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reviewer1596237 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT & Security Team Leader at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Versatile, extremely stable, and very scalable with useful DRS and resource pooling features
Pros and Cons
  • "It is very versatile. All features are beneficial and very good, especially DRS and resource pooling."
  • "They can maybe review its price. They can also consider offering a free public version for development for a certain number of users."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for the virtualization of server infrastructure.

What is most valuable?

It is very versatile. All features are beneficial and very good, especially DRS and resource pooling.

What needs improvement?

They can maybe review its price. They can also consider offering a free public version for development for a certain number of users. 

I am using version 6.7, and it would be good if it has support for SaaS storage. They might already have this feature in the latest version 7.1.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using this solution in our company for 10 years.

Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about VMware vSphere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is extremely stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. Its usage depends on each customer. We have small, medium, and large customers. 

As a company, we are not a big consumer of VMware solutions. We do VMware deployments in other companies. We sell it to other companies, and we have a partnership with VMware. 

How are customer service and support?

Based on my experience, they are very good. Their support used to be best, but it also depends on the number of subscriptions for each contract. Generally, their process is very good.

How was the initial setup?

It is easy.

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

I'm not a pricing or budgeting person, but I know that its price is a little bit high, and they can consider reviewing it. Its price is probably the highest in this domain.

What other advice do I have?

I personally do not recommend Hyper-V based on my experience, but I can recommend others to also look at Proxmox. There is also a solution from IBM. They are, for sure, very good contenders.

I would rate VMware vSphere a nine out of 10. It satisfies our needs.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: partner
PeerSpot user
Head of Professional Services at Axians ICT Austria GmbH
MSP
A transparent and independent solution
Pros and Cons
  • "It's very transparent and independent."
  • "The management could be simplified for base-level customers, but of course, it would be difficult to match all customer needs."

What is our primary use case?

Our deployments were formerly on-prem, but we have the role of a cloud provider. We have a distributed solution in our data center and several international cloud providers.

We use VMware vSphere for most of our business processes, including HR. 

What is most valuable?

We like a lot of the features, but none really stand out. It's very transparent and independent. 

What needs improvement?

We are very close to VM, all of our pain-points involve direct discussions. There are no special pain-points. This solution allows us to handle our system. It's required in business processes.

The management could be simplified for base-level customers, but of course, it would be difficult to match all customer needs. 

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using VMware vSphere for over 20 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

VMware vSphere is absolutely stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We expand VMware vSphere daily. It's very scalable. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is great. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. The complexities lie on the TITO solution on-top.

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

The price could always be lower, but I think it's fair. 

What other advice do I have?

I would absolutely recommend using this solution. It's clear-based, straightforward, and includes all of the options required in business. 

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of ten. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
January 2025
Learn what your peers think about VMware vSphere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2025.
837,501 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1381863 - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Consultant
An easy-to-use and stable solution that can reduce the manual cost of your infrastructure
Pros and Cons
  • "It is very easy to use and very stable."
  • "The cost can be better."

What is our primary use case?

We have co-located our servers in different data centers, and these co-located servers are in a cluster. For storage, we are using vSAN, and for compute, we are using vSphere 6.7. We will be upgrading to version 7 in due course.

What is most valuable?

It is very easy to use and very stable.

What needs improvement?

The cost can be better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for almost eight to nine years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. You can use a cluster with 216 nodes. I believe it can be scaled much more.

We use vSphere to create virtual machines and give them to our customers. Most of the applications are on it, so we have around 8,000 to 10,000 users on five different clusters. In terms of our plans to use this product in the future, we are currently thinking about whether to continue using this solution or not.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their support could definitely be better. They can put more experienced and more intelligent people on support. I would rate them a seven out of ten.

How was the initial setup?

I won't say it is straightforward, but it is also not complex. If the hardware and net securities are there and you have the hardware configuration, then the installation takes 24 to 48 hours.

What about the implementation team?

We have a team of infrastructure users who are experts in VMware. They do the installation. Two persons can do the deployment.

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

It is expensive. 

What other advice do I have?

I would definitely recommend this solution to others. It is a very good product. It is very stable, so your infrastructure uptime can be better. The manual cost of your infrastructure can be less if you use vSphere.

I would rate VMware vSphere an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Infrastructure Senior Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Real User
Leverages the migration with unshared storage. Helps manage main and DR sites simultaneously.

What is most valuable?

VMware is the market leader in virtualization. I like the following vMotion improvements in the current version:

  • vMotion across virtual switches: There are no restrictions now to migrate VMs across switches (standard/distributed). It is valuable to me for an upgrade or when moving my datacenter.
  • vMotion across vCenter Servers: This leverages the migration with unshared storage. In simple terms, VM1 is running on a certain host/cluster, which runs on a certain datastore and is managed by vCenter 1. It can be vMotioned to different ESXi hosts, which have different datastores managed by another vCenter server, called vCenter 2.
  • Long Distance vMotion: I can now perform reliable migrations between hosts and sites that are separated by high network round-trip latency times. This is an official definition. For me, it helps me to manage main and DR sites simultaneously and in an effective way.

