VMware NSX Reviews

We're moving towards hyper-converged solutions with VMware, including NSX and vSAN. This direction has promising prospects in the market.

One significant advantage of VMware NSX is the ability to provide advanced security at the micro-level, focusing on securing applications and workloads rather than just the network structure or virtualization-based network security.   

I believe we need to attain a certain level of maturity and work closely with multiple customers to make substantial improvements and achieve notable results. The feature it can improve is essentially application-based load balancing with intelligent load distribution for applications that require redundancy and high availability. This feature operates at a micro-level, specifically focusing on the payloads of applications.

To clarify further, I believe that if NSX offers this functionality along with robust security measures for application payloads, it would greatly benefit customers. Instead of investing in additional devices or appliances for load balancing and security, organizations would likely prefer to leverage NSX's integrated capabilities in this regard.

We have been using this solution for the past six months. 

As for stability, the customer I mentioned earlier is extremely satisfied with the product's stability.

VMware doesn't have a physical presence in Pakistan. They recently initiated their operations here. However, we do have interactions with their team based in Singapore, and I must say they are quite supportive. The customer hasn't raised any complaints regarding their support. The time required for deployment can vary based on the size of the infrastructure, but typically, it can be accomplished within a two-week timeframe.

Positive

One of our prominent clients is a major university in Pakistan, and they expressed dissatisfaction with their current solution, Sentra for SCI. They expressed a desire to transition to VMware, specifically NSX, as they are seeking hyper-converged integrations with both cloud and on-premises solutions.

Regarding the initial setup, VMware products, including NSX, are generally straightforward to set up and deploy, so complexity hasn't been an issue.

The implementation of VMware NSX can be cost-intensive, especially if an organization is looking for a comprehensive solution. The costs can vary based on factors like the level of conversation and discounts obtained during negotiations. Some government organizations, for instance, may find the prices relatively high, leading to concerns about budget hikes, especially when deploying the solution across the entire organization.

Regarding maintenance and support, they are typically included in the standard licensing costs for enterprise-level businesses. While these costs can be significant, many companies opt for standard licensing to ensure they have access to necessary support and maintenance services.

The deployment of NSX security can be somewhat challenging, and it requires a thorough understanding of the organization's specific needs and objectives. To effectively implement NSX security measures, it's crucial to have a clear understanding of the applications, payloads, and various components within the network environment.

We use the solution for our DMC firewall to micro-segment the networks for the CRUD matrix.

The most valuable feature is the integration with the firewall.

The cost of the solution has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for three years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

We have around 4,000 people using the solution.

The technical support is sometimes delayed but they always resolve our issues.

Positive

The implementation was completed by a vendor.

The cost of the solution is a bit high.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

The maintenance is done by our vendor.

The solution is great and I recommend it.

I use VMware NSX for virtualizing networks for VMware virtual machines.

VMware NSX improved my organization because it's more flexible than network hardware and provides many solutions, such as firewalls and load balancers.

The most valuable feature of VMware NSX is the high bandwidth.

A room for improvement in VMware NSX is that it has some security vulnerabilities, which means my company has to apply the patches every once in a while.

I have two years of experience with VMware NSX, and I've worked with the solution in the last twelve months.

VMware NSX is a stable solution.

VMware NSX is a scalable solution.

I have no experience contacting VMware NSX technical support.

I didn't use a previous solution before I used VMware NSX.

My company went with VMware NSX because the infrastructure within the company is VMware.

The initial setup for VMware NSX is not that complex. It's in the middle, so I'd rate it as five out of ten.

I'm trying to remember how long the deployment of the solution took, but it didn't take up a lot of time.

A third party helped my company with VMware NSX implementation.

I have experience with VMware NSX.

I'm using the latest version of the solution.

Sometimes, VMware NSX requires maintenance. The third-party was responsible for the first time, and then the vendor took over the subsequent maintenance activities.

VMware NSX has about three hundred users in the company.

I don't know if there's any plan to increase usage for the solution.

My rating for VMware NSX is nine out of ten.

