VMware vSphere Reviews

We have three different types of environments: internal cloud, managed hosting, and VDA. We use VMware vSphere as the main product to accomplish this.

VMware is now the main backbone in our company.

We are not using VMware cloud on AWS. We are in PoC mode. We may use it in another six months to a year.

vSphere helps our organization. Initially, we don't have an internal Cloud. We have an internal cloud, which is four years old now. We have 8000 to 9000 VMs standing in our internal cloud. We also implemented VDA using a VMware vSphere. So, it has been an absolutely pleasure having vSphere.

We provide a service to our internal customers for our development center. We have internal cloud developers. If they require 1000 VMs or 500 VMs, and in the background, we're using a vSphere VMware product. 

The most valuable feature is performance, especially the 6.7 version. 

We were looking for content library options for templates and were happy that VMware introduced it in 6.7 version. 

I like the speed and the quickness of the boot in the newest version of vSphere.

The mission-critical applications in our company, like SAP, Siebel, and a lot of financially related applications are running. Our developer uses most of animation, etc., and we are using the vSphere for that.

We have seen a performance boost compared to the previous versions, like a 5.1, five years ago. It has gradually increased. Previously, we hadn't migrated any database, like SQL or Oracle, into VMware. However, we are planning to now. We are moving forward because a lot of new features are now available on 6.7. 

We are doing a PoC, which we are happy about now. We may move over the database into our VMware environment.

It is simple to manage. However, some of our operation teams, they are used to the desktop line, but VMware removed it in the previous version. Initially, we had an issue on the flash, but now we are happy. With VMware moving to HTML, it's really fast. We did a bit of version testing, and it's really fast and easy to use now.

I have seen some sessions for version 6.7 covering its improvements, which I was looking for, mainly the content library. Our requirement is to move our templates from one location to another location. Previously, this was not available. We are happy this was introduced. 

Another thing is the flash. However, in 6.7, they completely removed it and they are bringing in the HTML. Let's see, as I haven't tried the 6.7 update yet. I hope it will satisfy everything from our point of view.

The stability is good. We have different clusters based on the load of the application and requirements. We can slice the cluster.  

Since we have an internal cloud, suddenly people may require 1000 or 2000 VMS in something. We have options to analyze and make sure we have enough scalability. 

We have some issues but so far it has been good.

We use tech support, which is okay. We used to have a hard time, but at this time, we are happy.

Previously, for monitoring, we use other products. Slowly, we are moving to vRealize now. It depends on our requirements and budget. 

When 5.5 went to 6, we found it a bit difficult because they changed the model. 

Now, we are okay. We have gotten used to it, because it is a new platform. Initially, it was difficult, but now we are okay.

Five years ago, we planned to move from a physical to virtualization environment. We evaluated a lot of other hypervisors, did some PoCs, etc. We decided on VMware. For the past six to seven years, it's been a big journey. 

I would rate vSphere as a nine out of 10.

I will recommend the solution, but there are some steps to take first. There are some VMware videos to view and some KB articles to read, which are available, regarding compatibility. I would recommend them to go through everything. Go through the KB articles, then I will recommend them to implement that one.

An important criteria for choosing a vendor is evaluating how a company behaves. We will review their past history, the current market, and the value of that product. Then, we will see whether that product can used for our requirement. Based on that, we choose our vendors.

We haven't started using the VM encryption. We are in the very initial stage, doing a PoC for it and also the UEFI Secure Boot. These are options that we are trying. Let's see how they will work, and we're looking forward to their results.

Our primary use case for vSphere is not a primary use case, because we actually offer a pretty wide breadth of services. Our key use cases revolve around hosted private cloud, as well as being the underpinning virtualization platform for our multi-tenant vCloud Director based cloud.

We don't use VMware cloud on AWS.

vSphere has improved our organization by allowing us to deliver rock solid stability to our clients in a cost competitive fashion. The industry has moved far beyond bare metal infrastructure, other than for very specific us cases. As an operator of mission-critical applications on behalf of our clients, we chose vSphere because we needed the operability we get from features like vMotion, the stability that it gives us, and the ability to run pretty much any workload.

