VMware vCenter Reviews

At the starting phase of my career, I dealt with VMware vCenter for multiple solution propositions for clients. My present company has multiple vCenters deployed across several countries, including UK, Australia, Ashburn in the US and also in Pakistan.

I personally manage multiple vCenters and hosts, I deal with more than 200 hosts that need to be managed. Our company is a huge client of VMware vCenter. 

The DRS, high availability and manageable switches are the most valuable features of VMware vCenter. In our company all the features of VMware vCenter are utilized. The main function of the DRS feature is resource management. For instance, suppose one VM has operations in Node 1, in case of a disaster the DRS feature transfers the VM to another host or cluster. The DRS feature of the solution ensures high availability without any downtime across VMs. 

The vSAN feature can be used for storage management and the solution can be used for desktop and application virtualization. You can use multiple products in integration with VMware vCenter to improve the deployed environment and enhance security features. 

The solution's capability can be improved in different infrastructures depending upon segregated ports, multiple clusters and network segregation. For example, multiple network segregations can be implemented for network security and network bandwidth consumption. 

The licensing model of VMware vCenter can be improved. It's an expensive product, and the market demands a cost-effective solution. For almost every feature in VMware vCenter, a separate license needs to be purchased, including the DNS feature and node expansion. Customers will feel uncomfortable with the solution due to the cost structure. 

I have been using VMware vCenter for ten years. 

It's a highly stable product. I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. 

If a strong extended cluster is required in the solution, VMware vCenter offers extendable features for a huge number of nodes in the existing environment, the sub-office, and other additional offices.

For example, if your country has an office and cluster in a specific country and you want to extend the solution to another country with high availability, you can achieve it. If VMware vCenter needs to be scaled across applications and other departments of your organization, it can achieved by adding more hosts, which can be called host scalability. 

There are more than 2000 VMware vCenter users in our company. I think my company might migrate to a different product for the hardware virtualization in a couple of years. 

Excellent technical support has been offered to me over the ten years of usage. There are commendable resources available with the tech support department of the solution. I would rate the tech support an eight out of ten. 

Positive

VMware vCenter offers an effortless setup process. I don't think the vendor has anything to improve in the product's setup process. 

Some resources need to be gathered for VMware vCenter deployment, including suggested RAM. The solution can be deployed in around 15 minutes, if you have hardware of high specifications. 

VMware vCenter allows the management of multiple hosts in one single node. For instance, suppose one of our company's customers uses 20 hosts to manage numerous applications, when I proposed VMware vCenter, the 20 hosts got concluded to 5 nodes which can be managed by the solution.

Thus, in the aforementioned scenario, VMware vCenter can save the cost of 15 nodes, this is how ROI can be achieved through cost savings in the first month of VMware vCenter's deployment.  

VMware vCenter is a user-friendly product. About 70% customers of virtualization in our country are using VMware products and the market is booming. I believe multiple sectors such as banking and FMCG in our country will gradually move towards more cost-effective solutions such as KVM. 

I would recommend VMware vCenter to others due to its high stability and excellent application availability. I would rate the solution as eight out of ten. 

The tool is helpful because it gives us excellent control, maximizing server usage and resources. We can create numerous virtual machines and servers that host many services. Overall, we have had a very good experience.

The most valuable feature for us is its elasticity. We can easily ramp up resources and bring in more processes for specific workloads, which was a nightmare earlier. This ability to extend resource availability for virtual users is particularly beneficial.

We were able to save data on at least ten on-prem servers. Using VMware vCenter, we reduced our server costs. We could utilize many resources by maximizing the usage of minimal servers.

The tool gave us centralized control over all our virtual machines, which was incredibly helpful. We could easily check our services and had fine-grained control over the environment. This saved us a lot of hassle and ensured we never had any major problems. It’s such a good product that I highly recommend it.

The support for the Linux operating system wasn't great when we used it. 

I have been using the product since 2014.

I rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten. 

I am impressed with the solution's scalability. I rate it a ten out of ten.

VMware vCenter's deployment is easy. It was pretty quick because we were looking at an enterprise deployment. It took us two or three days to configure all the virtual servers.

VMware vCenter is not expensive. 

