VMware vSphere Reviews

• 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.

Customer Service:

Efficient and knowledgeable.

Technical Support:

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.

Of course there are several valuable features that have grown in time since the product came out, but the most basic and critical features of this product that I find valuable is the High Availability (HA) and the vmotion technology. vMotion has expanded to the Storage vMotion as well. This is very beneficial for uptime of servers and still maintaining updates on the hardware.

With the ability to create multiple server guests on one physical host platform, we were able to create servers in a faster response time, at a cheaper cost, less operational time and the ability to automate tasks to name a few. Also, this infrastructure gave us the capability to expand into a separate self provisioning development environment by utilizing the vCloud technology.

VMware has a good sight for what businesses are looking for. They have been ahead of the curve since the beginning. They have good support and quick response. I don't see too many improvements with vSphere itself.

I have used this product for 9 years. I have tested the old GSX and ESX version 2 years prior to this.

When I first tested vSphere against other competitors 9 years ago, there was no question on which product our company would use. It was easy to deploy and is easier today than it was back then. With a small OS footprint, the install was quick and configuration was straight to the point.

I have only ran into 2 issues where stability was an issue. One is more of a performance that affected the NUMA nodes and how ESXi handled guests in each NUMA node. (this was isolated to the CPU make/model). The other stability issue was due to a patch that affected some physical hosts causing them to "purple screen" or to not respond.

Again, VMware has been very good with staying ahead of the curve. As the demand grew for virtualization from businesses , VMware increased functionality to cope with growth at the hardware level. The ability to "scale out" or "scale up" physically on the host with zero downtime is very easy or scaling up on the guest is very easy with minimal downtime.

Customer Service: When I first used VMware, I had to use customer service often. They were very quick to resolve the issues. They have a team that knew the "Ins and Outs" of the product. I would give them 4 out of 5 stars. I didn't give 5 due to the fact that VMware grew faster than they were able to keep the support engineers trained to handle the large growth over the years. So the times for resolution went down just a little. But still very good compared to other customer support.Technical Support: I would give them a 4 out of 5 here as well. They have teams for each operational architect and at times a problem may need to have the collaboration of multiple teams to resolve an issue.

I did not use any other product prior to VMware.

The install was quick and the configuration was straight to the point. I was up and running with a working platform in 25 minutes from start to finish once I rack mounted and cabled the server. It would be even faster with a converged infrastructure or blade system.

This was done all in-house.

As an engineer, I don't have those numbers and wasn't part of sharing those numbers to other management and higher.

When I decided to test the virtualization architectures, I ran tests with several architectures to determine important factors that would affect our business and operations in a positive aspect for growth while still maintaining low ROI. Microsoft and Citrix were the other competitors.

Definitely have a plan before implementing. Don't rush. It is crucial to think years out so you don't have to redo any architecture because you didn't plan for growth, DR/BC or working out of the cloud. If resources are tight to gather, it would be beneficial to reach out to your favorite consulting team to gather advice.

- Enterprise class solution - Live Migration (both server and storage) - High Availability and Load Balancing - Disaster Recovery - Lots of 3rd party vendor support - Excellent technical support

- Cost - Lack of support for virtualization (all hypervisors) - Licensing- Started with VMware ESX ver 2.1 in 2004. Currently using vSphere 4.1i and working on upgrade to 5.1 - Chose VMware for several reasons (1) Had experience with Desktop and GSX products (2) Ran on bare metal (3) No other real competitors at the time

Advice: - VMware is not the only game in town anymore - Look at your requirements: - If you are a small to medium shop other server virtualization products may provide what you need - If you are a large shop I would recommendVMware

In the organization where I have worked for the past nine years, there are multiple virtualization platforms. Virtualization software includes Microsoft Hypervisor, Red Hat KVM, Oracle virtual machine, and Oracle virtual cloud.

vSphere is optimized for a specific type of virtualization.

There is the simplicity of management, accessibility, and availability.

The interface is really user-friendly.

The only concern that I have with VMware is the support. It is very limited and can be better.

When you get support from the VMware global team or support locations, customer complaints are not entertained or taken seriously by the VMware global team or support centers. Other OEMs, such as Microsoft and Oracle, would make you a priority.

I have been using VMware vSphere for three years.

We recently upgraded to the latest version.

It's a very stable solution. In fact, when it comes to virtualization, you can tell anyone to use the system.

In our organization, we have 600 users. 

My previous organization had a population of approximately 35,000 people.

The support is the only negative feedback, they need improvements.

I'm familiar with all of the virtualization platforms that are now available on the market.

The initial setup and installation are straightforward. It is something that can be done by anyone.

In one hour, we can complete the installation and configuration.

Admins are only required to look after the VM portion of the new VM creation as well as the configuration or modification. Aside from that, we have a team of two or three admins to deploy and maintain this solution during their shift time, such as in the morning and afternoon shifts.

The organization pays the licensing fees.

We looked at a few alternatives and compared them to vSphere.

