It is primarily our server virtualization solution. We have approximately 2,000 servers, all of which are running VMware vSphere.
Head of Service and Storage Infrastructure at GS2E
Strong performance, works well with large infrastructures but it is quite expensive
Pros and Cons
- "We primarily use vRealize to troubleshoot any issues that may arise with our virtual machines, which is the main reason why we believe this solution is excellent."
- "They must work on the price, as well as the technical support."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
In terms of the benefits, I'll take you back to 2010, when we first implemented this solution. We only have physical servers, and we have a lot of projects because my company works in the energy industry.
We have many projects that could not be completed on physical servers because we have 2,000 servers.
If we were to do all of these projects on a physical server and our data center, we would have to travel all over the country. As a result, VMware aided us in server consolidation.
It aided us in server consolidation, and with VMware, we were able to provision applications for our customers very quickly. As a result, the time to manage was extremely short. So that is the advantage that we can find with VMware.
What is most valuable?
The product is extremely powerful.
We have had a module called vRealize for three years. We primarily use vRealize to troubleshoot any issues that may arise with our virtual machines, which is the main reason why we believe this solution is excellent. When a user has a problem, it does not have to be that his application is very slow or that it can't work. Using vRealize, we can determine which part of the solution is causing the problem and resolve it.
What needs improvement?
The cost is an area that could be improved. Today, there are many hypervisor solutions on the market that are less expensive and provide the same functionality. They share the same characteristics. I believe that one area where VMware can improve is in pricing, as we have found VMware products to be on the expensive side at times.
I'm only considering the VMware solution, with the cloud solution. I would like to see cloud integration, such as cloud service and cloud feature, in the vSphere license. That's exactly what I'm looking for.
In terms of cost, I believe there is room for improvement. They must work on the price, as well as the technical support.
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about VMware vSphere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using VMware vSphere for approximately 12 years.
Last year, we made some upgrades, and are now using the most recent version.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In terms of stability, we don't have any major issues with that product.
It is very reliable, and the product is very stable.
It is a strong product, and it is dependable. Most of the time we have not had any problems with this product. It doesn't happen very often, I believe the product is very good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
VMware vSphere is a scalable product. We had about five host servers, we gradually increased to 10, and now we have approximately 40 host servers running long VMware vSphere. It is simple to add a new server to the clusters.
We are a group of four administrators who are working on a solution. However, with VMware vSphere, we place software for the company, such as customers.
When I refer to the company, it's not the outside customers, I am referring to employees in company fields such as HR and accounting. We have 5,000 people working in our company, and they are all using the VMware vSphere software that we provide to them.
It is used on a daily basis because we are constantly confronted with the extension of results such as CPU, RAM, and storage. We use vSphere on a daily basis.
How are customer service and support?
We are pleased with VMware's vSphere global support.
If you give me a notation, on 10, 20, or something like that where the scale is set at 20, I will give them a 14 out of 20, because I believe they are no longer as good as they once were. The VMware support is now of lower quality. I will give them a 14 out of 20.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We started with VMware.
I already have VMware and Nutanix in my infrastructure.
How was the initial setup?
It wasn't difficult. I think I learned it about a month after I started, and I was able to deploy VMware vSphere.
This solution is being maintained by four administrators. We have 2,000 virtual machines, also known as VMs, and 40 host servers. We are a group of four people who do all of the patching and maintenance work.
What about the implementation team?
We had a consultant to help us with the initial setup.
What was our ROI?
Yes, I have seen a return on investment, but I am not the appropriate person to tell you about it. Our company is large in size. There are people working on it, doing economic studies to see if we can get a return on investment. What I can tell you is that there is a return on investment. But I can't tell you the specifics right now.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This solution is quite expensive, but it provides the same functionality as its competitors.
Today, you have the Nutanix Hypervisor, which I believe is AHV and is also very good. However, because our infrastructure is so large, we have Nutanix servers that are similar to Hyperconverged, but we run VMware on them. However, we have some other sites where we have installed the Nutanix Hypervisor, which is AHV. And it is effective. And it's free if you buy the Nutanix bundle.
