VMware vSphere Reviews

We are using this solution to build the AD database for the server.

This solution has been very helpful to our organization. For example, if we need to run 10 servers there is a high cost attached if we buy the physical server, but if we use this solution we can buy a very large server then control everything. The most valuable feature has been the ability to utilize the vMotion when we have a problem. It has been invaluable for us when we had a problem with a broken host that we were able to redirect our traffic to a different host to keep the business operational.

I have found the solution to be flexible, and the vCenter and vMotion useful. When we have a server that is down we can use the vMotion to use another host. Additionally, the backup feature and graphics are very good. The documentations are clear and easy to understand.

There was a time we lost the password for the ESXi and we had to do a hardware reset. At this point, we had to fill up the ESXi from the bottom up. I am not sure if there was another solution to this problem but it took a long time. We were told it would only be a few hours to resolve but in fact, it took one day. Having to explain this downtime to management was not the best experience.

In an upcoming release, there could be a better ability to manage and control the synchronization of the power in the vSphere.

I have been using the solution for approximately five years.

The solution is very stable. 

The scalability is good for everything we have been using the solution for. We have three IT users using this solution, if we upgrade our hardware we might increase usage.

The technical support agents are not clear about the issues that are being discussed. They cannot address the problem or estimate the time correctly. In one particular issue, we needed to raise our ticket to the management level because they told us it would take two hours to be operational but the downtime was one day and one night. They should have first checked the vSphere technical aspects.

The installation is very easy. It was not complicated at all.

This solution has kept our business operating and has saved us money.

There is an annual cost for the use of this solution. 

The price is a little high in developing countries. If they were able to reduce the price they would receive more customers now and even more in the future.

I rate VMware vSphere an eight out of ten.

On-premises

Primary use case: data center virtualization. It's performing well. We're really happy with vSphere as a virtualization platform. 

In terms of the built-in security features, we use none of them. I really couldn't tell you much at all about that.

Mission-critical apps would be our student information system - that one is running on PeopleSoft - student portals, also PeopleSoft. Those are the mission-critical ones that we're running on VMware. There's other stuff that is critical, but I wouldn't say that it's mission-critical.

Benefits of vSphere: It saves me a ton of time, I can really quickly spin up new things to test them out or to respond to a need from the business. The way that it improves the way that the organization functions is that it makes us a lot quicker to respond to the needs of the business.

Most valuable features are 

• quick provisioning
• High Availability
• DRS for balancing workload.

I definitely find vSphere to be simple and efficient to manage. A key feature that enables this is vCenter. It is super simple to stand up, and once you're in there, especially with the new HTML5 client, everything is easy to manage.

I find the stability of vSphere to be pretty great. We've had some issues, like everybody. Most of them were around hardware, so we thought it was really important to check the compatibility lists and make sure that you're running the right driver versions. But once you've got that running, it's solid. We don't have any stability problems.

Scalability is great. It's easy to scale.

I honestly found that I spent too much time in "back-and-forth hell" with help desks that are offshore. I found that VMware Support - it used to located in North America and that's who I would get when I would pick up the phone - the last few support cases that I opened didn't go that well. I ended up finding the solution myself and just telling them, "You know what? Forget it."

I was not involved in the initial setup.

Straying a little bit from vSphere, but on vROps, the ROI that we're getting from that is that we're able to reclaim a lot of idle and oversized VMs, and we're actually saving money or actually giving ourselves more time with the resources we have, before we have to purchase new stuff. So that's an ROI.

Aim for simple, go for fewer hosts with bigger resources, depending of course of on what you need. Don't try to do everything at once. Start with a basic setup and work up from there.

We did not really see a performance boost with version 6.5.

Regarding the most important criteria when selecting a vendor, it needs to be an industry-leading solution, needs to be easy, simple to set up, not an entire ecosystem of things that I need to deploy to get their system working. Ideally, I want something that we can set up in a day.

I'd give vSphere about a nine out of ten. There is still stuff to work on, but it's definitely the best for me. As I said, I find that the support never blows me away, and maybe that's because I don't pay for the most premium level of support, but I find that what we got on the last few tickets that we opened was not great.

Key business drivers and benefits for us: • Co-location data centers environmental costs are greatly reduced (rack space, power, cooling). • Allows better utilization and flexibility to segment physical resources (vCPU & vMemory) • Consolidate / centralize management of all Windows and Linux infrastructure - Administer entire virtual environment via a single pane of glass (vCenter) - Provisioning of VMs is really simple and quick. Allows easy use of templates. - Utilize Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) & VMotion - Optimizes performance of VMs - Allows flexibility for patching cycles to minimize downtime. • VMware product has been very stable • Allows for easier compliance and consistency for meeting IT audit controls • Initial ROI analysis a few years ago did show significant savings over physical model. We are looking at updated ROI and show-back / charge-back models currently.