We have Software Assurance, which helps our licenses get updated and upgraded. We never had to deal with outages or restore backups, as we took backups and never needed to restore any data from the tool.

I would recommend it to anyone and rate it a ten out of ten. It is highly recommended that they use the tool for proof of concepts and then opt to virtualize their environment. They will not regret it.

It's a centralized management service used across the platform. Our clients use it to manage their virtual infrastructure's performance and capacity.

If a customer or business requests a hundred DDI to be provisioned for a hundred users, using the provisioning and deployment automation, we can quickly provision from the existing VM workload based on the predefined configuration. So, within five to ten minutes, you'll be able to provision a hundred DDS for the users.

So, the automation capabilities have improved operations overall.

The clients found the performance monitoring features beneficial. The performance monitoring tools within vCenter help track resource usage, identify performance bottlenecks, and optimize the efficiency of virtual environments.

So, we've been focusing on enhancing the performance monitoring and reporting tools.

vCenter is central to managing multiple VMware vSphere hosts and allows administrators to manage virtual machines from a single centralized console. It provides a unified view of the entire virtualized infrastructure. 

It's crucial for resource management to allocate and manage compute, storage, and networking resources across various hosts and clusters. 

Another significant feature is its high availability options, which help configure and manage settings to ensure continuous operations in the event of hardware failures.

It also supports lifecycle management, aiding in the deployment, migration, and overall management of solutions throughout their lifecycle.

It is like a single point of failure. In an environment, vCenter is deployed as a single instance, which represents a single point of failure. The concern here is that tasks such as provisioning, monitoring, and maintenance may be impacted until the server is restored. This only affects management; users are not impacted. But, again, management capabilities will be impacted. 

The entire system goes down until recovery is completed. You will not be able to provision new VDI. 

Also, vCenter requires a lot of additional resources for managing capabilities. It uses a significant amount of CPU, memory, and network bandwidth, which can sometimes slow down. Proper sizing is important for vCenter so that it does not impact end-users. 

vCentre licensing cost is on the higher side as well. 

We recently started with this solution. 

vCenter is known for its stability and reliability because it operates in a very complex environment, like banks. It is a mature technology that offers return, high availability options, and compatibility integration with all the major hardware and software vendors. 

Also, it has use cases for performance monitoring and optimisation that allows to monitor performance and health of existing environemtn.

There are lots of documents and support available. Moreover, there is a large community of users and experts that contributes to the ecosystem. 

You can scale from a hundred to several thousand servers. It can manage multiple different infrastructures. The system supports a lot of clusters and a group of ESXi host servers, and it can manage them as a single entity. 

It is highly available and has a distributed architecture. vCenter's big distributed architecture allows for scalability and optimization by distributing components across servers. 

The scalability limit depends on the edition and version. But this limit currently includes the platform, VM licenses, and other technical support needs.

It's not straightforward for any deployment, the hardware or implementation models.

Planning hardware and software requirements, installation configuration, input integration with vSphere, backup, and monitoring—all these are involved. Automation, maintenance, and upgrades, for this prior knowledge, are required to deploy vCenter.

It just takes minimal time since the hypervisor is available. It's just a management console. The setup of the tool and configuration and integration with other hypervisors take one week if we have all the prerequisites in place.

It is easy to integrate. This includes integration with customer management and monitoring—all these things can be easily integrated. 

Moreover, good documentation and reporting are available. It's a well-known product.

The deployment resources depend on the number of users. For managing a thousand VMs or a virtual desktop, one engineer is required.

If you require 24/7 support, two engineers, four days for each shift.

For virtual desktop environments, there are different sizing approaches. Sizing can be based on the number of servers or the number of virtual desktops managed.

For example, with a hundred servers, it depends on the support window – 24/7, 16/5, 9/5, etc. We might deploy our own on-site engineers, with a mix of one senior, two mid-level, and two junior staff.

If we size based on the number of virtual desktops, then one resource per shift might support a thousand desktops. To cover 24/7 with two weekly off-days per person, we'd need a minimum of five resources for a thousand desktop operations.

Calculating precise ROI for a real-world website support scenario is complex. It involves comparing costs and benefits of vCenter versus traditional desktop deployments. 