The freelance experience for the platform is excellent.

I would recommend this solution to other users.

I would rate VMware vSphere a ten out of ten.

On-premises

We are an IT company and VMware partners.

VMware vSphere is used for virtualization in all situations and for all businesses.

This solution's most valuable feature is its High Availability.

The only concern I have with VMware vSphere is that the level of support is inadequate. It's not very fast. The support is good, but it's slow.

When we need help, we require someone to answer the phone quickly.

I've been selling VMware vSphere since it was launched.

We have no issues with the stability of VMware vSphere. It is very stable.

VMware vSphere is a scalable product.

Technical support is good but not very fast.

We have customers who use Sangfor, as well as customers with VMware. 

vSphere is used by all VMware customers.

A small infrastructure installation can take up to eight hours.

The teams are always the same. We have five technicians, three of whom specialize in networking and virtualization, and one who is a management engineer.

Our customers have the option of paying the licensing fee when they purchase the solution or renting it from us.

If a customer chooses to rent the solution, the customer pays us and we purchase the solution.

The vSphere serves as the system's control center for managing virtual machines (VMs). VMware vSphere is present in all installations.

Our solutions are all deployed on-premises.

As a company, we advise, supply, and install products for our clients. We provide two solutions, one of which is Sangfor and the other is VMware.

As a reseller of vSphere, I would recommend this solution to anyone who is interested in using it.

I would rate VMware vSphere an eight out of ten.

On-premises

The solution acts as the basis for doing virtualization. 

I definitely like the stability, performance and ease-of-use. 

I have no issues with the solution's scalability or user-friendliness. I consider these to be perfect. We have had a fantastic, problem-free solution for the past 14 years when it comes to fault tolerance and disaster recovery. It has everything one needs. 

VMware vSphere has a limited scope and necessitates the adding of additional products. This involves further complexity and expense. NSX is a product of VMware vSphere and it would be nice to see the solution have full integration capabilities with it. 

I have been using VMware vSphere since 2007. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is certainly scalable. 

The customer support is nice. We are talking about a great organization, which offers much staff, support and white paper. 

The initial setup was straightforward, perfect. 

This process for the initial server lasts ten minutes. There is also the console, which involves two parts, one being the server itself. This is where the CD-ROM goes, something which is now on a USB key and does not involve the undertaking of any activity. 

Deployment lasts half a day, at which point everything is up and running. 

The real question is whether the person wishes to have one server or a hundred. The use of 200 machines will take longer. What I am talking about is small, basic installations. 

If a person is trained, then he will be able handle the deployment and maintenance on his own. This is not complex. 

Our customers incur a yearly licensing fee, one of three or five years, in fact. 

We consider the solution to be obligatory. 

The solution's use can range from ten users to thousands. 

I would definitely recommend the solution to others. I am a big fan of it. 

I rate VMware vSphere as a twenty out of ten. I give it a perfect ten rating. 

On-premises

The solution is primarily used for management. It offers easier control at multiple branches.

The product is stable.

The flexibility of the solution is very good.

The product is very easy to use. 

The product offers a very nice single dashboard for complete management.

The solution is very straightforward to implement.

We found the scalability to be very good.

The solution doesn't seem to be missing any features currently.

It would be ideal if the integration capabilities were a bit more robust.

Technical support could be faster in terms of response times.

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

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

The scalability is very good. We haven't seen any issues with expanding it if we need to.

There are about 15 to 20 users on the solution at this time.

While we don't have current plans to increase usage, if the business grows, we likely will.

The technical support is quite good. They are helpful and knowledgeable. That said, their response times need to be better. We would like them to respond faster to queries. 

Other than that, we are satisfied with their level of service.

The product is not overly complex to set up. It's very simple and straightforward. A company shouldn't have any issues with the implementation.

We have an admin team that can handle any maintenance required.

We are looking for opportunities with Nutanix. We are looking at it now.

That said, we did not evaluate any other products before choosing this solution. However, many years back, we did look into Citrix.

We are using the latest version of the solution at this point. I cannot speak to the exact version number off-hand.

We are not integrating the solution at this time.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. I would recommend the solution to other companies.

We are using vSphere as a multi-tenant platform. We are hosting VMs for a few of our customers.

We are utilizing all of the features and they are good.

I don't see any challenges in using this product. 

We have been using VMware vSphere for between three and four years.

This is a stable product and I haven't heard any negative feedback from my implementation team about it.

We implement this product for medium and large-sized companies. It is easy to scale.

I have not personally been in touch with VMware support.

We have not used another similar solution.

The implementation is an easy process for us, which is why we're using VMware cloud as a product. The length of time required for deployment depends on the customer. We need to know their requirements, and then we proposed timelines and inform them accordingly. It is defined by the number of nodes and the number of workloads.

We deploy vSphere for our customers. We also offer maintenance and support as part of a managed service.

This is quite an expensive product, although everything is included in the standard licensing fee.

Overall, for me, everything with this product looks good and I can recommend it.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

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