VMware vCenter Reviews

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.

VMware vCenter is a simple network built on a machine.

The tool is simple to install and has backup and restore features.

The solution could provide more automation.

I rate the solution’s stability a ten out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is very good. 100 users are using this solution.

I take support from VMware in Israel. They are fast and knowledgeable.

I work with NetApp. It's simple to clone volume, and restore.

I highly recommend the solution because it is stable.

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

VMware vCenter helps in managing virtual infrastructure's performance and capacity.

VMware vCenter manages cluster nodes and carries configuration for VM setups. It allows for the allocation of resources such as memory, virtual CPUs, and virtual disks when creating VMs.

We typically manage VMs after the OS is installed. vCenter simplifies VM management by allowing for the configuration and operation of VMs once an OS, like Windows, is installed.

The vMotion feature of vCenter supports disaster recovery and VM migration strategies by moving the VMs on the nodes. If there's a problem on the nodes, we usually use vMotion. 

For data protection, we still take snapshots to create copies of data on the nodes. It's not a true backup, but it's a file copied for data redundancy.

vCenter is central to VMware. Without it, configuring other tools or clustering nodes would be impossible. vCenter is the best tool for VMware.

Cluster configuration, data protection, and snapshots are essential for operational efficiency and are facilitated by vCenter.

Sometimes, vCenter management can be difficult if you forget the password. You can't change or recover the password easily. We then have to reinstall vCenter, which means reconfiguring everything. That's a challenge we've encountered. Also, if the vCenter license expires, it will lock the VMs for security purposes.

So, the improvements could focus on management, password recovery, and integration challenges.

VMware has been with our company for more than 20 years. I personally joined in 2012. So, the solution was already a part of the company. 

It's stable.

It is a scalable solution. 

The customer service and support are good. 

Positive

The initial setup is easy. 

It's easy for us to perform the basic installation. However, when it comes to advanced installations or technologies within VMware, which has many updating tools, we sometimes face difficulties due to a lack of knowledge in those areas.

My role is technical; I take care of implementation. The time required for deployment depends on the client's desired configuration and the tools being installed. Installing just VMware vSphere can take about 30 minutes. However, installing and configuring additional devices typically takes half a day or even a full day for a whole vCenter setup.

We sometimes face challenges in regard to integration, especially in networking. Issues like incorrect IP addresses configured on each node can lead to errors. Addressing these issues involves searching for or changing IPs for the servers. Sometimes, the network cards or ports may also have defects.

One person can manage and maintain the solution. However, if there are multiple servers or rapid access needs, it becomes impractical for a single person to maintain everything efficiently. For larger setups, such as nine faster nodes or more, additional technical personnel are necessary.

It's important to have knowledge in VMware installation or implementation before purchasing.

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

We use it for official support first and then client support SMS.

vCenter is manageable, so we prefer that in our environment. We can manage it in a single console.

We use it for full automation, but we also require manual intervention. I have planned to integrate AI with this product and build for that.

We face some upgrade patch management issues. It can be improved in the new version. 

I have been working with it for almost five years. More than five years.

Currently, I use versions seven and eight.

In the last two months, we have been working with the downloads. But we use multiple server vendors: HP and Dell. So, we face issues with the patch. So currently, we are working with that. 

We are preparing a document for the HP update only for the last vulnerability of the latest patch release. That is really only for that one previous version. VMware was released four months ago, but Broadcom has not released a fix yet. That is for all vendors.

Scalability is not an issue, it is already a mature product.

We didn't face any issues with scalability. But, only in the last two or three months have we encountered problems with updating site access and downloads.

Based on the supporting side, we have different categories for users. Some people have 40 VMware employees. Some people have a hundred employees.

The average size of the environment includes anywhere between 10 to 200 VMs minimum. 

The customer service and support were good.

We work with Nutanix and Hyper-V.

Compared to Hyper-V, vCenter is more user-friendly and has better third-party support and multiple features available. It's a very good product.

The initial setup is a very user-friendly process. Installation and configuration are easy. 

The deployment process is only a management thing, and the integrator does the application configuration. We use it in multiple sectors. It's not only for management but also for backup solutions, etc. 