The cost will be on the higher side. However, ROI tends to be higher with vCenter compared to traditional setups. To quantify the benefits, consider these factors:

• Energy Savings: vCenter reduces power consumption compared to physical desktops.
• Scalability and Flexibility: vCenter supports remote work and enables scalability. It operationalize a mobile workforce.
• Security and Compliance: vCenter often offers enhanced security features.
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: Centralization with vCenter improves data recovery and business continuity compared to isolated physical desktops. 

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

There are two main players in the VDI [Virtual Desktop Infrastructure] solution space: VMware and Citrix. 

Currently, Citrix is a market leader in providing VDI solutions, offering some advantages over VMware. 

However, my recommendation is this: if a customer already uses VMware for virtualization and has a good relationship with VMware, then continuing with VMware for VDI makes sense. It's always best to work with solutions you're familiar with.

We don't use VMware vCenter daily. It's installed and runs our servers, which we use daily but don't actively interact with it.

VMware vCenter has significantly improved our infrastructure management by enabling virtualization. We can virtualize our infrastructure, eliminating the need to access servers physically. Everything can be managed remotely.

The tool's most valuable feature is virtualization. It has positively impacted our operational efficiency by offering remote management capabilities through a user-friendly web interface. Its ease of use, as it doesn't require qualified personnel to operate, was a factor in our decision to purchase it.

One area where VMware vCenter has room for improvement is its transition to Broadcom. The change in licensing structure and pricing, particularly the shift from perpetual licenses to subscription-only models, is a significant drawback.

I have been using the product since 2016.  

I would rate the VMware vCenter's stability as an eight out of ten. It's very stable, but after a long period, it started generating a lot of log files, which caused some server issues.

In our organization, only one administrator, myself, manages and uses VMware vCenter. No other users access the vCenter management console.

I haven't contacted technical support yet. 

The tool's deployment is very easy. Our deployment of VMware vCenter took approximately two to three weeks. Due to the software's large size, it couldn't be completed in just a few hours or days.

We deployed the product in-house. Two resources were needed to complete it. 

The tool used to be worth the money, but after Broadcom acquired it and changed the pricing structure to subscription-only, it became too expensive for us to continue using. Unfortunately, we haven't found any alternative solutions that meet our needs, so this is a significant drawback for us as we explore other options.

I wouldn't recommend VMware vCenter to others, especially since Broadcom acquired it. I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

We use the product for managing a large-scale virtualized infrastructure, specifically overseeing ten ESXi hosts. It helps us upgrade the databases for all the hosts through one console. It includes virtual machine creation to packet updates, and with additional tools like vCenter Lifecycle Manager, we can effortlessly handle patches and host migrations.

The product's emphasis on high availability and DRS aligns with our priorities, making vCenter an integral component in our virtualized environment.

They could provide an easier way to learn NSX and troubleshooting processes for the product.

The platform is 200% stable.

We have not contacted the technical support team thus far. We have not encountered any significant issues or bugs in our production environment. We have been managing the product easily over the past six to seven years.

The initial setup is easy. If someone were to approach me for guidance, I am confident that, given their interest and willingness to learn, I could teach them how to install and manage the product. It would probably take around typically within one or two days for the process.

However, learning and troubleshooting NSX may be more complex due to a perceived lack of proper educational materials and documentation.

The product is expensive. From my experience, the per-core licensing model adds to the overall cost. They offer different licensing packages, including standard and enterprise. One notable aspect is the potential hidden costs associated with a few features. Using distributed switches or advanced tools may incur unexpected expenses. It's essential to thoroughly understand the licensing structure to avoid such hidden costs and ensure alignment with the organization's needs.

I advise others to create an account on the VMware Partner Portal, where they can access trial versions of vCenter. Utilize the 60-day trial period to explore and test the hypervisor. Later, make a purchase decision depending on the budget and business use cases.

I rate it a nine out of ten.

The implementation of vCenter has significantly impacted our IT team's productivity positively. It provides a centralized and efficient tool for managing our virtualized environment.

The platform has a user-friendly interface. It is easy to create and manage virtual infrastructure.

They could provide flexibility and cost-effectiveness for product licensing. Currently, the licensing model allows for the coverage of two virtual machines with a single license when running Windows Server. However, for smaller environments with fewer servers, it might not provide significant benefits.

