We use the product for server virtualization.
Technical Lead at Sopra Steria
Easy-to-deploy product with user-friendly GUI
Pros and Cons
- "It is easy to deploy and find troubleshooting articles as well."
- "There could be an inbuilt dashboard for reporting purposes."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
VMware vSphere has a user-friendly GUI. It is easy to deploy and find troubleshooting articles as well.
What needs improvement?
There could be an inbuilt dashboard for reporting purposes. At present, we have to use another paid solution for the same.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been using VMware vSphere for the last ten years.
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October 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I rate the product's scalability a ten out of ten. We have a huge environment with VMware infrastructure for multiple users.
How are customer service and support?
We encountered some delays with the responses from the technical support team. The resolutions could be more informative.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We used Citrix before. It could be more stable. Comparing both the solutions, VMware is better than Citrix.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup process is straightforward. It takes around four to five hours for end-to-end configuration. We have 60 to 70 engineers to manage the deployment.
What was our ROI?
The product helps us save around 20% to 30% of costs.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a three out of ten. They have multiple products with extra services. It increases the cost.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend VMware vSphere and rate it an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
Senior System Engineer at Vantage Drilling
User-friendly and easy to deploy
Pros and Cons
- "One of the most valuable features of this solution is the ease of deployment. It's also user-friendly and has been on the market for more than a decade, so it's a leading technology in hypervisor solutions."
- "VMware vSphere could be improved with cheaper costs."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case of VMware vSphere is virtualization. It doesn't depend on the hardware anymore, so it's easy to migrate and scale.
This solution is deployed on-premise.
What is most valuable?
One of the most valuable features of this solution is the ease of deployment. It's also user-friendly and has been on the market for more than a decade, so it's a leading technology in hypervisor solutions.
What needs improvement?
VMware vSphere could be improved with cheaper costs.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for 10 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This solution is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of this solution is 10 out of 10.
For this solution, we don't have an end user environment, but for our servers and our whole VM infrastructure, there are around 500 to 1,000 users. I'm not sure if we are going to increase our usage because, nowadays, most organizations are moving to cloud, but we have on-prem solutions in most cases.
How are customer service and support?
We rarely contact technical support because I have a back-to-back engineer and we both have a good understanding of the VMware infrastructure. We are able to solve about 90% of problems ourselves.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have a mixture of VMware and Hyper-V. For the small branches, we use Hyper-V because of the licensing and because Windows has four VMs embedded into the core Hyper-V. For VMware, we need to buy a separate license, but we use it for bigger offices and centers.
How was the initial setup?
The setup process of this solution is very straightforward and easy. For VMware, almost all the data center administrators can be easy to manage and deploy. The installation took less than three or four hours. I did it myself.
What about the implementation team?
I implemented this solution myself.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
VMware is expensive, from the baseline, initial investment. It depends, though, because if someone goes for ESXi—the latest version, ESXi Essential, or even the opensource—then it is not available in Microsoft. ESXi opensource is totally free, and the only features that aren't available are some API features. But if someone has a small office with less than 50 users, and they just need to run the hypervisor, then VMware is a free solution for that. If someone is considering the price and comparing Business ESXi with Hyper-V, if they already have an existing Windows license, then I would suggest going for Hyper-V because it's much cheaper. Aside from that, I would recommend going for VMware.
What other advice do I have?
I rate VMware a nine out of ten. VMware is fine. If someone has an office and they only need two or three servers, then I would recommend Hyper-V because they have a free instance for up to four servers. My recommendation would depend on someone's environment and budget, and totally depends on the size of their organization and server.
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.
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
October 2024
Learn what your peers think about VMware vSphere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Sr. Systems Engineer at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Highly reliable with great support
Pros and Cons
- "Very reliable with a great community."
- "Pricing is starting to get a little high-end."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case of this solution is for server consolidation and high availability. We are customers of VMware and I'm a senior systems engineer.
What is most valuable?
The solution is highly reliable and suits our needs - it's highly popular. Support and the overall community are great. You can find a solution to any issues you have.
What needs improvement?
I think what they need to improve on is their pricing. They're starting to get a little high-end in terms of price compared to other solutions and the other solutions are catching up. Everything with VMware is very modularized and you can't just buy one piece and be done with it.
In my opinion, they would be wise to include a high availability out of the box type set up and not just for cloud, but site to site.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using this solution for close to 15 years.
How are customer service and technical support?
Technical support is excellent. They stay on the line and track down the problem. Usually it's on the first call. I have had some complex issues that took a day or two to resolve but for the most part, they're resolved in the first call.
How was the initial setup?
For the most part, the initial setup is pretty straightforward. If you start getting into the more complex setups, it can get more complex. For most use cases, it's just stick the disk in, let it run, and it sets most of itself up. It's almost out of the box ready.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
As far as I know, there is a standard licensing fee. It all depends on the options that you choose and what you need for each business. Every company that I've worked for has had a different pricing model and a different set of use cases. So pricing can range anywhere from $700-$800 per server core, all the way up $2,000-$3,000 per core.
