VMware vSAN Reviews

We primarily rely on VMware vSAN for our virtualization infrastructure, with all servers virtualized using this platform. We've implemented a hyper-converged infrastructure with vSAN handling all storage needs across our primary and disaster recovery sites.

While we haven't made major changes to our disaster recovery and business continuity processes yet, moving towards stretch vSAN across sites will simplify and expedite our DR processes in the future.                 

Currently, one of the available features is shareable VMBKs. You can create the VMBK disc and you can make them shareable between the ends. But as soon as you start using this feature, you lose the ability to create snapshots.

There is a significant limitation with this feature as it prevents VMs using shared VMDKs from creating snapshots, which is a crucial functionality. This limitation greatly reduces the practicality of using shared VMDKs despite their benefits in cluster environments. Integrating shared VMDKs with snapshot functionality, even if it means excluding them from snapshots, would greatly enhance the usability of this feature and make it more valuable for many users.

I have been using Vmare vSAN for the past 15 years.

We faced a specific issue with vSan, related to a known bug in VMware, which led to activating our DR vSan on our primary production site. This required us to switch to our DR site for a period. While vSan is generally stable and performs well, this event does impact my overall review. I would rate it a 8 out of 10.

The support we received for vSAN was excellent.

Positive

We switched to vSAN for HCI after reaching end-of-life with our external vSAN storage and physical hosts. We compared different options, including renewing with updated vSAN infrastructure, but found vSAN on Dell infrastructure to be the best in terms of management simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

Due to recent changes in VMware's licensing approach by Broadcom, the cost has increased significantly, making it less attractive from a cost perspective.

I use the solution in my virtual environment for storage purposes.

The most valuable feature of the solution is vROps, along with the monitoring part.

There needs to be an increase in the supported memory and hard disk space, as it is an area where the product currently has certain shortcomings. Only 32 TB RAM is supported in vSAN Ready Node R740 and vSAN Ready Node R750.

I have five years of experience working with VMware vSAN.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

The scalability offered by the product is very simple. If you face any hardware issue, you can simply remove that part and purchase a new one, which may even include parts like the hard disk.

The scalability features offered by the product are highly used and are very popular nowadays. I rate the product's scalability a ten out of ten.

The solution's technical support was very good. The product has a lot of documentation on its website. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

I have experience with HPE ProLiant Servers, which are installed through manual configurations.

The product's installation phase is easy.

The product's price is not high. The tool is available at a normal price.

VMware vSAN is better than its competitors.

The greatest impact of the tool on my operational efficiency stems from the fact that it serves as a software-based storage solution, specifically for Dell computers, and integrates well with VMware vCenter while offering availability and pre-configured DRS functionalities. VMware vSAN also integrates with vRealize Suite and VMware SRM for monitoring and DR.

I have manually integrated VMware vSphere with VMware vSAN. I have also manually integrated VMware vSAN with Dell and HPE servers. Dell has a pre-configured set of tools with VMware vSan, like vSAN Ready Node R740 and vSAN Ready Node R750.

The integration of VMware vSphere with VMware vSAN has benefited our company's IT infrastructure since it has made it faster than many other storage solutions. The performance offered is also very high.

The reliability offered by the product is very high since everything comes under one system. With the storage solution, you can easily set up a huge number of virtual desktops in your infrastructure.

I recommend the product to those who want a reliable storage system to store their data, specifically in the cloud.

There needs to be an increase in the capacity offered by the product, considering that thousands of products are used in the corporate sector.

It is easy to use the product. You can also use it online through its web interface.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

Our clients primarily use vSAN for general-purpose workloads, such as web servers and application servers, though not as much for databases.

We have a customer who is successfully running VDI on vSAN.

Our customers also use vSAN for storage consolidation. 

We have customers who previously relied on separate servers and storage solutions but wanted to transition to Hyper-Converged Infrastructure (HCI). 

We proposed vSAN for this purpose and utilized its standard features to migrate their existing infrastructure to vSAN.

vSAN Health is a good feature. It is a vCentre portal. 

vSAN Health is a feature designed to monitor the health and performance of the vSAN environment. It's crucial for us and our customers to frequently check on this to ensure everything is operating smoothly.

A more user-friendly GUI for troubleshooting and resolving issues would be beneficial. 

Now, addressing problems often requires opening support tickets and command-line interventions, which can be cumbersome for customers and partners alike.

For example, a server might disconnect from vSAN because we didn't realize we needed the command line to check certain things. Ideally, they should develop a web portal that allows users to diagnose and fix errors on their own.

So, I would like to see a tool in the web portal to address vSAN issues. A tool to fix recent issues.