We host infrastructure for a very large number of clients. In many cases, we're running all their mission-critical applications in our data centers on top of vSphere. So, there is no single industry vertical. However, for each of our clients, we are their operator, and this is their mission-critical infrastructure.

When I think about the performance aspects of vSphere, we've been using it since before there was vSphere. We were actually a very early partner of VMware. I've been with NaviSite for a very long time, and I recall doing a VMware GSX Server deployment, from a number of years ago. 

When I look at the performance aspects, I've definitely seen a reduction over versions from the virtualization penalty. This has been significantly reduced over the years. The size limitations of VMs, number of CPUs, amount of memory which can be allocated, and amount of storage which can be allocated are no longer of practical consequence. So, the monster VM that we talked about over VM Worlds of three to five years ago, they're here to stay, and those limits are no longer practical impediments to virtualization. 

1. The most valuable feature of vSphere is vMotion, because it rocks. It radically changes the way we think about how we can operate a large infrastructure, and notably, in terms of proactive maintenance. 
2. The second biggest feature is HA, because complexity around IT resilience is a difficult problem to solve, especially at the application level. Therefore, being able to rely on the infrastructure to provide a 90:10 or 99:1 rule is more than enough resilience for most applications, and getting that directly from the infrastructure is fantastic.

These features are useful day-to-day, because we operate a very large number of single-tenant private ESX deployments, managed by vCenter, as well as VCD-based public cloud. Frankly, with hundreds and thousands of hosts under management, there's no way we could operate that infrastructure without the use of vMotion. The ability to migrate those workloads to free up the physical infrastructure for maintenance activities, patching, BIOS updates, etc., is a critical requirement to operate.

An important vSphere feature from a security perspective is VM encryption. As is the right thing to do in this day and age, security needs to be the number one concern for any IT operator. While there are security solutions which can be delivered at the physical, hardware layer, they don't necessarily address all of the requirements from an encryption perspective. Being able to have VM-centric, VM-level encryption is a great feature of vSphere.

As with any piece of technology (hardware or software), there's always room for improvement. vSphere is incredibly mature from a core feature and function perspective. As we continue to push mission-critical workloads into vSphere, and those workloads are not readily protected at the application layer for availability, continuing to increase the size limitations on FT-protected VMs would be a great advance.

vSphere management has evolved over time. It's inherently complex. Operating a large virtual infrastructure is not an easy task for anyone. That's why certifications, such as VCP exist, because you have to have the right skill set to operate the environment. As the product evolves and starts to take advantage of things, like DRS, workload placement becomes less of an issue for humans to worry about, because the system takes care of it for you. Of equal interest is SDRS, storage management and storage placement, as historically, it was one of the most challenging things to mange in a large production VMware environment. With SDRS, we've actually seen our need to babysit it and manage it as a human go way down.

vSphere has been very stable. It would be where it is in the market overall if there were any sense of instability. No software nor hardware is perfect, so really it comes down to the failure rate that we see running workloads on vSphere. Is it significantly, materially, measurably different than running those workloads on bare metal? I would say absolutely not. 

Equally important is the stability better because, when things happen, hardware is lost. In response, VMware HA automatically restarts those workloads and the effective downtime is radically minimized. This is compared to what it would be for a human response.

Scalability on vSphere has always been important for us, because of the scale at which we operate. We had a client, who maxed out under the VMware 5 limit of 32 hosts per cluster. So, it has been great to see the continued improvements in scalability. At the VM level, the limits are no longer practical impediments. Now, at the VMware cluster level, we're also seeing sizes which can operate pretty much any large client environment.

We've had to use vSphere and VMware tech support on a fairly regular basis, but not because there are fundamental flaws in the platform. Things happen. Client environments are complex, and in some cases, the interoperability with other third party products requires engagement with support. We have found the engagement able to solve our problems pretty much all the time.

I'm not directly involved in the day-to-day operations of our vSphere environments, but we stand up private vSphere-based clouds on a fairly regular basis. We manage those on a go forward basis in terms of patching, upgrading, etc. Deploying vSpheres is pretty easy. The biggest feature that has made that easier, as compared to three or four years ago, is the vCenter Server Appliance. Its ability to deploy the management plane as a virtual client and bootstrap an ESX environment. That's a big step forward.