Have used this solution to implement PAS (PCF) and have also used it for Native Datacenter networking as part of DC refresh.

Have worked on multiple organizations with VMware NSX. It heavily depends on the use case of the solution and how well you are able to use all the features of the product. When using for K8s container platforms or a networking backed for on premises cloud using a CMP(VRA, VIO) then VMware NSX is the best SDN solution but If an organization is not able to use NSX to its full potential (Switching, Routing, Load-balancing, Firewall, IDS, IPS etc.) then its not worth it.

Logical routing, switching are  overall good feature of this SDN solution especially when using CMP's and distributed firewall is very attractive features for micro-segmentation.

In rare situation there are  mismatch in the control plane data and dataplane data i.e. the details and what you actually see on the transport note. This is rare but time consuming to troubleshoot . Additionally, there could be better integration between VMware Cloud Federation (VCF) and NSX-T. Currently, there are some limitations, for example, VCF allows just one overlay transport zone. Also there is not upgrade path from VCF 3(NSX-T 2.5.x) to VCF 4 (NSX-T 3.x)

I have been using the solution for approximately five years.

The stability is good and is getter better after each new release.

The solution is scalable. In the 2.4 version, the controller got merged to create the cluster manager, it now is even better.

The technical support was pretty good, but recently I have had quite a few bad experiences with the support. But that really depends on the account and geographic location and multiple other factors

We have using Cisco ACI  and it is a strong competitor. When you are not using NSX NCP then everything that you need from SDN prospective can be done in Cisco ACI except for the distributed firewall at the vnic level.

The initial installation feels at first a little complex because there are a lot of components, but when you get the understanding after a short time, it is fine.

I was not involved in the purchase of the solution but I hear it is on the expensive side. That is why quite a few companies are moving towards open source because there are multiple solutions such as NginX, that can do the load balancing, and Calico and Flannel can do your logical switching routing.

If there is already VMware environment then it makes sense to use NSX-V, NSX-T as it can be integrated with other VMware automation products. But if approach it towards opensource then other SDN solutions like flannel, Nginx etc. can be evaluated depending on the use case.

If you are wanting to implement this solution I would advise if your project supports it then definitely. You should have a solid use case, the solution is rich in feature sets and you should use all of them. Then only is it worth the money, if you are just buying it for your logical switching and routing, then it is not worth it.

I rate VMware NSX a seven out of ten.

I primarily use NSX for micro-segmentation, security, and load-balancing.

NSX's stability could be improved.

I've been working with NSX for six years.

I would rate NSX's stability eight out of ten - there's room for improvement.

I would rate NSX's scalability eight out of ten.

The initial setup is easy and takes between one and five days.

I would give NSX a rating of seven out of ten.

We use VMware NSX for micro-segmentation.

The most valuable features of VMware NSX are the tight integration with the VMware Hypervisor natively and the management console. We have a lot of other integrations where you are able to see the virtual machine's end-to-end visibility.

VMware NSX can improve the migration tools from the older environments to the new environment. For example, the NSX-V has become a legacy solution, it's out of support, but customers are able to keep using it. For migration purposes, it's better for them to provide a proper tool. It will be easy to migrate from an old environment to a new one.

I have used VMware NSX within the last 12 months.

The stability of VMware NSX is very high.

VMware NSX can scale to any sized organization, small or large.

Our recent clients had approximately 1,000 users using this solution.

I have not had any problems with the support from VMware NSX.

I rate the support from VMware NSX a four out of five.

I have used other network virtualization tools and the main difference is VMware NSX is tightly integrated with the Hypervisor layer. We've been able to have end-to-end visibility of the virtual machine traffic, and we have been able to see the flow. The other solution will be agent-based.

The setup of VMware NSX is very easy.

I rate the setup of VMware NSX a four out of five.

The price of VMware NSX is very good compared to other solutions.

I rate the price of VMware NSX a five out of five.

I rate VMware NSX an eight out of ten.

We use NSX as a security solution. The solution is deployed on-premise. We are using version 6.4 of NSX. 

The solution is easy to use and is good for management control.

