VMware vSAN Reviews

Performance is the most valuable feature because you are moving the storage closer to the CPU. It’s also cheap. We also evaluated an all-flash array, but even a low-end flash is much more expensive. This is much cheaper.

Concrete benefits would be manageability; we don’t have a storage guy because there is less stuff to deal with.

The savings is not the issue but I can scale my system – I’m building the node for 200 users, but all I will have to do is order another host and it will be configured exactly the same, and they are over-provisioned in terms of memory.

I have been using VMWare since it was a beta test.

I don’t know, but my gut feeling is that it distributes across the hosts, which should be very stable, and it’s all done at the hypervisor level. I don’t think we’ll have any issues.

I think it’s scalable in a linear fashion. We’ve outgrown our low-end SAN and hit a wall. We didn’t have a storage guy so we hit a wall when we hit 180 users and it was thrashing the SAN. With VSAN, that kind of issue – especially using the sizing tool – says that you should be more than fine. We're a small shop so we don’t have any doubt that it will scale to size.

They are the best in class – I hold everyone else to their standard. They solve the problem and work the problem. I’m kind of spoiled because I also get federal support so I get especially good service. I have always found their support to be stellar.

I had an issue a few years ago where my hosts were dropping and I couldn’t connect to them, so for three days I worked with VMWare. I went through four shifts of support staff, and they stayed with me. It was a 72 hour outage and I got back around to my original guy, and he figured it out. They are amazing. They don’t point a finger – with IBM they would hand it off from one guy to another and will never ever tell you that.

We replaced our infrastructure and did a proper POC. It’s cheap enough that we can still use the hosts and hook a SAN in, and everyone will get an SSD at their desks, so most of the cost is infrastructure. I loved it when I heard about it – virtualized storage and a distributed RAID. Makes total sense.

Their licensing gets a bit confusing, it’s hard to get the hang of that.

• Integration with VMware vSphere
• It’s simple to manage
• It’s a relatively inexpensive for a SAN solution
• Good performance based on testing

We just started implementation, so it's hard to give our perspective as we're still doing our evaluation. We purchased the product, and we have ten-fold service on it.

If it works out well, storage is our most important element of our infrastructure. We're looking for a stable and high performing solution and think this is it.

I'd like to see support for iSCI. Right now it’s all internal protocols, and they promise it in the next version. They need to support more types of hardware – the list is too narrow.

It's stable, but it's really picky on the hardware. We knew that going in, but the scale was a surprise, not truly as agnostic as we thought it would be. They have a list, and if you deviate a bit, then it won’t support the environment. We had an issue where we deviated slightly, so we probably will have to follow their hardware compatibility list.

Very scalable, it's one of the reasons we bought it. They are in v2.0, and we feel like now it’s mature.

Support is generally good, but a little slow sometimes. You need to stick to their compatibility list if you want their full support.

We were using EMC and we knew we needed something new. Cost is important to look at, because we're nonprofit, as well as the integration with the other VMware products, and the stability of the product too.

Setup is very straightforward.

It’s a good solution – the trend is going towards converged infrastructure. It's all policy based – you can set general policy and then trust VSAN to do everything else.

VMware vSAN is a storage virtualization software.

What I found most valuable in this software is its storage management feature.

I don't recall an area for improvement in VMware vSAN, because it's a concept, a brand, and a product. If the concept doesn't change, we can't improve this software that much, but VMware can probably make the monitoring feature much better.

I've been dealing with VMware vSAN for eight years now.

VMware vSAN is a stable software.

VMware vSAN is a scalable software.

Clients have to pay for VMware vSAN licensing based on the number of CPUs. Whether it'll be a yearly or a monthly subscription, you have to check with the vendor, because you can buy it for one year, two years, or three years. The purchases would be lifetime or perpetual, but you need to have support, e.g. the support is negotiated from one, two, three, or four years.

VMware vSAN is my main product, and I'm an integrator for it.

The current version we're using is the VMware vSAN 6.2 version.

The setup of VMware vSAN is the same setup as the ReadyNodes, because the ReadyNodes are built on top of vSAN technology. As for how long it takes to deploy, it depends on the number of hosts you're deploying.

We have six clients currently using this software.

For deployment and maintenance of VMware vSAN, we have two technical staff who are in charge: one for setting up the network, and the other one for setting up the physical environment.

I'm recommending this software to others who want to start using it. You can install it on any kind of ReadyNodes.

I'm rating VMware vSAN nine out of ten.

We primarily use VMware vSAN for ERP, for the assisting environment. The main environment in my company does not depend on VMware—for the production environment and operations, we work with Nutanix. 

This solution is deployed on-premises. 

One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it is stable. 

This solution could be improved by having more than one controller for the environment. VMware depends on one controller for the whole environment, whereas Nutanix has one controller for each node. Because there is only one controller with VMware, if there was any drop, then the whole environment would stop working. In Nutanix, I have five nodes—there is one controller for each node and it depends on a virtual controller—so if the controller of any node is down, the whole environment will still work. 

I have been using VMware vSAN for three years. 

This solution is very, very stable. 

This solution is scalable. 

In our organization, there are around 1,000 users of VMware, including some servers and the self-service website. We have plans to increase our usage. 

VMware's support could be faster. We don't currently have a contract with technical support because we didn't make a new one for the support license. 

I previously used Hyper-V from Microsoft, but there were many issues and lots of troubleshooting. 

The installation is easy. My team worked on the installation and, for our company, we only need one engineer for deployment and maintenance. 

We implemented this solution through an in-house team. 

I have two environments: Nutanix AHV and VMware. We use the Nutanix environment more than the VMware environment. 

I rate VMware vSAN an eight out of ten. For virtualization, I would recommend Nutanix over VMware. 

We plan to switch products since the hardware nowadays is a little bit outdated and we need to scale up a bit. We are looking for better performance and storage. This is why we are examining other solutions, including VxRail. 

We have been using VMware vSAN for at least 10 years.

The solution is quite stable. We have encountered some minor issues but, overall, are quite satisfied.

While the solution is scalable, I feel that this can be better. 

Although we have not made much use of the technical support, we found them to be good and helpful in finding solutions. 

The solutions we previously used were dissimilar to the current one. We had VMware for an extremely long time, at least 15 or 16 years. First, there was VMware servers, followed by us building and setting up VMware custom within a couple of servers.

I feel the pricing to be reasonable. We pay monthly. 

We have 50 users making use of the solution in our organization.

I rate VMware vSAN as an eight out of ten. 

We are service providers. 

vSan is a system with defined storage, it doesn't work on a public cloud. It works and is built in your private cloud.

The most valuable features are Erasure Coding, Deduplication, and Compression, and the advancement in stretching regarding replication.

They should provide Deduplication and Compression over the hybrid drives. The Deduplication and Compression are locally only on all flash drives.

When you compare with Nutanix, you will find the performance in the Deduplication and Compression is over hybrid and on the flash drives. This feature is needed in vSan.

I have been working with VMware vSan for five years.

We are using the latest version.

VMware vSAN is very stable.

It's scalable up to 96 nodes. We have over 500 users in our company who are using this solution.

VMware technical support is remarkable.

We did not work with a similar software preciously. We were working with traditional solutions such as storage, and servers, but not software-defined storage like vSAN.

The vSAN is very easy to deploy.

To deploy a full cluster in a data center, can take four hours.

We are all engineers. We don't need a team to maintain this solution, as everyone services themselves.

The price could be lower. vSAN has many versions with standard and advanced including Enterprise and Enterprise Plus. Regarding the Enterprise and the Advanced, it could be lower.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We have around 70 to 100 VMs, and we use VMware vSAN to store our data. We have a lot of daily data.

It is easy to work with, easy to handle, and easy to manage.

Its price could be improved. It is too expensive for our clients.

I have been using this solution for around a year.

It is quite stable. 

We didn't increase our storage.

Their technical support is really helpful. They are very efficient. I didn't have any problem.

Its initial setup is not difficult.

It is too expensive.

It is a good solution to implement if you have a lot of data. It is quite stable and not too difficult to manage.  

I would rate VMware vSAN a seven out of ten. It is a good solution, but it is too expensive.

We use this solution exclusively for our VDI.

We are running vSAN on six Cisco C240 M4 servers.

The newer versions of this solution are much more stable and easier to manage.

We had a near meltdown with 5.5, upgrading firmware and vSphere versions is a hassle.

The most valuable feature of this solution is that it is cheap storage.

This solution would benefit from better collaboration with Cisco for driver updates.

The support from VMware is phenomenal.