There are some additional features I would like to see but it's not directly related to vSAN, but I'd like to touch on the vCLS feature. In the past, there was no such feature, but they're planning to develop this feature and integrate it. 

This creates challenges for our sales team and sometimes even difficulties in maintaining service on other servers. Ideally, they could develop something that allows authorized users to check out a server, essentially take it offline for maintenance, before doing so and notifying others.

The VCLS feature is confusing for your customers. It would be better to develop a feature that helps authorized users check out and disable this feature before taking a server offline for maintenance.

I have been using it for five years now.

I would rate the stability a six out of ten because sometimes everything looks all green, and healthy. 

But the next day, vSAN shows something red, and the host just disconnects from the cluster with a recent issue. We have to open a ticket to resolve it.

So the stability can be inconsistent.

Scaling vSAN is manageable; however, upgrading the entire cluster to a new version can take a lot of time and challenging for our customers.

It is easy, but it takes time to upgrade the cluster.

I would rate the scalability capabilities a seven out of ten. It should be improved.

We have small and medium-sized businesses as our customers. 

The quality of the customer service and support depends on the vSAN case. For example, if I open ten cases, maybe two or three get resolved quickly. But the other cases have a slow response. 

Maybe they end their shift and don't transfer it to the next, and no one picks it up. I have to wait until the original owner comes back to work.

Neutral

For successful business continuity, we have to use Site Recovery Manager. However, customers are pushing for more options. They'd like to see other solutions that might be a better fit for their specific needs. So, they use different third-party tools for disaster recovery.

I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, with ten being very easy.

Deployment can be done within three hours if we prepare all the information beforehand. We can set it up in two to three hours.

With the new pricing model, it's expensive for the customer. The old cost model was X, and the new model might be 50% more.

Comparing vSAN to traditional infrastructure solutions like those from VMware or SolarWinds, I don't see a distinct advantage.

For now, I wouldn't recommend it because of the price. There are other products on the market that work well like Nutanix. 

In your opinion, these are better options. 

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

We use the platform for virtualization and data capacity management.

VMware vSAN's most valuable features are the capability to consolidate standalone physical infrastructure into virtualization and the ease of management.

The platform's cost affects the business. This particular area needs improvement.

We have been using VMware vSAN for six years.

It is a stable platform. I rate the stability as ten out of ten.

We have seven to eight VMware vSAN users in our organization. It is a highly scalable product. I rate the scalability a ten out of ten.

The technical support services are far better than other vendors.

Positive

It has a user-friendly configuration process. The deployment typically takes approximately one to two hours. For instance, if we consider deploying a three-node vSphere operating system, it usually takes about two to three minutes to deploy. However, when factoring in the configuration of logical networking aspects, the overall deployment time extends to one to two hours. Once completed, the product is ready for usage.

We have a team of 12 engineers in our technical team working on the implementation.

We've encountered challenges, particularly with the recent policy changes after Broadcom acquired VMware. The current pricing needs to meet the customers' expectations, posing significant issues. It is difficult to explain the cost implications of upgrades to the customers.

I rate the pricing a three out of ten.

We are exploring other vendors. One consideration is Microsoft Hyper-V clusters, and we are also looking into Microsoft Azure Stack HCI. Additionally, we are evaluating Red Hat solutions as potential alternatives. The decision-making process involves assessing the pricing factor.

We've been utilizing VMware vSAN internally within our organization for the past three years and offering it as a solution to our customers. It helps eliminate the need for external storage and leverage the latest technology provided by VMware.

It significantly improved our storage efficiency by supporting disk groups. However, there were limitations as it only allowed for five disks. To enhance efficiency further, we needed the capacity to increase to at least seven disks per group. Additionally, for better tiering capabilities, it would be advantageous if it could support 12 disks per tier.

The recent integration with VMware's ecosystem has improved our operations by simplifying deployment and management tasks. With internal integration, deploying and managing the repository from a single dashboard has become easier.

The scalability has supported our business growth effectively. As an organization, we utilize it in various customer roles, which proves advantageous for our organization and clients.

I recommend the product to customers looking for better and more efficient storage capacity. It is a good solution. I rate it a ten out of ten.

We use the solution for VDI and SBC Citrix.

With this solution, less time is needed to install three-tiered infrastructure.

The main advantage is that it's all in the box, with VMware vCenter Server product.

Compatibility with the previous version, stability, performance, and upgradeability of the solution with the previous version all need to be improved. 

In future releases of the solution, I would like to see more HCL compatibility lists, less hardware requirements, better performance, and the ability to upgrade from the previous version.

I have known vSAN for five years. We deal with the latest version. 

I would rate the stability a six out of ten. It is less stable than Nutanix. 

I would rate the scalability a six out of ten. It is less scalable than Nutanix. 