It isn't easy to deploy.

I have been using VMware NSX for almost 10 years.

We currently have 2,000 users.

The solution is scalable.

I haven't used technical support. If I have a problem, I find out what the best practice is.

We previously used a different solution for server virtualization, but we switched to NSX.

The solution was easy to install but not easy to deploy. 

We have a technical team. The time it takes and the amount of people needed for maintenance depends on the solution that is deployed. Sometimes it is easy, and sometimes it takes more than one day.

The subscription is on a yearly basis.

I would rate this solution 8 out of 10.

Our primary use case is the integration with the platform, so we can use it to orchestrate everything from a single console. That's the magic of having everything in one single dashboard. 

Our customers can see how much easier having multiple integrations on a single dashboard can be for them. The speed and agility of the implementations is another way it has helped improve our clients' organizations. It's easy to monitor exactly what is missing and the speed of implementation. 

We can manage and interact with different network devices, not just the local environment but also in the remote environments. It's very effective in how easy it is to manage and orchestrate all the different devices with the different types of requirements we have. NSX is a great platform to have everything in one single pane of glass.

The easy integration and management are the two most valuable features.

In regards to Layer 4 and 7 load balancing with a solution, for us, it's about the continuity. We look for different ways to create something similar while making improvements. We like to include different services and make sure that we have high availability, not just in our closer environment but also around multiple environments.

Microsegmentation is important. We cap it depending on the compliance and regulations that are in the systems for every single company's requirements. It depends on the size of the customer, but I don't see a reason not to use it. We cap it based on industry, size of a company, and the compliance regulations that the company requires. Also, we consider the nature of the industry, although the reality is that security applies to everybody. Some industries take it more seriously than others because of their policies, rules, and regulations that they have to comply with. Ultimately, security is an issue that affects everybody and is important for all to have.

The engineering team has room for improvement. They should have more of a Knowledge Base about different case studies and should develop more advanced features. These kinds of improvements will change the way things get done.

The stability is great. That's one of the things that we can quantify and leverage through NSX, because it's less complex. We have the availability to manage multiple things at the same time. We can identify problems before they manifest. 

Their technical support is great but I believe that it also has to do with the relationship that we've built with the technical support staff. We're not afraid to have conversations. Most people try to figure things out by themselves but we don't hesitate to reach out to technical support. They have an intelligent team.

We based our decision to switch solutions on an analysis we did. We based this analysis on what we are missing and what the impact is of not having it.

In the beginning, implementation was quite challenging. Once you know your way around it, it becomes a lot easier to navigate. Every master was once a disaster. The beginning stages are the most challenging but as you pass through the initial starting point, you begin to realize how easily it can be integrated with multiple devices. 

I have been in technology for 23 years and I see the constant evolution of not just the portable technology but also the management. I believe that adapting to the multiple levels of security inside of the business management is a challenge for different vendors.

We look at different vendors for our customers. It depends on the compliance and regulations that are in the systems for every single company's requirements. Every company will have specific needs for certain features that other options do or don't have. 

This solution has helped our clients save CapEx. The agility and speed of the implementation offer CapEx savings. 

It does and doesn't prolong software refresh. It does because there is better integration with the product. It doesn't because there are new features developing and people like to replace their hardware. They will have better chances of getting more value out of their software solutions because now they can reach more control of multiple functionalities. I would approximate that it saves the hardware for around two to three years.

I have rated this product a seven because this product still needs to evolve. It's a good product but it's not great. 

If you are considering NSX or a similar solution I would advise that you have to adapt or die. Technology is emerging with different features. It is important to be in that conversation. You've got to move into the new trends. There are multiple solutions, and there will be different brands with different features but ultimately you have to find a solution that will meet your exact needs. 

To those who say NSX is complex, I would say that every master was once a disaster. In the beginning, it's going to be challenging. When you start something new, it very might well be a disaster and you will probably find it hard to navigate. Once you overcome the complexity issue, it's just a matter of perception. It's not really complex, despite what you may think. The solution is evolving, getting better. This is a smarter way to do things. This solution is at another level.