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delete - PeerSpot reviewer
delete at a tech vendor with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Enables me to spin up and bring down virtuals and use DRS for load-balancing
Pros and Cons
    • "It would be nice if it had auto-scaling, no need to select CPU or select database size. Let it auto-scale, let it use the features that VMware has, instead of having to preselect."

    What is our primary use case?

    Use case is to manage virtuals; spin them up, bring them down, create them, and a little maintenance on them. It performs okay for me.

    We do DRS for load-balancing. We're looking at doing Microsoft SQL virtual on it, probably without clustering; replacing physical clusters with it; and job scheduling; all probably in Q1.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature is that it's not a Windows license. It's also good that it finally has the patch manager included in it. And it's simple and efficient to use.

    What needs improvement?

    It will be nice when it's all HTML 5.

    It would be nice if it had auto-scaling, no need to select CPU or select database size. Let it auto-scale, let it use the features that VMware has, instead of having to preselect.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's solid. Other than a host crashing, we haven't really had any downtime.

    Buyer's Guide
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    March 2025
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    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    For us, the scalability is good. We haven't hit any limitations.

    How are customer service and support?

    Technical support is a little slow to get back to you. We haven't had any mission-critical outages but we play some phone-tag. It could be better.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup could be a little convoluted. You've got the PSC or you've got something else, plus you've got to the vSphere, and then you want to do Server Linked Mode. You have different environments, you have different storages. Some support the plugin, some don't. That's a pain.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    Hyper-V sucks, some of the other stuff isn't good. Cloud solutions are too expensive, if you're actually going to use them. We did a side-by-side comparison of Hyper-V and VMware and VMware was substantially better for performance and usability.

    What other advice do I have?

    Do a side-by-side comparison. Try it, stay away from Microsoft. The Microsoft solution of being everything to everybody does not fit. Never fits.

    Everything that we do is strictly within our own company. So we don't do encryption, although we might look at that. We don't really have a need for TPM. It's a pretty controlled environment.

    I would rate vSphere an eight out of 10. To make it a 10 they need to get rid of Flash and then apologize for having used Flash, have it auto-scale, and no Java.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    CIO9dd5 - PeerSpot reviewer
    CIO at a library with 201-500 employees
    Real User
    Allows us to build servers and hand them over to users so that they can "own" them

    What is our primary use case?

    We had almost 100 servers and we wanted to consolidate them and also make them movable, especially when we have to upgrade hardware. It also allowed us to create more testing environments, because we tended to buy new iron every time. We also want users to be able to “own” servers themselves, so that we would build them for them, hand them over and say, "Have fun".

    What is most valuable?

    • Flexibility
    • Ease of management

    What needs improvement?

    Maybe it's there and I don't know about it, but I would love to be able to build a standard server set and be able to give users, who want to build another server, the ability to click in and have a pool of 20 options for the five groups that are using them. I could just say, “Hey if you want a server click here," and then the server is built for them, tells them how to connect, how to login to it. Done. That would be so cool.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's stable. It has only crashed once.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We're not a very big shop, so it's not really appropriate for me to answer this question.

    How is customer service and technical support?

    I would give technical support about 7.5 out of 10.

    How was the initial setup?

    I waited until version 5 because, prior to that, I thought it was too difficult to set up. With that version, the setup was fairly easy. And it has gotten a lot easier since.

    What was our ROI?

    On the server side, we have definitely seen ROI. If servers fail we just restart them, if a piece of hardware fails we just move it. We haven't saved any money but we have been able to double our load without adding any more staff. That's our ROI.

    In real terms, because of the cost of the product, I don't know that we really save anything. We're a public institution and we tend to have very long time frames for holding onto hardware, not like a corporation. I would say it's a wash on a pure ROI, unless we can look into the future and say, “I'm going to be able to do increased stuff without adding any money.”

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Pricing is the one "ding" I have against it. Except for VMware vSphere Essentials, it would be pretty challenging for anything but a medium or large size company to use.

    What other advice do I have?

    If you're managing more than five servers run over and get some vSpere Essentials. I think virtualization is the only way to go, whether you do it on-premise or in the cloud, nowadays. It doesn't make any sense once you get beyond a couple.

