VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN Reviews

The use case is mainly just communication between the branch offices or the branches. That's pretty much it, the communication between the branches.

Also, currently, we're doing what we call a PCI segmentation as well. 

It's stable most of the time. It's reliable I would say. We have rarely or never disconnected unless there's a power issue or power outage. Even then, we have a disconnection from one of the branches. Beyond that we don't have a lot of issues. It's very minimum disruption. That's what I like about it.

It's very easy to work with the solution. We understand it well. Customer service is very good. 

When we upgrade to one of the edges, it goes very smoothly. 

We're trying to integrate it with our Prisma Access architecture in the future. We would just like to see it smoothly deployed. We are going now back and forth between our Palo Alto reps and VeloCloud or VMware SD-WAN reps to find a solution to integrate both into one solution. I'm not sure if this is on Palo Alto's or Prisma's or VMware's side.  Other than that, all the features and everything look great.

The only thing that I'm having issues with is on one of the sites, I can't see the location on the map. That's the only thing that can be fixed.

I've used the solution for the last eight months only. I've been with the company only that long, however, they had this for probably a couple of years, I would say.

It's stable. We've had it for a period of time now and it's very reliable. All of them have issues and most of the time, they're not even related to the solution itself. The solution really does run well.

It's very scalable. One of the edges we have supports 2,000 tunnels and their edge is very scalable. It depends on the model you use. On even some of these small sites, we rely on them for Wi-Fi in our small sites it's been great overall.

We likely have 1,000 users on the solution. 

We have plans to increase usage since we're looking to migrate from a physical data center to Prisma Access on the cloud. Then we have to involve something called the VeloCloud Gateway, which is VMware.

They are our cloud gateways, so those have to be involved in our new architecture or design. We're increasing everything and the only thing that would be decreasing would be where we're closing some offices and that's just the nature of business itself. However, we're still opening others in other states.

Customer service is great. They've been very responsive. One time we had to replace one or two of the edges in one of our main offices in the Houston, Texas area and they send a technician and everything went smoothly on that end.

The technical support is knowledgeable. Customer support is a partner with VMware, so when we ask for support or technical support, and it's always there and they're always helpful.

Positive

I wasn't part of that actual step.

You do not need much maintenance. The last time when I did one site it was only me and then probably a couple of people from our end.

We likely had assistance from the reseller. That's who we deal with when we have any issues with our VMware SD-WAN.

I don't have any insights into any ROI. 

I'm not aware of the licensing aspect of the solution. It might be somewhere in the middle of the market. It's likely not the least expensive not the most. 

Support may be an extra add-on cost as well. 

We are using the VeloCloud version or model.

On each site, on each branch, we have edges of either one or two for redundancies and that's how they communicate. There's an overlay and that's how they communicate between branches so we have on-prem edges, yes. We have one on AW as well, however, the most we use for now is between branches in Texas.

I would recommend people use this product. We've been using it and we don't have any issues. Honestly, we don't want to get away from this solution at all. I recommend using the solution as it's very reliable, convenient, and easy when you communicate with it. Supporting it and then looking into issues and trying to implement rules and best policies is pretty straightforward. Even if not, we always work with their reseller and they always help us.

I'd rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use VMware SD-WAN on the cloud and we use our own cloud.

The solution is used by our customers for putting their IT infrastructure in the Cloud and bridge to connect for retail. We have a very big string of customers moving their workplaces into the Cloud. This calls for a new topology and this is where VMware SD-WAN is the best fit.

There is one feature that would set VMware SD-WAN apart from others solutions, and that is what I call inter-cloud connectivity. All the solutions regarding VMware are good because for example, If I go from my workplace to a retail office and I want to use my applications in the Cloud, that is possible. Perhaps we have customers who have their IT partial environments hosted in different cloud locations, such as Amazon and Azure, and the interconnection between the clouds, this is not possible. If it was possible it would be a market game-changer. Having the SD-WAN solution that is good at optimizing and facilitating traffic between different cloud providers would be great.

I have been using VMware SD-WAN for more than one year.

The stability of VMware SD-WAN is very good.

VMware SD-WAN is scalable.

The initial setup is very simple.

The licensing model of VMware SD-WAN could be improved, it is not always that competitive. The biggest concern is to be competitive against other solutions. However, the way that the licensing model is designed is not corresponding to the real use cases of my customers.

My advice to others would be to trust the solution and buy it.

I rate VMware SD-WAN an eight out of ten

a customer seeking to deploy an SD-WAN environment via 2 alternate stable methods either in a virtual environment or a physical device depending upon their site-specific requirements.

It is fairly similar to other solutions. It has the capability for testing link connectivity, which is its unique feature from a control perspective.

I would like to see an on-premise NGFW embedded into the solution. They have a SASE solution that is part of the deployment model now but is more cloud-focused. It would be nice to have an on-prem all-in-one SDWAN/NGFW box for some smaller deployments that don't need or have a virtual environment nor have a need for a full SASE deployment model.

I have been using this solution for a couple of years. We generally have the version that is previous to the latest one. Our clients have cloud and on-premises deployments.

Early on, there were some issues with it, but now, it is fairly stable.

It works well, but as it gets larger, it becomes more complex and difficult to address. It is good for mid-market type enterprise deployments but not for large deployments. Our clients are small, medium, and large businesses.

I haven't used their technical support.

One of our clients was using Fortinet.

It is fairly straightforward. After you've done it once or twice, it is fairly simple.