1. Compared to deploying traditional infrastructure models, like bare metal, and the ability to virtualize and maximize the utilization of the physical infrastructure speaks well for ROI. 
2. In today's market, agility is the new currency. Without virtualization, and vSphere in particular, we wouldn't have the level of agility in the business that we have today. Frankly, it's needed by pretty much any industry. Regardless of whether you're technology-centric or not, you are a technology company.

If I had to give a rating of one to ten for vSphere, I would give it a nine. No software nor hardware is perfect, but vSphere is good. That's why I would say a nine. There is still some room for improvement, like larger FTVMs, continued evolution, and keeping pace with the scalability of underlying physical infrastructure.

For somebody looking to evaluate a virtualization platform such as vSphere or any of its competing open source solutions, like KVM or other virtualization platforms, one of the key considerations is to look at TCO. vSphere may seem expensive upfront, and there may be some sticker shock there, but if you look at it over the long-term and from a human capital perspective to operate the platform over a period of three or more years, the manageability of vSphere drives the total cost of ownership way down.

vCenter Server Appliance (vCSA) is the server that controls and manages your VMware environment. I would suggest using this over the vCenter Server Windows install. It has the advantage of easier install and manageability and seems to be the method most preferred by VMware, as well.

Much of the management of the VMware environment can now be done from the web interface, but you can still use the vSphere fat client, which is still my preferred method of interacting with the VMware environment. The web interface is better than in past iterations, but still just lacks that little something that would make me voluntarily to move to it on a permanent basis.

VMware will assist your organization in managing computer and storage resources, and you will be able to shrink your physical environment significantly making it easier to manage in the long run. So don't expect immediate returns. There is a high price to be paid for licensing, hardware, configuration, and knowledge acquisition.

VMware interacts with a lot of various hardware and has a vast array of capabilities and it seems that new capabilities are being added all the time. I would like to see more documentation and assistance provided by re-sellers to assist in the initial design of customer environments.

There are 3 levels of licensing: Standard, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus. VMware is very pricey and really the most useful in very large virtualization environments. It takes a lot of hardware and configuration knowledge. If you don't already have this in house, obtaining it can be pricey as well. 

If you aren't already familiar with virtualization environments, I would suggest taking a course and/or doing a lot of reading before deciding on a license and configuration.

The best advice I could give is spend a lot of time designing your environment to receive VMware. Read everything you can get your hands on, and take a good online course or attend one in a city near you. Be aware that you will need to know a lot about computers, storage, networking, and security environments to determine the best design for you. 

Download the latest ESXi version and build a test lab. You get 60 days to play with the full gambit of features. Then get a lot of advice from vendor specific engineers, HP, EMC, Netapp, Cisco, etc. because the hardware you choose will run into configuration issues specific to the vendors you choose to use in your environment. Don't go into this thinking you will see immediate returns on your investment. This is a long term design decision.

• HA - for restarting failed VMs on good hosts
• vMotion - ability to migrate between different hosts
• DRS balances data storage and workload of datacenters

Reporting. If I lose a host, I have to report what was on that host, what was affected, and for how long. We create our own power state report providing info on hosts, and I would like reporting for what VMs were affected and what was the fault, what hosts were affected and restarted by HA. You can get third-party reporting, but it would be great to have it built-in.

Extremely stable, only issue is the type of hardware that we run it on. When we get a vendor image (HP, Dell, Cisco), they inject their own drivers into hypervisors, and it is only time we see issues. It’s so resilient, that these problems aren’t even evident and they can go unnoticted.

Very, very good scalability. Four years ago, we had 300 VMs across 32 hosts, now we have 2000 VMs across 132 hosts.

From time to time, we have relied on them, mostly for troublshooeting specific VMs when a vendor wants to blame resources. Whenever we have bad memories or drivers injected by vendors, they’ve helped us remediate those issues.