    I rate the solution an eight. Price would be the main thing, as well as the relative inaccessibility for end-users to be able to touch the product.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    VMware vSphere
    March 2025
    Learn what your peers think about VMware vSphere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
    844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    it_user515508 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Works at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
    Vendor
    Work life balance as systems administrators got flexibility, robustness, scalability of current infrastructure.

    What is most valuable?

    SAAS, SAAS, IAAS using Virtualisation of infrastructure

    How has it helped my organization?

    Work life balance as systems administrators got flexibility, robustness, scalability of current infrastructure.

    What needs improvement?

    The licensing part. VMware must simplify the licensing mode to help selling to business and additional products.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Almost 10years

    What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

    Nope. Smooth all the way.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Never. Vmware was the easiest system i ever deployed. Did it without training.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Not yet. As long as i have the infrastructure, the system works like magic. I can add hardware and servers as i want.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Customer Service:

    I only have the online website customer service. Otherwise i have no support from anyone. Tho i love the product.

    Technical Support:

    once i had to upgrade and i was adding some new hardware from DELL the company in Kenya sent very good guys to work on them directly. We have been good friends with the guys tho they are no longer in DELL.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I was deploying servers from bare metal. Once i got VMware, i have never looked back.

    How was the initial setup?

    It was smooth. I had bought symanted brightmail and it could only deploy from VMDX. So i had to learn the hard way. I likes it. Once i learnt about VMware, i have helped no less than 20 administrators to deploy VMware in Kenya.

    What about the implementation team?

    Dell M1000 full blade power edge, deployed by the manufacturer.

    What was our ROI?

    It is superb. Level of hardware investment went down. Scalability and power is superb. Next am deploying BI and warehousing on DELL poweredge using VMware and later a 4 tier (a true 4 tier) datacenter in Kenya.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    This is a place VMware have to work on. Bringing in products or upgrading is difficult to sell to the finance guys.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I fell into VMware. I so far like the marriage.

    What other advice do I have?

    Keep going guys. Best thing under the sun.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    PeerSpot user
    Senior System Administrator at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
    Vendor
    It cuts the cost of maintaining high availability, which is very expensive with physical servers.

    What is most valuable?

    Every organization that I know of that has wanted to implement virtualization in their environments wants HA with every virtual server. That's why for us, we've found the most valuable feature is the ability to move VMs between vCenters and fault tolerance within our four vCPUs.

    I would also add that the vSAN feature was not useful beforehand but now with Hyper-Converged infrastructure it will simplify vSphere management as well as storage. We may be acquiring xRAIL from EMC which will definitely eliminate needs for storage as well as Fibre Channel switches.

    How has it helped my organization?

    The biggest advantage is that it cuts costs. A few years ago, I worked in an environment of all physical servers. It was very expensive to maintain high availability with them. vSphere cuts that cost.

    No more lengthy physical server server restores. When this product is coupled with Veeam Backup and replication restoring whole virtual machine or individual files or active directory objects virtually happen in minutes.

    What needs improvement?

    I'd like to see small VMDKs in the next version since Hyper-V provides that option. Right now, that process with vSphere is still manual and requires downtime.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have used this product for the last five years.

    What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

    With previous versions, for example in 5.1, it was inconvenient to deploy an SSO database. Now, an SSO database is local and automatically installed.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's highly stable.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It scales without issues.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    The level of technical support depends on who you're talking to. Some people are more experienced than others. Overall, though, I'd rate them well, but they don't respond very quickly during the weekends.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I used Hyper-V, which worked well on a single server running Windows 2008 R2. But as soon as a cluster is configured, there are lots of issues with SCVMM. I've heard that Microsoft made some improvements and the product is now more stable, but VMware ESXi is based on the Linux OS and is much more stable. I've had to learn command-line code in Linux, but VMware is better than Microsoft.

    How was the initial setup?

    It's very easy to set up because it's a popular product and there are many online articles. VMware articles are a bit dry. Many consultants post their experiences, making deployment of vSphere straightforward so long as it's planned properly.

    What about the implementation team?