For efficient reliability and scalability, they could provide additional functionalities supporting multi-location setups and dedicated role-based services. The ability to seamlessly manage and switch between different locations needs improvement. Additionally, there could be more features for dashboard automation.

The platform is stable. The users can connect to the servers and work on the shared files.

The product is scalable. We can purchase one license for VMware’s essential kit for deploying around three servers in one environment.

The initial setup required considerable effort and careful planning to ensure it aligned precisely with the direction of the infrastructure to make configurations as flexible as possible for future requirements. While this approach was time-consuming, it proved crucial to avoid potential mistakes or limitations in decisions made during the setup. It helps with adapting to future changes, implementing upgrades, and integrating new solutions seamlessly into the virtualized environment.

We utilize the basic licenses of the product. However, they offer much better licensing plans for larger companies.

The platform helps us create a full backup of the virtual machine for disaster recovery. We have setups in two locations, it ensures availability through a dedicated connection for information exchange.

I recommend it to others for its ease, security, reliability, and stability. It offers various types of licenses. Additionally, the simplicity of administration efficiently manages both large and small environments.

I advise others to learn and understand the configuration and maintenance process. It is suitable for organizations considering the deployment of virtual infrastructure on-premise, especially in the context of private cloud setups.

I rate it a ten out of ten.

The product has broad use cases. Our customers use it for mission-critical production environments, general hosting, or for private cloud environments,

It's a very good tool for centralized management. It is a powerful tool, but it's a very basic tool. We can leverage its full power only when we include other tools like vROps. The solution is feature-rich, but it is not rich enough. We have to buy more VMware products to make it more valuable.

The product is strong in host profiles and standardization. It is much easier to manage than Hyper-V. The high availability has contributed to the efficiency of our operations. I rate it a nine out of ten. It is really good. As a basic tool, it is fine.

We have to buy more VMware products to leverage the centralized management. It doesn't come with Network Insight and vROps. The only challenge we're currently having is Broadcom buying VMware. It will be a big challenge because we don't know what is changing from a licensing perspective, from perpetual to subscription. Many of our customers are planning to migrate away due to the uncertainty.

I have been reselling the product for 20 years.

The tool is stable enough.

The scalability is adequate. Many customers do not scale beyond the limits of the tool. Our customers are small, medium, and large businesses.

The technical support is not the best. Other partners are more responsive.

Neutral

The tool is easy to deploy if someone has the right skills. If someone has skills, it's pretty easy. One person is enough to deploy the solution. It is easy to maintain.

The return on investment is pretty good.

The solution is expensive. The price could be improved. Our customers pay for monthly and annual licenses. With Broadcom buying VMware, everything is going to be subscription-based. The license and support costs are typically bundled together.

The product is on par with Prism Central. However, Prism Central is a little bit less complex.

The vendor must bundle more software into vCenter. Network Insight and vROps must not cost us additionally. It should be bundled with the solution. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

vCenter is primarily used to manage hosts centrally. It handles multiple scenarios, such as creating a distribution switch instead of an individual standard switch. Centralized management of policies and applying user-based restrictions are some of the potential use cases.

With vCenter, it becomes easier to manage a hundred hosts manually and to create scenarios such as authentication. It makes the process quite cost-effective.

The most valuable feature is the ease of migrating services from one host to another during maintenance. Adding network paths is also simple, and it has a direct integration with Active Directory for role-based access.

There needs to be improvement in the pricing model, as the host license is already very high, and customers should have more open options for creating automation scenarios out of the box.

I have been using vCenter since 2014, which indicates a duration of nine years.

The solution is quite stable and doesn't have many issues from the beginning. However, it is stable to an extent of eighty percent because it may encounter blue screen errors and other common issues.

The normal environment is sufficient to handle multiple hosts, so it doesn't require frequent scaling.

vCenter is under support, and it doesn't have many issues, which makes it easy to maintain.

Neutral

The initial setup of vCenter is straightforward.

One technician is usually enough for the setup.

vCenter helps save time and costs by making it easier to manage multiple hosts and scenarios, thus being cost-effective.

The setup cost is high as the host license is expensive, and there is a concern about charging too much for a management tool.

My advice is not to use any recent products but to opt for open-source solutions.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.