I would advise others to understand what you're using SD-WAN for. It is not for replacing MPLS. It is about application performance, access control, and manageability of your sites. Most of our clients don't even understand why they need SD-WAN or what they're looking at in SD-WAN. They think they can just replace MPLS, which is not really the case for SD-WAN. They do it because they think they are lowering costs, which in some cases is true, but it depends on the application performance criteria and things of that nature. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. They can do some improvements. There are other solutions out there that I would highly recommend over this solution, but it is not bad.

I use VeloCloud for software for reports SD-WAN solutions and WAN connectivity.

They should help our customers reduce the cost of the implementation from a local user cloud to the user using a standard cloud. They should improve the time and the cost of the implementation.

I would like for them to upgrade to 5G integration. Our customers have 4G now and the connectivity isn't good. It should be much faster. 

I have been using VeloCloud for ten years. 

The stability depends on the network connectivity. If the Internet connection isn't stale, it will affect it. 

We contact our partners to get local support. 

The initial setup was very simple. It's user-friendly. It only takes a few hours, not days, to deploy for somebody who is experienced. We use it on a daily basis. 

We used a system integrator for the deployment. From the second year onwards, the maintenance is done by our local partners. 

There are up to 100 users. 

It's not cheap but it's affordable. 

I would absolutely recommend VeloCloud because it's user-friendly and because the integration is easier than with other solutions. 

I would rate VeloCloud a nine out of ten. 

We use VeloCloud as our SD-WAN solution.

The most valuable feature is the dynamic multipath optimization. This is something that other competing products do not have.

Zero-touch provisioning makes it very easy to set up.

The single path optimization features are useful.

There is no security included, which is something that should be improved. For example, they should at least include basic firewall capabilities.

I have been using VeloCloud for six months.

The stability of VeloCloud is good.

Scalability-wise, this is a good solution. We have a large company but our group makes up just a small part of the network, with perhaps 50 users. This includes regular business owners and home users.

Prior to VeloCloud, we used Fortinet. However, the SD-WAN is not as good, which is why we switched over.

The initial setup is really easy.

Once you connect the appliance to the internet, you manage the policies and that enables SD-WAN.

The pricing is very comparable to Fortinet.

This is a product that I like. For anybody looking for an SD-WAN, this is a really good option, and probably one of the best. My only real complaint is about the lack of security. If security is their primary goal, then I would suggest implementing Fortinet instead. On the other hand, if SD-WAN is the primary concern then choose VeloCloud.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use this solution to increase our network bandwidth between sites in our company. For example, there are two internet lines and one NPOS network in Taipei and one SD-WAN solution in Poland. The VCE connects these lines and networks to our LAN switch which increases our bandwidth.

If one circuit crashes, we are able to switch to a second circuit without any disruption in connection. 

In the future, we would like to have more capacity using this solution as there are limitations on the VCE. For example, only 50 tunnels can be supported currently but we would like to have 200 tunnels using the VeloCloud VCE device.

The security function on the VCE could be improved as we need to purchase another device to protect our setup. 

This is a stable solution. 

This is a scalable solution. 

We previously used the FortiGate SD-WAN solution. When using this solution, we experienced application disconnection if the network failed. This does not happen with VeloCloud. 

A vendor assisted us with the setup of this solution. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. 

VMware SD-WAN is a layer 7 firewall.

We're doing POCs and getting a lot of good feedback from customers about VMware. They see how simple it is to deploy and how it reduces the number of employees needed on the network team. 

I like VMware SD-WAN's automation and zero-touch provisioning. Its main advantage is simplicity. Anyone can use this gateway.

Security is a challenge. I would like to see VMware add things like IPS, IDS, and web filtering. These features are the future of security, and most competing firewalls have them. We already have layer 7, but that is not enough for a headquarters. Maybe it's okay for a branch office.

We have been a VMware partner for three years.

VMware SD-WAN is highly stable. We haven't had any complaints about lost connections or the need to restart devices. 

VMware's scalability is good so far. We have 100 devices. 

We opened many tickets with VMware support in the last month. It's good, and they usually respond in under 24 hours. I rate VMware support five out of five.

Setting up VMware SD-WAN is simple and smooth. I would rate it four out of five for ease of deployment. 

I rate VMware SD-WAN eight out of 10. If you are looking for automation and want to free up your IT to focus on other things, I recommend VMware SD-WAN.

The most valuable features are the orchestration layer, plug and play capabilities, and also the fact that you can either configure it as a full mesh or hard install. Even though fully meshed is limited, it is still a good feature.

There are a number of customers we have that require a fully mashed SD-WAN on VeloCloud that is not available currently. If you compare the reporting tool to all other tools that you use for customers for MPLS, they are not as granular. Additionally, the security could be better and increasing the capabilities for fully meshed architectural typology would be beneficial.

I have been using the solution for approximately two years.

This solution is scalable, most of our clients are enterprise size companies. 

The technical support is there if we need them. We are a premium partner to VMware, if there are issues that you cannot resolve internally, we reach out to them and they give us the help we need.

We currently use a few solutions other than this one such as Meraki. When picking the best solution for our clients, the best depends on the use case. It depends on the customer requirements, what they are looking for and then we will recommend the best fit based on our offering.

The installation is easy.

The price is reasonable for this solution, but the only challenge for us is that the Rand currency fluctuates to the dollar and provides some complexities. The price might go up just because the Rand has actually lost value.

This solution is at a very high level, and quite good. However, it is not one platform that fits all, it depends on the use case and what the customer looking for. You might find customers that want security or other UTM based features, which VeloCloud does not offer. It weighs heavily on the customer requirements, but if security is what they are after then I would not generally recommend the VeloCloud offering.

I rate VMware SD-WAN an eight out of ten.