    I have implemented this product either from scratch or as part of an upgrade. One piece of advice that I would give is to make sure that the certificate is minimum 1024 bits (I forgot to check that). Other than that, an upgrade or set-up is very straightforward, especially with v6.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Chris Childerhose - PeerSpot reviewer
    Chris ChilderhoseEnterprise Architect at ThinkON
    ExpertTop 5Real User

    I believe for Version 6 the minimum key requirement for CA signed SSL certificates is 2048 not 1024. Nice review.

    it_user386772 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Server Manager at a local government with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Vendor
    The ease of administration and flexibility are the most valuable features for us.

    What is most valuable?

    The ease of administration and flexibility are the most valuable features for us. Performance, stability, and functionality just keep getting better.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It enables us to move faster when we're going through the legacy systems. Before vSphere, someone had to wait between one and three months to get service which we can now implement in ten minutes.

    What needs improvement?

    There are a couple areas for improvement that I can see. First, I'd like to see better performance for vCenter. And, I'd also like to see NSF 4.1 fully supported. There are some NSF features lacking from version 3 to 4.1.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We've been using it for more than ten years.

    What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

    We've had no issues deploying it.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability has been great. I have only experienced one point down and that was caused by our system.

    There was also an issue with expiring licenses in 2008, but that was fixed pretty quickly and a new implementation was put in place to prevent that from happening again.

    The product has been so stable that we keep using it. We also didn't want to change it too much because it would require management team training.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It has scaled for us and the workload that we have that runs on it.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We started using it because there weren't any competitors at the time. There was only VMware.

    How was the initial setup?

    Complexity depends on how you're implementing it because vSphere has a lot of products. If you're looking looking to install vCenter, it quite easy.

    If you're using a lot of the other products, you have to be careful. Today, we use almost every product from VMware and we still have to be careful with the updates.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Start small in a development environment. For $200 per year, you can get access to files VMUGs. 

    You can get a 60-day free trial with a download from the VMware website, but I recommend using VMUGs and attending local VMUG meetings. They have a lot of really capable technicians who really love to share.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    Of course we continue to look at the competitors to see what features are coming. In my opinion, it doesn't matter because VMware is still ahead of the competition.

    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.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user386772 - PeerSpot reviewer
    it_user386772Server Manager at a local government with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Vendor

    This review was from a Phone Interview whereabouts The interviewer unfortunately messed The review up. I was regering to The messing NSF features support between NSF 3 and NSF 4.1 supported in vSphere 6.

    See all 3 comments
    PeerSpot user
    System Administrator - Backup & Storage Specialist at METRO SYSTEMS Romania
    Consultant
    vMotion and Storage vMotion, Storage APIs, Storage Thin Provisioning, and good integration with LUN mapping to VMFS are reliable features.

    What is most valuable?

    Pretty much everything about VMware is a strong point. From my point of view, it's one of the most stable and scalable technologies on the market, and when it comes to virtualization it's probably the very best there is. 

    As a backup and storage admin, I haven't had the chance to explore in-depth all of its features, but what I did get to work with thoroughly seemed very reliable, just to name a few: vMotion and Storage vMotion, Storage APIs (such as VAAI), Storage Thin Provisioning, good integration with LUN mapping to VMFS, etc.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Obviously, it brought with it many of the unique things that any virtualization technology provides, such as High Availability and trimming down costs and data center space requirements. It helped us develop some of our most important and complex infrastructure projects, such as: VDI, Internal Cloud (IaaS for internal Dev Teams), Data Center Clustering with good High Availability potential, etc.

    What needs improvement?

    Hard to say what I'd like to see in the next versions. Over the years, the VMware development team constantly delivered major improvements to this product. I've only had the chance to work version 4.5 up to 5.5. Since I haven't had the chance to test the current version which is 6, I think it wouldn't be fair to make suggestions due to the fact that some of my ideas may have already been implemented starting with version 6. 

    However, when I think of what tried me most with vSphere, it's probably the fact that my colleagues and I on the Virtual Infrastructure Admin team always had to do debugging and troubleshooting on VM configuration files in a manual manner if we wanted to bring to life broken VMs. 