What other advice do I have?
It's important to do your homework and make sure that it's the right solution for you. It's the same with anything, there are other options out there and you need to figure out what fits your business use case at the time.
I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Consultant senior en technologie de l'information at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Integrates well with containers, easy to scale, and certificate management has improved
Pros and Cons
- "VMware Tanzu (container) is the most valuable addition because you get an efficient solution to manage the VM and container in a single pane of glass."
- "The HR proxy is actually a little bit tricky to install and setup."
What is our primary use case?
I use vSphere 7.0.1 for a few reasons. My primary use case is for my lab, as vSphere offers a great versatility to use VDI, containers, distributed Storage, and SDN on the same hardware. I also use vSphere for non-production tasks on Rasberry Pie 4, and it offers a great deal for working with Docker on cheap hardware with a single management interface, vSphere.
My lab is composed of three white-box servers with vSAN, a 10 gig network, a local SAN, and all storage with SSD to deliver fast VM.
I also have vRealize operating to monitor all the VMware components.
How has it helped my organization?
The new version of vSphere now integrates with containers and offers some new improvements inside vSAN, like file sharing. So, with VDI there is no need to add a VM to build a file server.
With containers, NSX is no longer mandatory and with the VMware operation manager, you can get an integrated monitored platform that can scale easily.
You will get both hands on the wheel because all of the products are fully interconnected.
vSphere 7 also adds better certificate management than before (less certificate) and vSAN is also improved in terms of the space management for reconstruction, so you will need less reserved space for this kind of operation.
What is most valuable?
VMware Tanzu (container) is the most valuable addition because you get an efficient solution to manage the VM and container in a single pane of glass.
The integration of Tanzu inside the base version of vSphere, without the need to install NSX-T, is a great addition. Many IT people don't know NSX-T and NSX can cost a lot, so it could save a lot of money. However, you will not get the enhanced network function due to the lack of NSX-T.
The improvements to vSAN with a file server service is also a very valuable feature for many companies because they will be saving with the management of an NFS storage or a file server.
What needs improvement?
The HR proxy is actually a little bit harder to install and setup than other vmware products. So, direct integration with a vSphere distributed switch would be great addition, but you can bypass this setup if you chose an NSX-T switch.
The distributed switch, which is the networking part of vSphere, should have more functions. It should be like VMware NSX-T so that network management with VMware Tanzu will be better, although it is already good.
vSphere 7.0.1 is not available on ARM computers for production loads. I hope that it will become available soon so that we can run our production web server container on it, for example.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for a few months.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This product is very stable and reliable. Now certificate management is also improved, the new version of vsphere has only 2 or 3 certificates so it is easier to manage.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
vSpshere 7, like the previous version, is easy to scale up and down. vSAN is the same, and Tanzu as well. vSan need less space for is own management and it is integrating some features like a virtual witness node that improve the scalability. Other new functions inside vsan like file sharing is also a great addition for vsan scalability.
How are customer service and technical support?
I always get great support from VMware technical team.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I did use the previous version of vSphere and I upgraded for the Tanzu support and VSAN improvement.
How was the initial setup?
The initial installation of vSphere 7 is straightforward. If you try the ARM version, it is a little more complex but just follow the step-by-step process and it will work.
For Tanzu, the HR proxy is more complex because you will need to do some network design. For vSAN, VMware gives you a great tool to set your solution up easily.
What about the implementation team?
I'm a VM expert so my level of expertise is great. My solution is an in-house one.
What was our ROI?
The ROI is very fast due to virtualization, perhaps a couple of months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
vSphere 7.0.1 offers a lot more than the previous version. Container support is the last great addition for VMware and it is worth the money you spend on it.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I did not evaluate other container solutions. For storage, I also use FreeNAS.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
System Administrator at ON Semiconductor Phils. Inc.
Provides robust and highly available development and production environments
Pros and Cons
- "The vMotion in particular I think is the most valuable because this feature provides migrations of virtual machines in case you want to run do maintenance."
- "I would like to see VMware vSphere provide a centralized patch service on the VMware level, regardless of your operating systems."
What is our primary use case?
The entire production and development environments are running on VMware vSphere using the 6.0 and 6.5 versions with twelve-node clustered configurations. Two data centers were deployed to separate the production side virtual machines from those of test and development.
How has it helped my organization?
The deployment of Enterprise VMware vSphere architecture helps us provide a robust and high availability infrastructure because of the combined features of VMware vSphere and VMware vCenter such as HA, DRS and Fault Tolerance. This base metal virtualization is highly compatible with almost all of the IT hardware.
What is most valuable?
The vMotion in particular I think is the most valuable because this feature provides migrations of virtual machines in case you want to run do maintenance. This his feature comes hand-in-hand with other features of VMware like the DRS, which automatically load-balances the whole VMware farm based on the usage and recommendation.
What needs improvement?
Improve the patch and updates online and remove mandatory reboot, or move the virtual machine onto a physical host that needs patching/maintenance.