The license is expensive. It is powered by the CPU. The more CPU' you have, the more you have to buy.
What other advice do I have?
I'll say that if you want the vSphere solution for all virtualization, you should first look at the size of your infrastructure. If it is small, you don't have to go to, as I previously stated, Hyper-V or another solution. However, if you are starting with a medium or large size, you should use a solution like VMware because its performance is very strong. And, because we have a large infrastructure, we can see that it works very well. This is my advice to anyone looking for server virtualization software.
I would rate VMware vSphere a seven out of ten. It has been difficult for me to find a VMware engineer to work on my project. They don't seem to be very close to the customers, in my opinion. That is the main reason I gave this score of seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Windows Virtualization Engineer at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
Video Review
The content library option will help us meet our requirements going forward
Pros and Cons
- "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 previously had a hard time using tech support."
What is our primary use case?
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.
How has it helped my organization?
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.
What is most valuable?
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.
What needs improvement?
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.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability is good. We have different clusters based on the load of the application and requirements. We can slice the cluster.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
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.
How are customer service and technical support?
We use tech support, which is okay. We used to have a hard time, but at this time, we are happy.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Previously, for monitoring, we use other products. Slowly, we are moving to vRealize now. It depends on our requirements and budget.
How was the initial setup?
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.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
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.
What other advice do I have?
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.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about VMware vSphere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Lead Systems Engineer at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
Changes made to VMFork instant cloning enable HA and DRS on a parent virtual machine
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature would be the slight changes they've made to VMFork instant cloning, in which they have abstracted out the parent-child relationship in cloning, in which certain features, like HA and DRS, are now usable on that parent virtual machine. That is wildly amazing and something that wasn't available until 6.7."
- "In the past, little changes have broken things in vSphere. Going from 6.0, which worked perfectly fine on the Mac Pro, there were certain changes in hardware drivers, when 6.5 came out. Some were no longer present or had been deprecated. As a result, it didn't work on the Mac Pro anymore, which was business critical."
What is our primary use case?
Our main use case for this is that it's the foundation of our company. What our company, MacStadium, does is provide virtual environments for customers to do iOS development on Apple hardware. And the foundation for that, for creating the private cloud, is vSphere.
In terms of mission-critical apps, it's utilized mainly for iOS development. So customers will use the API for vCenter to automate things. They can do CICD, where they can spin up and spin down virtual machines, rapidly, and provide them to their internal groups or to their customers to do iOS development.
It has actually been performing a lot better than you'd think for an initial release. It's very smooth and I've been pretty impressed with it so far.
How has it helped my organization?
As a connection for our business, it goes hand-in-hand. It being the only hypervisor that runs on top of Apple hardware the way we want it, there is no "us" without that.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature would be the slight changes they've made to VMFork instant cloning, in which they have abstracted out the parent-child relationship in cloning, in which certain features, like HA and DRS, are now usable on that parent virtual machine. That is wildly amazing and something that wasn't available until 6.7.
We are actually making a lot of use of the VM Encryption feature. We're using that mainly because it's a customer requirement, especially after all the changes in the European Union for security. And that's a major issue. We've been adding in NSX and that, combined with the ability to have encrypted VMotion as well, has been huge.
In addition, the simplicity and efficiency in managing it has always been one big thing with the entire vSphere suite. It has been very straightforward if you're just using it from the user interface. Hitting the API has always been great, and they're continuing to grow that, which has been really good for us.
What needs improvement?
I know, coming out in 6.7 Update 1, that the HTML Client is going to reach full parity and have all the same features that they had in the now-deprecated thick client that used to be on Windows. That's one really neat feature I'm actually looking forward to.
There are always little "gotchas." In the past, little changes have broken things in vSphere. Going from 6.0, which worked perfectly fine on the Mac Pro, there were certain changes in hardware drivers, when 6.5 came out. Some were no longer present or had been deprecated. As a result, it didn't work on the Mac Pro anymore, which was business-critical. Okay, everybody could stick on one version and wait until it was fixed. We were able to take drivers out of the 5.5 version, add them to the build package for installation and it worked. It was not the most efficient, and storage I/O was kind of slow. Since 6.5 Update 1 came out, that has been solid, no real issues with that.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The stability has been very good. I've run several builds on 6.7 from pre-release and it's been good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
As far as scalability goes for us, I've run it as far as having up to 100 hosts in the cluster and I haven't noticed any degradation. It's been running well.