I was involved in a redesign, which was very straightforward and easy. We just changed the hardware from rack style to blade, expanding all hosts and underlying virtualization layers. It was seemless and customers didn’t notice anything different.

Even with no reporting, it's near perfect, because reporting would just make things easier, and not having it doesn’t impede performance.

• High Availability
• Distributed resource scheduling & vMotion
• Robust management toolset for automating routine tasks

vSphere provides the infrastructure framework to manage server and client systems in a multitude of user environments, from dedicated virtual workstations to short-term use systems. vSphere makes the provisioning and deployment of virtual servers and clients quick and predictable, centralizing the customization process while removing common hardware problems.

Fault Tolerance, which was introduced in version 5.5 and improved in 6.0, is a promising feature that has potential to ensure highly critical system availability in the enterprise environment. It presently has vCPU limitations which makes its deployment scenarios limited, but VMware has made great strides between the two versions, indicating that its usefulness will continue to improve.

I've used it for four years.

ESXi has some specific hardware requirements that administrators should make sure they are able to meet before deploying. While the platform can run on a considerable range of hardware, various features make use of specialized virtualization instruction sets in the hardware CPU that make the hypervisor suited to only a fraction of the common server hardware on the market. This is not a bad thing, as the benefits from these advanced features are well worth the cost of more advanced hardware. This is the only circumstance in which I have encountered obstacles to deployment.

No. The vSphere hypervisor is exceptionally stable, and the higher-level vSphere environment is quite adaptable to a fluctuating datacenter environment.

No. The ability to expand the capacity of the vSphere environment is one of the core capabilities of the product.

Efficient and knowledgeable.

Good value, particularly considering a support contract is required with the purchase of vSphere licenses.

No previous solution was used.

It's straightforward, as vSphere is a mature product with well-rounded documentation, and an easy-to-understand interface.

Our system was installed by a vendor team, but was configured in-house. Our vendor team provided a solid architecture solution, but it was insufficient for our requirements.

Licensing is not a major obstacle to adopting this product in an enterprise environment. VMware does offer some specialized vSphere editions for small business environments in which cost may be a considerable factor. There is a wide range of options provided by VMware with suitable price points for each license.

We did not evaluate other options.

Have a plan for system virtualization before pursuing vSphere. Often, the actual needs of an organization, particularly small and medium sized, are overestimated which leads to spending more for a product or product license than is necessary.

We integrate the product into our environment based on specific requirements and client needs, offering a complete solution to telco providers.

The platform's most valuable feature is its virtualization capabilities. It meets our needs better than alternatives like Nutanix, which is hardware-specific.

The platform's main area for improvement has increased, particularly after Broadcom acquired VMware.

I have been working with VMware vSphere for at least 10 to 12 years, following its evolution from version 6.4 to the current version.

I rate the product stability an eight. 

The product has good scalability. We can build large data centers or small hybrid solutions depending on our requirements. It supports both on-premises and cloud environments.

Our clients range from small businesses, like local farms or small companies, to large enterprises like Vodafone and Telefonica.

The technical support team often passes responsibility between hardware and software divisions, making resolving issues more challenging and time-consuming.

Neutral

The initial setup is simple. If the infrastructure is prepared, deployment can be done in one day. However, if hardware needs to be moved, it can take longer.

I rate the process a nine out of ten. 

I rate VMware vSphere a nine out of ten.

I use it for my infrastructure, and we can also use it for our simulation environment and training. We can use VMware in a simulation environment to test the environment we need.

It makes my environment very reliable.

It is a very dependable solution. Its performance is very good, and it is also easy to manage and implement.

They can lower the price of its license.

I have been working with this solution for more than six months.

Its stability is very good.

It is scalable. In my organization, we have about 2,000 users. Its usage is very extensive. We use it daily.

Their technical support has been very good.

I have used Microsoft Hyper-V.

It is easy to implement. It is a very good solution.

I can implement it myself. On one server, it takes a maximum of one hour. We have a technical team of three people for deployment and maintenance. We have one manager and two engineers.

Its price could be lower. There is the cost of one license, and then there is the subscription cost for support.

It is a very fine and reliable solution. I would rate it a nine out of 10.