    Sure, some official KBs are pretty useful but not all issues can be covered by them. It would really ease up and speed up the troubleshooting process for advanced and experienced administrators if vSphere had some sort of VM file debug tool that can also run automatic integrity checks and repairs based on the entire set of configuration files, live run-logs, a potential database that logs the history of changes made to the VMs, and stuff like that. 

    This would be especially useful when you have environments that tend to do a lot of Snapshot manipulations such as those that use specialized virtual backup and/or replication software.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using it for about a year and a half. Currently, the organization where I work has most of its virtualized infrastructure running v5.5 (we're towards the end of a broad upgrade project) throughout the last year and a half. Since I've been occupying my current position, I've also had the chance to use also versions 4.5, 5 and 5.1.

    What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

    Deployment isn't the simplest nor the most complex. If you can install a standard HP & Dell server, there's no reason you couldn't take care of a VMWare ESXi Hypervisor. After that, configuration and administration via the vSphere console is pretty easy.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    There have been no issues with the stability.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    There have been no issues with scalability.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Personally, I haven't had the chance to work with the VMware customer service since most of the issues encountered were usually fixed by applying the solutions presented in official KBs.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Before VMware, our company used to employ Citrix for the VDI infrastructure. Besides being more easy to use for the common VDI user, VMware also allowed us to step up the game by also taking the majority of your server infrastructure to the virtual environment.

    What about the implementation team?

    Both deployment and administration of the VMware infrastructure in our organization is performed by internal specialized teams.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Chris Childerhose - PeerSpot reviewer
    Chris ChilderhoseEnterprise Architect at ThinkON
    ExpertTop 5Real User

    Excellent review. Would be very interesting to see a debug tool like that. Version 6 is much improved over previous versions and I hear in Update 2 just released there is an HTML 5 client from the fling some time back.

    it_user330075 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Director of IT Infrastructure at a media company with 501-1,000 employees
    Vendor
    It helps in managing computer and storage resources, and in shrinking your physical environment significantly.

    Valuable Features:

    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.

    Improvements to My Organization:

    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.

    Room for Improvement:

    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.

    Cost and Licensing Advice:

    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.

    Other Advice:

    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.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    it_user280818 - PeerSpot reviewer
    it_user280818Systems Engineer at a engineering company with 501-1,000 employees
    Real User

    As today, a vCenter Server Appliance instance can be scaled as the same vCenter Server instance in a Windows server, it also saves you from licensing cost from Windows Server and Database system. Especially, deployment is fast and easy. You can even automate its deployment process.

    it_user321357 - PeerSpot reviewer
    System Administrator at Maricopa County Community College District
    Vendor
    We had a lot of disparate hardware that we've now been able to consolidate onto one platform.

    Valuable Features

    • Reliability
    • HA
    • DR
    • Ease of deployment
    • We had a lot of disparate hardware and now able to consolidate into one platform
    • Easy to keep hardware up to date

    Improvements to My Organization

    So much easier to back things up now. We had Oracle, SQL, everything was just a one-off, but we now have just one process for all our VMs.

    Room for Improvement

    We have vCloud suite, Hyperion was a pain, but now they've just announced integration into vCenter, so everytime I have a complaint, they’ve already started to address it.

    Stability Issues

    • Great stability, no complaints at all
    • More we move to appliances
    • Easy to keep up to date

    Scalability Issues

    • We had a lot of standalone boxes, and management wanted to go to VMs
    • We were able to consolidate all hardware without purchasing anything extra
    • Able to carry us through several years when unable to purchase hardware

    Customer Service and Technical Support

    They've always been excellent, but we rarely contact them maybe one or two times a year. When we’ve had issues, it’s resolved in hours. We have TAM (tech account manager) so helped things along.

    Implementation Team

    We had vendor come out and it set up on 3.5, and once we got our feet wet, it's easy to maintain and upgrade.

    Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

    Only purchase what you’re going to use, our management makes decisions, and buy lots of products we’re not using.

    Other Solutions Considered

    We chose vSphere because of it's ease of use, especially that it's easier than Hyper-V. Deployment would have been more labor intensive, and wouldn’t have saved any more money in the long run.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free VMware vSphere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: March 2025
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free VMware vSphere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.