I would like to see VMware vSphere provide a centralized patch service on the VMware level, regardless of your operating systems.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for eleven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In my long experience, I have a single incident where our whole VMware farm went down. I can say it is very stable as long as the hardware is healthy.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is great. This solution is highly scalable and compatible with almost all IT hardware on the market.
How are customer service and technical support?
The support is very responsive and highly knowledgeable.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Prior to this solution, we used Oracle Virtual Machine and Xen Virtualizations.
How was the initial setup?
I used the profiling feature.
What about the implementation team?
I set up the system myself.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The license of VMware is a one-time payment and you can continue to enroll in support for troubleshooting and also administer the licenses.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We did not evaluate other options before choosing this solution.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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?
It is primarily our server virtualization solution. We have approximately 2,000 servers, all of which are running VMware vSphere.
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.
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.
IT Supervisor at a aerospace/defense firm with 10,001+ employees
It's stable and easy to scale
Pros and Cons
- "VMware vSphere is easy to scale. We haven't had any problems scaling what we're scaling now."
- "We'd always like to see the price drop, but I realize that may not be realistic."
What is our primary use case?
We use vSphere for production work on defense projects.
What needs improvement?
There's a lot of things they can improve on, but it's just a matter of where they are at in their development cycle right now. I wish they would have been able to handle Apple at this point, but they can't. So it's just one of those things. They've got features I'm still trying to understand. We haven't gone to containers yet, and I'm trying to find a use for a container.
For how long have I used the solution?
My company has been using vSphere for four years, but I've been using it since about 2003.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Everything has been stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
VMware vSphere is easy to scale. We haven't had any problems scaling what we're scaling now.
How are customer service and support?
I have contacted VMware support in the past, but I haven't needed to in a couple of years. They got back to me. Once you actually get in the queue and they actually talk to you, you're fine. It took me 48 hours to get in the queue because it wasn't a life or death issue. It was just a question. I've called them for more urgent stuff before, and they picked right up and answered the questions. They got us back online within a few hours.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
This department happens to run VMware. Other departments run VMware and also use Citrix for certain things. We're looking at running BDI rather than Citrix.
How was the initial setup?
It depends on how you're setting vSphere up and deploying it. They've added some products recently like vSAN and a few other things to the base loads. You have to know what you're doing with those, but it works beautifully if you're doing a standard deployment with general IP storage.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
On a government contract, everything's just a base price. You don't get much of a choice. We'd always like to see the price drop, but I realize that may not be realistic.
What other advice do I have?
I rate VMware vSphere nine 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.
Senior Product Specialist at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Simple, easy to use and has a lot of features for the virtualized environment.
Pros and Cons
- "VMware vSphere helps us in not wasting resources like we did when we were using physical servers. It changed our whole environment."
- "In terms of what could be improved, we do face some bugs when cloning the virtual machine - it fails sometimes."
What is our primary use case?
VMware vSphere is the basic application for making the virtualization on our environment.
How has it helped my organization?
VMware vSphere helps us in not wasting resources like we did when we were using physical servers. It changed our whole environment.
What is most valuable?
The features that I have found most valuable are its vMotion and the other features that are basic in any product. Snapshot, Virtual switch, and VDS are very useful. Its features are so good and fit our needs.
What needs improvement?
In terms of what could be improved, we do face some bugs when cloning the virtual machine - it fails sometimes. Also, using the customization certification also fail sometimes. Sometimes powering-on the virtual machine fails. But we opened the ticket with VMware as we have the warranty.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
VMware vSphere is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Of course VMware vSphere is scalable.
In our 15 member team, all of us work on vSphere. We are all system operation engineers.
Overall, we just require two people for deployment and maintenance.
Of course we'll increase our license in the future. Our business needs to improve every time. So we'll use it extensively.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is so good. My friend works at the support team for VMware.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward. It is so easy.
The ISO file is available for everyone to download and there is a trial period so if you don't purchase this product, you can try it for free.
We increase our servers every year. So for one server, deployment takes about one hour or less to deploy a product.
There are many strategies to install the product using vCenter. We can make clones from the profile of the server itself so it could take less time.
What about the implementation team?
We deploy it ourselves.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I did an overview on the Hyper-V, which is another solution. VMware vSphere was simpler and easier to use and had a lot of features. The Hyper-V must be installed on a Windows server which has a lot of vulnerabilities and it's not stable as VMware vSphere.
So after I did an overview I thought this solution is the best in the meantime.
What other advice do I have?
I don't need to give any advice - this product sells itself.
My recommendation to anyone considering VMware vSphere is that if you need to virtualize your environment, you will buy this solution for sure. But you have to have the servers before buying the license. You can first install it for free on a demo, or you can get the virtual environment to try the solution. But it doesn't need any advice, it is quite simple.
After working on this solution, I have joined the official course for vSphere and I took the certificate, so it allowed me to know all the features in this product.
On a scale of one to ten, not to be extreme, but I would give VMware vSphere a nine.
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.
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