How are customer service and technical support?
I actually have gotten quite a bit of tech support for initial installations. Even though they're on the hardware compatibility list, Mac Pros and Apple hardware are very different than your traditional Dell, Cisco, or HPE Blade. Apple hardware is kind of like a black box, so it's very hard to interact with, but ESXi has been perfect.
My experience with tech support has been pretty good. The response times are really good. If the engineer that I'm working with is not directly knowledgeable on that idea, usually he'll get back to me in a short time and hand me off to a guy knows exactly how to help me out with the problem. And then, the follow-up is good as well.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We've always been using vSphere from the beginning, starting with 5.5. We actually worked with William Lam from VMware on getting ESXi working on Minis at that point in time. It's been a wonderful relationship since then.
One big thing that I know a lot of people talk about, when looking at why go with vSphere, is the ecosystem. You have other products that were built solidly to work with the vSphere product and the integration is always completely solid. The continuous development on the vSphere product and all the other products in the ecosystem, and the community, also play a part. There's pretty much nothing that I have run into where I say, "Hey, I want to do something outside of what vSphere does," and there hasn't been somebody within the community who has been able to say, "Oh yeah, I got that running, it is really easy, this is how you do it." That's not something I have seen in any of the other ecosystems.
How was the initial setup?
It was pretty easy upgrading any of the older hosts from 6.5 to 6.7. Everything was pretty straightforward.
What other advice do I have?
In terms of advice, especially if you are on things like Hyper-V or other products that I've touched, the simplicity and scalability of the vSphere product has been solid. For another individual who is in the IT or engineering fields, I wouldn't go with anything else.
One thing a lot of people don't realize or know about is that Xcode and OS X are closely tied to the versioning of vSphere and what features will be enabled. Coming out this September is MacOS 10.14 and that brings with it the need and requirement to run APFS, which is only supported in 6.7. So we have an abundance of customers, all of which are iOS developers, who require 6.7. So having that coming out was a major need and requirement for us.
I haven't noticed a direct performance boost, but the performance is no less than it was in 6.5, which is always generally a good thing. With the addition of features, nothing slowed down, everything is still exactly where it was.
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
Senior Systems Administrator at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Having a lot of the encryption built in helps us with federal compliance
Pros and Cons
- "With the current compliance options that I have to go through, it's very nice to have a lot of the encryption built in. It checks a lot of boxes for the federal level so I don't have to either bolt something on or have something on top of it. Having it native and integrated into the system makes things much easier."
- "being able to manage a lot of servers in one pane of glass makes things a lot simpler. Basically, a lot of things just happen in one area. You can roll things over, move things around more dynamically, without having to hit multiple systems."
- "Valuable features include VHA, DRS, VMotion, and redundancy and failover; any DR situation."
- "Not having to buy something from a third-party to scan the actual hardware components, like the hard drives and the port containers and fan speeds; not having to bolt something on and go through another vendor, would be helpful."
- "the HTML version of things needs to get a little bit better. The vSphere side of things gets a little difficult to manage; right-click, in some browsers, doesn't work as well as it used to. I'm seeing a little bit of general latency that we didn't used to get with the thick client, although it's getting there."
What is our primary use case?
Our use case is virtualization of hardware infrastructure, for return on investment cases. We have done pretty well with it. I'm really happy with it.
The mission-critical apps we run on them include SQL; there is a lot of file sharing; there are a lot of websites and web servers running on them. There's some big data stuff for big science. We have to be able to digest lots of data and then pull analytics on it at a high-level, and be able to show big data in useful ways.
How has it helped my organization?
With the current compliance options that I have to go through, it's very nice to have a lot of the encryption built in. It checks a lot of boxes for the federal level so I don't have to either bolt something on or have something on top of it. Having it native and integrated into the system makes things much easier.