The customer service and support are poor and not very responsive. We face delays with responses. 

Neutral

We prefer to use Nutanix but if the customer wants to use VMware vSAN, we have no choice.  

The initial setup is very simple. It takes around a few hours to deploy, around two to three hours. It takes more hours than Nutanix takes. 

We do the maintenance for the solution. We have a team of seven engineers for the deployment and maintenance of the solution. 

The hardware price is expensive cause of new vSan 8 Hardware compatibility list. I would rate the licensing model a three out of ten, where one is expensive, and ten is cheap. 

I would rather prefer Nutanix over this solution. Overall, I would rate vSAN solution a six out of ten. 

The solution is relevant for organizations with legacy setups. They’re running a single application in their infrastructure and utilizing physical servers. Customers can leverage their existing resources efficiently. They maximize their utilization through virtualization. Both platforms offer similar functionality, with the main difference being vSAN's integration with VMware's ecosystem. Recent technology trends emphasize the consolidation of components, extending to both network and storage resources. You no longer require third-party storage solutions; instead, software-defined technology enables efficient resource utilization. This approach focuses on consolidation rather than introducing additional standalone components. It offers the same level of personalization while advantageously consolidating network, storage, and other resources.

VMware vSAN is using its perpetual capability. All orchestration and monitoring are routed to the cloud. There are some features like vSAN Plus available for monitoring. You can utilize this web-based solution, which operates on a subscription basis. This allows for easier budgeting compared to always making capital expenditures. New managers must budget to manage infrastructure efficiently. Everything comes at a cost.

VMware vSAN is for simple consolidation. The hard drive itself is defined through VMware's software-defined technology. You need to buy hardware compatible with nodes from different brands. You can use vSAN with HPE or other brands. Compared to third-party solutions, vSAN reduces the baseline. It's already enabled in the system, making it faster in terms of performance. Using protocols like Fibre Channel and iSCSI is a more efficient way. You can configure many VMs with vSAN, depending on the supported capacity. Then, you just enable vSAN through VMware, purchase the software, and it will work right away.

There's already a concern with VMware with ransomware and security issues. VMware could focus on improving security.

I have been using VMware vSAN for 10 years.

The product is stable.

There is no problem with the stability since it has been in the market for 20 years.

The solution is scalable.

VMware vSAN offers a robust architecture with various scaling capabilities, enabling organizations to scale up their storage infrastructure efficiently. It provides both capability and performance for different workloads, automatically increasing IOPS based on workload requirements. Scalability is crucial when it comes to allocating resources, and vSAN supports future-proofing up to 64 clusters.

Deploying VMware vSAN is seamless. You simply need to add nodes or increase the capacity of existing ones. Migration processes may vary, but configuring full capacity per node simplifies the addition of nodes, ensuring a seamless experience.

VMware doesn’t have Windows 10 support. Dell has the number-one support in the industry. I've worked with other brands, and their support sucks. VMware’s support is very great for technical support.

Positive

The initial setup for VMware vSAN involves two key components. Firstly, we offer our flagship product which utilizes VMware's leading vSAN technology. The major components are included in the package upon purchase, making it a straightforward setup compared to building it from scratch, such as with vSphere 7. We provide pre-configured vSAN ReadyNodes for convenience, although they may lack specific branding. This option allows for a more DIY approach based on ReadyNode servers.

Deploying vSAN ReadyNodes is automated, requiring minimal manual intervention. Setting up a custom solution can be more complex. The process remains relatively straightforward with some necessary intervention. It's also possible to integrate vSAN ReadyNodes with Azure setups on a large scale.

Customers opting for the automated setup merely need to ensure they meet the prerequisites, including switches, and various other requirements such as NTP configuration. Once these prerequisites are met, deploying vSAN becomes relatively easy, as VMware handles most of the configuration automatically.

Deployment is very easy and takes less than an hour.

If you're willing to have good infrastructure, you need to invest first. Ensuring a stable network and meeting computing requirements ensures proper workload distribution to end users. VMware vSAN offers peace of mind by utilizing applications despite its higher price compared to free or cheaper alternatives. It is expensive but its reliability and technological advancements justify the investment.

There are pros and cons. As long as there's VMware vSAN active in the business, the support team along with the hardware and the software services, are good. We've recently implemented vSAN in our Hypervisor. It's already proven on the infrastructure.

The con is that VMware vSAN is no longer perpetual. You need to manage your budget on how everything is going to the cloud, and everything is paid for. If you're using proxmox or Hyper-V or other free redundancies when using VMware. VMware vSAN is the most wonderful hypervisor platform. It is the industry standard and is very prominent in the market.

For advanced users, I recommend using Big Data with VMware. I suggest using vSAN because for automation for startup users. We can provide support for customers with lower budgets who are willing to get support from the system developer. VMware vSAN requires some human intervention.