VMware product challenges / Areas for improvement: • Advanced Capacity Management and Performance Management & Analysis, Disaster Recovery, and private cloud capabilities are lacking out of the box for enterprise-level deployments. - Ability to “right-size” resources on all VMs is needed at enterprise installations. - Add-on / 3rd party products like vCenter Operations / VMturbo, SRM, or vCloud may be needed. - These add-on products add management complexity. They also add licensing and maintenance costs for the overall solution in a tough budget climate. • Difficulty using VMotion with Microsoft Clusters. We utilize clusters for our large SQL Farm, but we are unable to use VMotion during patching efforts. We are now looking at Hyper-V or physical servers for this functionality to minimize downtime. • Granting administrative privileges / roles can be a bit more tedious than are initially apparent.• VMware vSphere 5 is current architectural standard for 2 data centers - VMware was the major virtualization solution provider when first implemented years ago - Microsoft 2012 Hyper-V “proof of concept” is currently in progress for US - Educational discounts from Microsoft are significant - Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 version functionality appears to gain on VMware vSphere • Also have a large Solaris UNIX environment utilizing Solaris Zones. • VMware (or Hyper-V) will enable us to drive a re-platforming effort for Solaris -> Linux

Things to consider before purchasing VMware or Hyper-V: • Understand your virtualization objectives and requirements before purchase. Assess all requirements against VMware or Hyper-V licensing cost and edition functionality • Define a strategy for resource intensive applications (large CPU or memory requirements) and when to stay standalone vs. virtual • Implement processes to control “VM sprawl” as VM provisioning process is so simple. • Consider other process efficiencies that virtualization may drive (i.e. Service Catalog) • Ensure IT staff gets proper training. The learning curve can be steep initially at the enterprise level. • If possible , look at processes for show-back or charge-back model early on to assess costs and ROI.

We're using VMware vSphere for our server services. We're using it primarily for hosting services. As an example, our mail server: Zimbra Mail is hosted on that virtual environment. Our web server, our DNS server, and all our public servers are also hosted in that environment.

An area for improvement for VMware vSphere is the archiving tool, because sometimes we are using the VMware OVF Tool for backups, but archiving is not very fast when we are backing up the virtual machines. It needs improvement.

What we'd like to see in the next release is for the exporting process to be improved, because what we've observed is that when exporting VMware graphically, sometimes the process stops. We have to use the command-line utility: OVF Tool which is more reliable, so we'd like VMware vSphere to have a better and faster exporting process.

I've been using VMware vSphere for five years now.

VMware vSphere is a very stable solution.

VMware vSphere is scalable.

We have not contacted the technical support of VMware, because whenever we found difficulties, we either Google or check forums for solutions.

The initial setup for this solution is simple.

I deployed this solution myself.

Pricing can still be improved for this product.

I've been using the VMware Workstation for eight years, while the VMware vSphere, I've been using for five years.

This solution is deployed on-premises on a physical server for hosting services. Our public server is on a virtual environment.

I'm very satisfied with VMware vSphere.

Deployment of this solution took one day for the supervisor cluster and the virtual machine.

I can't say exactly how many users are using VMware vSphere in our organization, but it's more than 1,000. We have a virtual mail server with 1,000 accounts. We have a website with approximately 200 to 300 visits per day. We also have an internet proxy used regularly by all the internal users to access the internet. We have not measured usage for the DNS server. We have no statistics for it.

We have plans to use other tools from VMware like the vCenter. We have not yet explored it sufficiently, so we use it more. We have plans to use the vMotion to move virtual machines.

My advice to people who plan to use VMware vSphere is to first pay more attention to the materials, e.g. the physical server, because all the virtualization performance resides and depends on that physical server. This means it has to have a good dimension, a good amount of memory and disk space, and a good network controller card. You have to choose a server which is physically robust, strong, and powerful, so you can deploy with the best performance in your virtual environment.

I'm rating VMware vSphere a nine out of ten.

On-premises

We implement all the standard VMware data solutions. Typically, that's vSphere and sometimes DataCore, the other product we like. We use vSphere for the virtualization of data servers, and other common uses.

Our customers opt for virtualization because it's cheaper and better than non-virtualized solutions. VMware is probably the best on the market now. 

We're implementers and we started using vSphere when it was first released. We've been with VMware since the beginning. There was no ES6 at that time, only GS6 on Microsoft, so we started with Windows-based VMware. It's an old solution. We've been using it for a long time. 

We haven't encountered any limitations with vSphere's scalability. At the same time, we usually do not install huge server farms here in the Slovak Republic, so we only use VMware for small installations with a few host servers. I don't think we'll reach the limits of VMware's scalability since we only work with small organizations. 