Also, being able to manage a lot of servers in one pane of glass makes things a lot simpler. Basically, a lot of things just happen in one area. You can roll things over, move things around more dynamically, without having to hit multiple systems. Being able to manage it, in its entirety, is easier and better for us.
What is most valuable?
- VHA
- DRS
- VMotion
- Redundancy, failover, any DR situation
- Reducing the overall physical footprint for electrical needs, heating, cooling
- Money-saving, in general
What needs improvement?
In terms of management, it's getting better. There were recent changes with the infrastructure and the architecture, going from a physical vSphere vCenter client to the web interface. That has slowed things down a little bit, to be honest. It's getting better. With the 5.7 release they've optimized it, the menus are a little snappier, and it isn't as cumbersome to manage through as it was on the previous website or vSphere Web Client instance.
Also, reading some of the sensors in the hardware itself, that's where VMware does a really great job in the digital infrastructure and being able to scale things and knowing what's going on in vSphere. But not having to buy something from a third-party to scan the actual hardware components, like the hard drives and the port containers and fan speeds; not having to bolt something on and go through another vendor, would be helpful.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability has always been really well done with VMware. I have always been very happy with the stability of the system. You can set it up, you can check your optimizations there. But as far as weird issues with being able to convert things from physical to virtual, I've really had no big problems in switching that over. It's been really seamless to the end-user as well, just doing standardized conversions. It's been very stable and easy to manage.
I haven't had any loss of data in quite some time. Data is the key to everything. Downtime and loss of data are almost unacceptable in my current position.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I can always go horizontal, vertical is a little problematic sometimes. Horizontally, being able to add storage on the fly - even hot ad-hoc remove, if we do have some higher workloads or the like - we can always scale that without re-booting, with the newer operating systems. So the scalability portion is always on key.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is pretty good. I've had to use them a couple times for smaller issues. They've always been very helpful and we've always come to a solution.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
The backup solution we were using at the time was Dell's version of IBM's Tape Library with Symantec Backup Exec. We were doing tape backups at the file level, not really any virtual snaps, so incrementals every day, fulls on the weekends.
As data gets bigger it's harder and harder to back up and that's where virtualization comes in, because you can start doing analysis on data changes and deltas a little bit better. Tracking and things that are tied into VMware assist digital backup solutions to be faster, more resilient, and have less downtime in a restore situation.
How was the initial setup?
In my previous job, I was a Senior Systems Administrator for a credit union. We were running VMware 3.0, 12 years ago, and having that experience - and being bleeding edge at that time - helped me really be a catalyst in getting over to virtualization. That knowledge that I had in the past has always helped me, because I've seen VMware grow and do the things that it has done. Having that knowledge was helpful in setting it up from fresh, again: making the redundancies, knowing some of the pitfalls you have when first setting it up, and seeing a lot of the capital that you can lose if you don't understand what you're doing at that time.
I set it up myself. I can get technical support, but I can't have on-prem or anyone else.
What was our ROI?
Performance is somewhat relative, but an overall return on investment comes from not having multiple physical servers and from helping to aggregate a lot of the processors and RAM, and being able to use them more efficiently. We're not really worried about speed but about more efficiency.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I've been with them for so long, I never looked to much else. I've always been happy with vSphere and seeing what they've done for VMware itself. Intel products weren't really there, and I still don't feel they're there.
I've really enjoyed the Dell partnership because I do Dell on the back-end. The hand-holding between Dell and VMware works relatively well, with their hardware control lists and being sure they stay compatible for long periods of time, without having to spend money on new hardware. You can stay in your swim lane. That partnership is really a key to success.
What other advice do I have?
My advice is "do it".
I rate vSphere at nine out of 10 because the HTML version of things needs to get a little bit better. The vSphere side of things gets a little difficult to manage; right-click, in some browsers, doesn't work as well as it used to. I'm seeing a little bit of general latency that we didn't used to get with the thick client. It's getting there.