Installation takes 30 minutes. Implementation is based on the environment configuration and requirements.

It requires some maintenance. Now, we feel some difficulty with the download. VMware access was very friendly. Now, it's a bit difficult. We are searching so many pages. And if we are going to do any kind of checking, we need to use multiple features. It's not so user-friendly after migrating to Broadcom.

The license model changed, and some users are facing some difficulties.

After migration, vCenter changed the license model. It was per processor socket-based. Now, it's some core-based. So, we faced some difficulties with this licensing cost.

I would recommend it. It is a leading product. We know this product very well. It is user-friendly.

It is a good solution. Most people use VMware with vCenter. It's a very good product.

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

We use the solution for backup and recovery.

VMware vCenter is a core tool for managing virtualized environments like Kubernetes or Docker.

The VMware web interface is not convenient.

I have been using VMware vCenter for four to five years.

The product is highly stable.

The solution is suitable for medium-sized businesses.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

The initial setup is easy and takes a couple weeks to complete including the training.

I rate the initial setup a seven out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

One feature I really like about VMware vCenter is its ability to change hosts easily. It is highly available and very useful for our operations.

The product should improve its storage. It's not necessarily about needing more storage but improving how it handles technology. We believe there could be more effective ways to manage it in our user environment. It should also look into network management. 

I have been working with the product for two years. 

I rate the solution's stability an eight out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a nine out of ten. My company has only three users who use it daily. 

I rate the product's ease of deployment a nine out of ten. The initial setup of VMware vCenter was straightforward. You need to follow the instructions provided, which are easy to understand. It takes half a day to deploy. You can install it either on a drive or server. You can go through the general manual. 

If you have the necessary access, you can handle the center's deployment on your own. However, it typically requires around three people. This includes individuals responsible for access management and related tasks such as network configuration.

If you're considering using VMware vCenter, my advice is to take advantage of its incredible environment for setting up labs. It would be good to do a POC. I rate the overall solution a nine out of ten. 

Our clients normally use VMware vCenter for centralized management of different VMware hypervisors, mainly in private networks and private edge computing platforms.

The most valuable feature of VMware vCenter is the centralized management that allows us to see resources from different data centers and VMware clusters in a single dashboard.

We're currently working with VMware vCenter to manage two different VMware ESXi hosts. That lets you configure alarms, centralized security management, centralized VM deployment, automation, VM migration, and VM backups.

You cannot configure a centralized firewall with VMware vCenter. You need to go one by one, cluster by cluster, hypervisor by hypervisor, and VM by VM from VMware vCenter. VMware vCenter does not have a centralized security dashboard, and it is pretty tedious to configure.

I have been using VMware vCenter for four years.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten for stability.

Our clients are usually pretty big businesses that are more digital transformation-oriented.

The solution's technical support is pretty bad. The only way we received support was by reaching out to the upper company layers to ask for support through the company alliance.

Negative

On a scale from one to ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy, I rate the solution's initial setup a six to seven out of ten.

It takes a few hours to deploy the solution, and it's not a fast deployment.

The solution's pricing is not too bad for big companies. The solution is pretty expensive for small businesses because there are few lower-scale VMware vCenter solutions. The cost-effectiveness of VMware vCenter is pretty good, and I rate it at nine out of ten.

We're working with small workloads, and it's been more about technological validation. We have demonstrated to the client all the capabilities they would have by installing VMware vCenter and what they can monitor with VMware vCenter. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use VMware vCenter for deploying system machines for customers within a cloud provider environment, facilitating the creation of customized infrastructures.

The product's most valuable feature is the availability of different licenses.

The product’s interface could be easy to understand. It has too many elements and is challenging to operate for various configuration tasks.

We have been using VMware vCenter for 18 years.

It is a stable platform.

The product is scalable. It is suitable for enterprises and top public administration institutions.

The technical support team could respond faster.

Neutral

The initial setup is easy. However, it is difficult to upgrade it for maintenance purposes, including changes in certification.

The platform is expensive.

VMware vCenter is easy to integrate with other tools such as Veeam, Commvault, etc. I rate it an eight out of ten.