We tried Hyper-V a few years back, but there was a problem with the 2012 version of Hyper-V, so we prefer VMware because we know it works. However, I'm not sure about the newer versions of Hyper-V. I can only speak to our experiences with the older one. We weren't satisfied with the features, and the Microsoft code had bugs that they didn't repair those errors. 

Overall, Hyper-V was a highly unstable solution at the time, so we decided to stick with VMware because it was much more reliable. Maybe Microsoft has improved Hyper-V since then. I can't say.

I rate VMware vSphere nine out of 10. It does what we need it to do, and works fine. There aren't any additional features that we need at this time.

On-premises

Our primary use case is for integrating data feeds from multiple applications. 

The ability to redistribute loads, to re-spin failed processes, monitor resource utilization, and such are all valuable features in VMware. In industrial IoT, most elements end up being terrestrial. With VMware, especially when you're working with niche products, you can manage the integrated solution and multiple systems from a single pane of glass.

We're moving towards containerization and it was unclear what I'd have to do to support containerized environments alongside multiple systems of Linux and Windows. My aim was to get to a single hypervisor environment in which I could support a container environment as one of the array of other applications. Whether due to a lack of training or information, I was unable to get to that. Some people look at VMware as being an alternative to containerization, enabling them to dispense with solutions like Kubernetes and Docker in order to do away with VMware. That's not the reality and I'd like to have a transparent platform that can support all of them.

Aside from cost, I'd like to see some simplification in the solution. The main issue is manageability or scalability of skilled resources, the degree to which the product delivers a stable environment that can be managed by a less technical person. 

I've been using this solution for two and a half years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is very easy to scale, especially when you are trying to scale resource availability and the management of the solution. You need to have a degree of transparency across all those environments.

I haven't personally had any contact with technical support. 

I've deployed Docker as a standalone using Linux, multiple servers, etc. I'm currently learning Kubernetes so that I can create a new island in the chain and do a container, but I still have the other systems that continue to run in environments best suited to VMware.

The initial setup is straightforward for a computer savvy guy. I haven't experienced any bugs or glitches. Our customers are generally small to medium size organizations. 

For now, I would go with VMware for the Windows and Linux environment and do Kubernetes as a new island in the chain for containers. For most organizations, the ideal is the number of other users of a solution, because they're the ones that find the problems before you. Going off into some experimental environment may sound great and you might have a good initial experience, but if you're going to be the only person walking the minefield, it may not be a good ending.

I rate VMware nine out of 10. 

On-premises

We are primarily using the solution as our virtualization platform.

We procure some licenses for vSphere Standard and we are using it to replicate to VM so that we can have at least that level of redundancy. On the upcoming project for VxRail, we'll be using it for a hyper-converged platform, where you can have high availability and failover capability in real-time.

The solution has been quite stable.

The solution can scale well.

We found the initial setup to be pretty straightforward.

The solution is quite expensive.

I haven't evaluated or looked at any other solutions for the most part and therefore can't speak to any aspect that is really lacking compared to what else is on the market.

I've used the solution for about five years at this point. It's been a while.

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. The performance is good.

The solution is quite scalable. We ordered a solution where the initial number of nodes is just three, however, after the design, it can grow up to 64 nodes.

If it's deployed on a hyper-converged solution, yes, it will be scalable.

Only the system admins use the solution. There are around not more than 10.

We plan to continue to use the solution and to scale it up, as we build out our infrastructure.

We bought the solution through a Dell partner and we get support through them if we need it. We don't deal directly with VMware. I can't speak to how their technical support services are. Our Dell partner connection acts as a middle man between our company and VMware, therefore, they deal with VMware directly.

The solution is pretty simple to set up if it's a stand-alone.

We have two departments that have technical teams that can handle maintenance on the solution.

We used an integrator that was a VMware partner and they assisted us with the implementation process.

We are currently buying some more licenses to be able to move to version 7.

The solution is expensive, however, due to the criticality of the features on offer, for us, it's worth the cost.

I haven't really looked at too many other solutions, other than Hyper-V. VMware seems to be way better overall if you compare just those two.

We are currently in the process of moving to version 7 of the solution.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've been mostly quite satisfied with the solution overall. I'd recommend it to other companies.

We are just beginning on vSphere. In the next two and three years, I would like to explore the virtualized automation.

Virtualised automation is a useful feature.

The pipeline feature can be improved, as it doesn't allow for specific situations.

We have been using vSphere for about 2 years. 

Because vSphere is a minimal interface, it tends to be stable.

As you can set up various environments, vSphere is very scalable. In the future, we may consider switching from vSphere to Hyper-V.

We purchased the OEM, but not from VMware. We bought it from HPE. The first year of support provided by HPE is okay for now.

IBM Power. We switched to vSphere from IBM Power because the hardware is cheaper.

The setup of vSphere is straight forward. I have set up a few vSphere environments.

vSphere is very expensive.

I would give vSphere 9 out of 10, as it is easy to use, and there is good support available.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure