fare, and from here I can manage from within vCloud Director. It'll open another interface for me to do more things. Why? I don't really know. It would be nice to see an addition column where I can simply click to open the VM's console from this view. Even if it is one by one or even a simple screenshot of the current screen.
Creating a virtual machine is relatively easy, VMware provides a pretty standard catalog of virtual machines. It's also possible to build your own catalog, but that'll forward you to vCloud Director to do so. Not sure if I like that. I understand the 'modular' approach, but not a fan of it from a user usability perspective.
On this tab is where I can create virtual machines and view a list of my created virtual machines. Standard fare, and from here I can manage from within vCloud Director. It'll open another interface for me to do more things. Why? I don't really know. It would be nice to see an addition column where I can simply click to open the VM's console from this view. Even if it is one by one or even a simple screenshot of the current screen.
Creating a virtual machine is relatively easy, VMware provides a pretty standard catalog of virtual machines. It's also possible to build your own catalog, but that'll forward you to vCloud Director to do so. Not sure if I like that. I understand the 'modular' approach, but not a fan of it from a user usability perspective.
I assume there is a cost difference, again would be nice to see what that is as I'm building it. Would also like to see something to the effect of 'expected performance numbers' and show whether hot-add is enabled or not. Easier to sell the idea of smaller vm's to start w/ option to grow on the fly as needed.
Once done, you're simply presented w/ a spinning circle indicating that vCloud Air is deploying your VM.
Gateway Tab:
Nothing much you can do from this tab beyond seeing your created gateways.
To add additional gateways, you need to jump into the vCloud Director interface.
The good thing about the interface when you do need to jump into vCloud Director is that it is contextually aware. In other words, it will open vCloud Director to the page w/ the related settings.
Final Impressions:
I'm rather mixed. It is dead simple, but it still feels like duct taped solutions in a lot of aspects. I didn't even get into the API, which is REST-ful, simply due to time and the documentation site was giving me lots of java errors.
I didn't get the impression that when I create VPC's in multiple geo-graphical datacenters that I could get a universal view of all my VPC's. This would be especially important if I'm creating global service catalogs. As it is right now, I get the feeling that I would have to duplicate effort in two different geo locations. I can't even imagine more than that.
To be fair though, I think these are the same kind of problems I have w/ AWS. I also was not able to test the hybrid cloud connector in vCenter. There is also the matter of SSO, I didn't really see if there was a way to connect my onsite directory services to reduce login complexity.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Technical Team Leader - Microsoft at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Difficult to install, but provides good stability
Pros and Cons
- "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."
What is most valuable?
vCloud Director is a stable solution.
What needs improvement?
The solution's installation is difficult, and you need somebody with the solution's knowledge to do the installation.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using vCloud Director for three years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have around 20 to 25 customers for vCloud Director.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
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.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner

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