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

The use case is when someone is a fan of VMware. No. They can use this technology when they don't want to have an extra storage library. It's integrated into the VMware server. 

And if the employees are familiar with the VMware environment, it's a good storage solution for VMware.

vSAN is integrated into VMware. So you can manage and configure it within the VMware console. That's good. 

There is room for improvement in vSAN's ability to debug. When it's not working well, debugging becomes quite challenging. Identifying issues when it's lagging or not functioning properly can be difficult.

In future releases, I would like to see the ability to debug as a solution.

Other areas of improvement include pricing and support. 

We have deployed vSAM two times for our customers. 

It's very stable, though slightly less than ideal due to the challenge of debugging.

Scalability is not as simple as expected. While it's okay, there are restrictions and complexities. For instance, you need a minimum number of servers for certain functionalities, making it less flexible to adapt. I don't know the prerequisites listed by VMware that are not allowed. 

Initially, you need to have three servers, for example, when deploying the solution. If you want a backup solution, you need to have three servers for that. And if you want to have a mirror of the room, you need to have three more servers. You can't have just two. You need to have three. So, it's not as simple to expand, adapt, or modify due to these strict requirements.

We have around five customers using vSAN. 

The customer service and support are okay. It is not quite good. The support should be faster and more qualified. 

Neutral

The setup is quite easy. It took us around half a day to deploy the solution.

For the deployment process, first, we needed a VMware installation. Then, we identified servers for this solution. License keys were crucial. After that, we proceeded with the setup and configuration.

We need three engineers for the deployment and maintenance of the solution. 

It's quite expensive, even too expensive.

There are some extra costs, which can be quite pricey. But overall, not too many additional expenses.

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

I would advise ensuring that the VPN destination is a good one and reliable. VMware-listed prerequisites on the websites are important, and clients should confirm services are good before deployment.

We are using it for a redundant, local front-end environment for our WiFi portal. We're also using it for critical backend services, our DCP instances, and our internal monitoring environments. We have instances inside that system right now.

I believe we are using its latest update.

The flexibility is most valuable. Being able to manage things quickly if something goes wrong is also valuable. Very recently, we had one node that went down due to a power problem, but there was really no major impact on the systems running on top of it. 

It is pretty straightforward. We're able to manage multiple platforms with ease. In terms of the overhead of understanding how the entire platform is being administered, it was fairly quick for our team to get the hang of it.

It could have some automation. We haven't involved ourselves in a lot of automation around the vSAN environment capabilities. We're still running it using a very traditional setup. So, there could be some plugins to automate it using third-party environments, such as Jenkins.

We were trying to explore a solution for a hybrid setup, and VMware had proposed something, but we wanted to understand a deeper setup where our existing vSAN and our HCI environment can interact better with our platforms on the cloud in AWS. So, there should be those types of interactions wherein we can better explore cost-saving opportunities from some platforms in the cloud versus the one that we have on-prem.

I have been using this solution for more than two years.

It has been a pretty stable system so far.

We had a long discussion with our vendor partner about a plan to scale up the system. They gave us several options, but we ended up with the most cost-effective one where we had to trim down some of the node requirements that we were planning to buy initially.

We had an experience with them recently, and the correspondence with the technical support from VMware was fairly quick. It was aligned with the expected SLA. There were no major issues with the support people who assisted us during that time.

It was fairly straightforward. We were surprised at how fast it was implemented. The entire implementation took about two weeks. After that, it was turned over to us, and then we planned on the migration of the platforms from our old converged environment into this new environment.

In terms of the maintenance, apart from the normal operational maintenance that we're doing, we always ensure that there is a back-to-back maintenance agreement with VMware and the vendor partner who sold us the solution. So far, there has been very low admin maintenance on the platform. There have been no major issues except the last one where one node got affected by a power problem in the data center. That's just about it.

We worked with a vendor partner for its implementation. Right now, in our team, we have around five admins who work with this solution.

Cost-wise, the Nutanix licenses were cheaper, but in terms of the hardware, there was some contention around it. So, in terms of implementation, the way Nutanix was projecting the implementation on their end was that there were a lot of open-source admin platforms. vSAN is a licensed product in VMware, and Nutanix was proposing a KVM solution, which is open source. That's why their pricing was a bit cheaper, but when we were trying to compare it with an enterprise version of their management platform, it boiled down to the VMware vSAN being most effective in the long run.

When we were exploring an HCI solution, we zoned in on the VMware vSAN, HPE solution, and Nutanix solution. 

I would recommend this solution to others. It is easy to implement, scale, and maintain. The operational work required to maintain the platform is not that difficult.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.