Version 6.71 brought some of those performance metrics back, but it's just hard to get from one end to the other. With the ever-changing federal requirements, we need to really strip down and minimize what can be done in the browsers. It is getting more and more difficult, Java being the key thing. Going to HTML 5, that's a great thing because Java is going to be pay-to-play next year. And you don't have the vulnerabilities with HTML 5. It works symbiotically. We're seeing that progress. There are some growing pains, but it's getting there.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Instructor at Milwaukee Area Technical College
Video Review
You see more responsiveness now with the HTML5 client. It feels like a much snappier product.
Pros and Cons
- "You see more responsiveness, especially now with having the HTML5 client. It feels like a much snappier product."
- "Having a virtualized infrastructure and being able to bring up Windows, Linux, and VMware within a virtualized environment brings more technology into the classroom. Without it, we couldn't do what we do."
- "The biggest issue with stability is the SSO. That is still an issue as far as integrating it with Active Directory, and any large scale of it."
- "The biggest thing to improve is to have more self-service in the portals. I would like to receive more help through the web interface."
What is our primary use case?
The primary use case is spinning up lab VMs. We can spin up several hundred VMs for students to work with, which could be Windows-based or Linux-based. It's about creating these VMs, then destroying them as soon as they are done. So, there is a lot of creation and destruction. We also spin up VM environments as well. On the vSphere 6.7 product, the optimization is great. The older versions, 6.0 and 6.5 were sluggish. When your spinning and destroying things, it's a big deal to have higher performance.
How has it helped my organization?
We don't do a lot with the encryption, but we do have the ability to encrypt something if we send it offsite. We have multiple locations, so we can encrypt our VMs, if necessary. However, we don't have a big need for it, but it's nice that it's there.
Our mission critical is our classroom. If we have college students who can't work, they paid to be there, and are paying us for the environment. Therefore, if we're down for a day, that's a real problem. Given that people have a choice of where they can go for education, we have to be always available. Otherwise, they will go next door. For us, it's about a student's success and you can only do that if you're up and running.
What is most valuable?
- A big feature for us was Quick Boot. You don't have to wait for the host to do a recheck on memory. You do an upgrade, and it's not a 10-minute reboot cycle. You can bring your host online and offline.
- Database optimization. They did a lot in enhancing the performance. They took down the memory utilization and increased what it brought in. You see more responsiveness, especially now with having the HTML5 client. It feels like a much snappier product.
The biggest feature that everybody wanted was the HTML5 client. This has made everything native where you're able to surf through it. Going into our web page, you're no longer refreshing it. It feels more like an enterprise product now. With Adobe Flash, it didn't feel that way.
What needs improvement?
The biggest thing to improve is to have more self-service in the portals. I would like to receive more help through the web interface.
I would like to see continual improvements of the client. It doesn't need to go much larger for support on the number of VMs or its size, because there are pretty high limits already. However, it needs a bit more in the management and the reporting aspect. We have to get a third-party for that. It would be great if it was a bit more integrated.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Stability has been good since the 6.0 days. The biggest issue with stability is the SSO. That is still an issue as far as integrating it with Active Directory, and any large scale of it. That is still a work in progress. However, the core stability aspect of it has been there and hasn't changed. This has just gotten better.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I have no issues with scalability. As large as we have wanted to go with as many VMs, we have never had an issue pushing its limits.
The majority of the issues are truly integrating it into the Active Directory structures. This doesn't seem to be there yet.
How is customer service and technical support?
VMware tech support has always been good to us. Our biggest challenge is getting them the logs, but once they have them, the logs are so detailed that any possible issue usually is resolved within a few hours. So, it has always been a positive experience.
What was our ROI?
Given that we spin up and down hundreds of VMs, we physically couldn't do that with physical hardware. It would just be financially impossible. Having a virtualized infrastructure and being able to bring up Windows, Linux, and VMware within a virtualized environment brings more technology into the classroom. Without it, we couldn't do what we do.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
There wasn't a short list. It was the only solution. It's the only thing that made financial sense as far as being able to do what we needed it to do. Nobody out there had it.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate it as a nine out of ten.
Go big with your hardware. You have to be willing to invest in the hardware platform. Storage is key. Make sure you have enough performance with it. When you're looking at the actual overall product, make sure you understand what third party offerings you need to put in. It could be something from VMware or one of the partners, but it's going to be more that just the VMware Suite. There will be one or two things you need to add to it. Specifically, monitoring or reporting will be the big draws.
I don't have a percentage for the performance boost of the apps. However, there is noticeably different speed of how the database is working and how you move through the client. Everything is a bit more responsive. Part of that was getting rid of the flash client as well. We're seeing an overall general performance increase in everything we do, whether it's the monitoring aspect or deploying.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Manager of Computing and Storage at CBO
A virtualization and monitoring solution for running applications
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup is very easy and takes half an hour to complete."
- "Customer support takes a long time to respond."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution in servers for digitalization. Our digital products, like mobile and internet banking, run on them.
How has it helped my organization?
We are running critical applications like mobile applications on vSphere.
What is most valuable?
The tool offers virtualization and monitoring.
What needs improvement?
Virtual machine snapshots and consolidation need to be improved. Also, there are licensing and subscription issues.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for 3 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the solution’s stability a 9 out of 10.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. 5 users are using this solution.
I rate the solution’s scalability an 8 out of 10.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support takes a long time to respond.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used Nutanix. We opted for VMware because the environment is good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy and takes half an hour to complete, but it is costly since it has training costs and tutorials. The 3 tutorials are included in this package. They somewhat automate, but it's not enough.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Earlier, the solution had a perpetual license, but now, it has a subscription. Also, they have increased the price. The certification is costly.
What other advice do I have?
vSphere has the DRS site. We got the recovery site feature, but we haven't used it. It's good to use the high availability to be more than AWS. We have many weekly metrics running on these.
Overall, I rate the solution an 8 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Server Engineer at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Good high availability, easy to scale, and pretty stable overall
Pros and Cons
- "The solution has high availability."
- "The biggest pain point is probably the firmware management of the underlying hardware. It could be a lot better."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for everything Microsoft-related for the most part. I would say our visualization platform is about 99.5% of all our workload from a Microsoft point of view
What is most valuable?
The solution has high availability.
The on the fly changing of the resources on a VM is very helpful.
You've got the underlying capacity, that's greater than what the actual server has, and therefore you have the ability to do on the fly add capacity. I would say that's by far the thing we use the most.
The VRS, to a lesser degree, is also quite useful to us. It does work in the environment.
The solution is very good from a recoverability point of view. Everything can be stored much easier on a virtual server than on a physical box.
What needs improvement?
The biggest pain point is probably the firmware management of the underlying hardware. It could be a lot better.
We use HP hardware. The biggest thing is the firmware upgrades and other items at the backend. You have to take down the system. It's an in-memory database and that can sometimes cause issues. If you have to do firmware upgrades, it's organizing downtime and all sorts of things, which normally in a VMS space isn't an issue. They have embedded some of this in 7.1, however, I haven't tested it or seen it in action as yet.
That said, one of the problems is that when we're sort of behind big memory servers and the databases in them if you migrate it, it potentially breaks the system off. That's a big pain point that the firmware management of the underlying hardware should handle. VMware doesn't really cater to it, however, Nutanix to some degree does cater for. It gets pretty expensive, however.
We are always sort of one or two versions behind. We never test the latest version. I would say for me personally, the management aspect with large memory and in-memory databases for the motions and stuff like that is what it needs. That's one of the key things that I need really, from a support perspective. That's caused a number of issues already.
You do get something called host profiles, which they've also improved slightly, however, I still think it's a bit clunky in terms of the way you can manage it. They can produce something to improve that aspect slightly.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for more than 12 years. It's been over a decade at this point.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is mostly stable.
We've had issues, however, if you think about it, it's quite complex if you look at stuff like a three-tier architecture with different stories, subsystems, and things like that. It's not really VMware if it's unstable perhaps.
VMware itself isn't necessarily unstable, however, they might present as a VM-ware issue due to the fact of the storage latency or a driver issue. We did a firmware update and VMware itself I think is quite stable. Every now and again, there's an issue that creeps in, however, it's because we use different vendors for storage and a different vendor for computing. Overall, by and large, VMware is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
From the way we set it up, it is relatively easy to scale as long as you've got the planning in place for where you're going to. We use something called blade technology, and that is relatively easy to scale.