The primary reason our customers use vSphere is to consolidate their workloads and realize the other benefits that virtualization provides. For example, they create HA or VM-level HA to facilitate DR.

Essentially, our clients use vSphere for all of the reasons that people use a virtualization layer.

I am a virtualization technician, doing software technology consulting for virtualization and VDI. 

This is a solution that is normally very straightforward. It doesn't give you many surprises. It's very stable. However, one should have good knowledge when it comes to it because sometimes, you have to use the command line for troubleshooting. For unseen problems, you sometimes need to dig deep to troubleshoot.

vSphere is a robust and feature-rich virtualization platform. It is the number one virtualization-layer platform available, and a lot of people trust it.

Many other platforms now provide similar features but VMware was the first to provide enhanced recorders, DRS, fault tolerance, vMotion, and others. They pioneered these features and they are very stable.

VMware also provides software-defined storage, vSAN, which is built into the kernel. This is a plus point.

Other good features include DRS, HA, fault tolerance, vSAN, and vCenter is a very good management interface.

This platform is easy to maintain. 

To manage it properly, you have to know this product really well. For the most part, it is very easy to use.

I began working with VMware vSphere in 2007 or 2008 when it was version 3.x. 

This is the most stable virtualization platform available.

In the three years that I have been running my consultancy, I've found that VMware is always part of a large project. Most of the time, I have had a good experience with it.

We have done multiple enterprise services projects using this solution. For example, we were working on a Horizon View PoC for a client.

vSphere is scalable; you just have to add to your cluster and it will increase. You can scale up or scale-out, like any other software. Basically, you can add to it as much as you want to.

I trust VMware products and I definitely want our installed base to increase. I want to enhance my own knowledge and skillset, as well. As we move forward and expand, I am equipping myself with more cloud knowledge and focusing on new technologies. One new product that I am looking at is Carbon Black. Throughout this, I will continue to promote VMware because they are a vendor that I trust.

The VMware support is very professional. Most of the time we've used them, they were very good.

As a technology consultant working for customers with varying requirements, I work with other virtualization platforms. Two of these are Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer.

The initial setup is very easy and there is nothing difficult about it. Initially, some people get stuck when they are setting up the supporting services, like DNS, but other than that, the setup is plain and simple.

The length of time required for deployment depends on whether your disk is an SSD. If so, then the copying will be fast. Also, if you have more memory then it will install quicker. 

Regardless of how it is set up, you have to build the basic infrastructure to put in most of your workloads. Sometimes, you manage an existing one but most of the time, we have to deploy a VMware infrastructure.

A single person can basically manage it, although this depends upon the deployment size. If it's a huge deployment, then it requires a good design and it requires proper planning. You need to know your capacity requirements, for example.

If you understand the environment and the design then maybe you can segregate the work into two or three people. Sometimes if it's a small project, a single person can do it. It all depends on the files and complexity of the solution you are providing to the customer.

We deploy this product ourselves.

The licensing model is not complex.

It is a perpetual licensing but there is also an annual maintenance cost. The price of the solution depends on the features that you want. You can have a very basic setup or you can choose a more advanced set of features. The more features that you want and the more extensive your requirement is, the more you have to pay.

In Pakistan, for the most part, organizations are still catching up in terms of the cloud. There are no large data centers because cloud providers do not exist locally. Neither AWS nor Azure has a presence.

The closest data centers to us are Singapore and Dubai. As such, the cloud is not very popular yet and most of our customers have on-premises deployments. We do expect this to change.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product, or any piece of software, is to have a reasonable level of knowledge in advance of the deployment. That is key in IT.

If you are a consultant, as opposed to an end-user, then you need to have a deep knowledge of the product because there are circumstances where you have to go beyond the normal configuration. Sometimes you have issues that can only be resolved if you are well-equipped with the knowledge.

I also recommend that people plan their deployment. VMware is a wonderful product and it will definitely provide you with the functionality to meet your technical requirements. You will be a very satisfied customer while using it, but the key is to know the product and plan things properly.

Overall, this is a good product and I do not feel that there is much missing. It is the best virtualization platform available.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.