There's a total of ten people that are actually on the solution at any given time.
How are customer service and technical support?
I've used technical support a couple of times. I'm quite happy with it. We've got an agreement with HP. We offer our support via HP or via Data Centrix with HP. Durin the couple of times I've used it has been quite fast and thorough.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've never used a different solution. I started using VMware or VMware server, about 20 years ago. vSphere ESX is probably the first visualization tool I've used. Subsequently, yes, we've tested one or two other options, for example, Hyper-V and what used to be called Acropolis. We've also used Oracle VM. However, for production and for everything else we've done, we pretty much speak to VMware. It's tried and tested and we're quite happy with the stability. Therefore, we stick with it.
How was the initial setup?
If all your hardware requirements are met, it is a relatively simple implementation. However, you have to have the boxes ticked in terms of connectivity, capacity, and all that sort of stuff. The actual VMware part of it is not the biggest complication of everything now.
We handle maintenance ourselves. My team consists of five people, and of those, only one of them really works on the maintenance of the hardware and the software. It doesn't take a lot of personnel.
What about the implementation team?
Initially, we did use a vendor for the initial setup. That's even before I started at this company. The company uses their local vendors to output the hardware deployment and with the software deployment, however, it's my understanding that it's been done in-house mostly.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It's not a cheap solution. The maintenance specifically is quite expensive. I also find that it's more expensive than the higher tier products.
We've looked at buying into something like a vROPS or whatever they call it today. However, when you look at the cost and the benefits, although there is great benefit in the product, it's just never been a cost discussion that we've been able to entertain with management.
Similar to vSAN, we looked at that a couple of times. It's a great product and it has proven itself. It's brilliant. It's stable. However, as soon as you look at any peripheral products, it becomes quite expensive, as it's licensed per socket or per blade or per server or whatever.
What other advice do I have?
We're just customers.
We are a little behind the latest version, which I believe is 7.1. We're using 6.5 for the most part. We still have a little bit of a legacy in 5.5, however, that is just hardware related. It doesn't support the newer version. We trying to rectify that as soon as possible.
I would recommend the solution to other companies.
Overall, I would rate the solution nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
DevOps Engineer at Simple Logic IT Private Limited
Offers good performance and is useful for banking systems
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance."
- "The integration capabilities of the solution have certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
What is our primary use case?
Our company uses VMware vSphere Versions 6.5, 6.7 and 7.0. My company is trying to deploy all the VMs on VMware vSphere Version 8 since it has some new features. The old versions of the tool don't support some of the VMs, specifically in the area of vMotion.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance. Nowadays, people are trying to move on Kubernetes. People prefer deploying services over the Kubernetes.
What needs improvement?
n areas like coding and microservices, users can find lots of features in Kubernetes. With Kubernetes, if one of your pods is down, then automatically, another pod will be up, so there are no manual tasks or opt for microservices since such a pod will run in the back end automatically.
The integration capabilities of the solution have certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution. It is only during the production phase involving Kubernetes that our company can determine whether VMware vSphere can remain stable or not.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution. Many people who use the product in our company work in the back end processes. Around 20 to 30 people in my company work with VMware vSphere and Kubernetes.
What other advice do I have?
Speaking about the application deployment process, I work at the L1 level in my company. In my company, the L3 is a different department that manages the application deployment process, and most of them go for tools apart from the ones under VMware to manage the VMs. I am only creating new VMs and assigning RAM space, and if something comes up, then I create new RHEL-based systems.
When it comes to the application deployment process, my company manually deploys the applications. For automation purposes, our company uses Jenkins to collect the logs and provide a GUI with the help of a username and password to the end user, after which they can collect the logs from Jenkins.
I work at an L1 level in my company. The integrations and infrastructure-related areas of the product are managed by another team in my company.
I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.
Nowadays, people don't prefer to go for cloud-based solutions. Most of the companies prefer VMware as they want some level of security in the environment. VMware allows users to have in-house products. Most companies or banks are not moving over to cloud-based tools. VMware is used in banking systems.
I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: December 2024
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