How has it helped my organization?

  • Reduces the data center footprint: Fewer servers and less power consumption
  • Reduces the overall footprint of your entire data center

What needs improvement?

They still have restrictions on fault tolerance features and managing snapshots.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using VMware products since 2009 and this version for more than six months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not encountered any stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not encountered any scalability issues.

How are customer service and technical support?

I am satisfied with the technical support. Some support cases needed to be escalated, but overall it is good.

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

I used different solutions from different vendors. VMware products are the most stable/scalable products on the market. VMware can integrate easily with other vendors.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was easy. Some basics should be taken into consideration first.

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

Just focus on the features you need. Sometimes we misunderstand feature and pricing equations.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I tested it myself in my lab. Also, I visited some companies which work with this product to see it in action.

What other advice do I have?

This solution has lots of features. Just be aware of all of them and you will get the most out of it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user332808 - PeerSpot reviewer
IS Director at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
We're able to rapidly provision servers due to the decoupling of servers from physical hardware. Recent releases have had significant bugs, which delays new-version deployment.

What is most valuable?

  • DRS
  • High Availability
  • Overall reliability

How has it helped my organization?

The best improvement overall is the ability to rapidly provision servers due to the decoupling of servers from physical hardware. We have saved countless hours of time at the data centers racking and stacking servers.

What needs improvement?

Recent releases have had significant bugs, which ends up significantly delaying the deployment of new versions. In particular, with vSphere 6, there is an all-paths down related bug that is preventing us from upgrading. The VMware Update Manager component of vCenter desperately needs to be deployed as part of the vCenter Server Appliance, not requiring Windows Server and SQL Server.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for six years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

No issues with deployment. It is almost too easy. The same with subsequent upgrades.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have not encountered any issue with stability, however, this is a direct result of watching for reports of others experiencing issues. We take a very cautious approach to upgrades so that we don't experience some of the issues that would impact stability

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not had any issues with scalability. We have seen significant performance improvements over time allowing us to increase our consolidation ratios.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

All aspects of being a VMware customer have been excellent. We have a very engaged sales team who will bring the correct resources to the table when we need to discuss solutions.

Technical Support:

The technical support is excellent. The few times we have engaged technical support have resulted in the appropriate engineer being assigned quickly and the person has followed through to resolution of the issue.

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

We previously used VMware Server. We switched to vSphere ESXi because of the scalability and management enhancements. Additionally, it didn't need a separate operating system to manage.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very straightforward. It was almost too easy. Once vCenter is up and running, creating the first cluster was simple. There is very good documentation from VMware and many other resources available online to assist with selecting the correct configuration options.

What about the implementation team?

All aspects of our VMware environment have been implemented using in-house resources.

What was our ROI?

As a small organization, we don't track specific ROI. What I can say is that we most definitely would have spent a significant amount more money and time if we continued using physical servers instead of virtual servers.

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

For rapidly growing organizations like ours, virtualization is critical to meeting internal and external customer demands. The licensing might seem to be expensive, but the stability and excellent technical support make up for the costs

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We considered Red Hat's KVM offering. The different subscription models (license plus maintenance for VMware vs annual support for Red Hat) would have resulted in more money spent on Red Hat in year six, and every year thereafter.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise anyone who is interesting in implementing virtualization using VMware's products to try it. We started using the free licensing without support and were extremely satisfied with the ability to rapidly provision resources. We then purchased licensing and support to better manage the environment and have grown to 50 licensed hosts.

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_user320115 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Engineer at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
With it, you don’t have to go with third-party solutions as long as you have people with the ability to script within your enterprise who can create tools and access APIs.

What is most valuable?

The command line power CLI module is a great feature, but the PowerShell module is my preferred management tool.

How has it helped my organization?

The automation that it provides is the best. Also cost savings, because you don’t have to go with third-party solutions as long as you have people with the ability to script within your enterprise. Then, you can create your own tools and access APIs very easily.

What needs improvement?

That’s a difficult question because there’s so many features that have been developed but not released yet. I would like to see more workshops with training opportunities at no cost to the customer. That would be very helpful.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We kind of just started off large, and kept getting larger.

How are customer service and technical support?

It’s decent. Fairly responsive, not super great but adequate.

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

We were on Hyper-V, and it sucked. The manageability of vSphere far outperforms Windows Hyper-V, at least the 2008 version. VMWare is more stable, it clusters better, and is just better in general.

For me, it’s manageability. VMware offers so many different ways to manage their solution. You can use UNIX-like command-line interface to access the host, can use Pearl, you have a lot of different options at your disposal.

How was the initial setup?

I don’t know.

What about the implementation team?

We hired a consulting firm to come in and actually develop the environment when we moved from Hyper-V.

What other advice do I have?

There’s no better alternative. I would absolutely recommend vSphere. I do think that they’re the most expensive, but well worth the money.

I also think peer reviews would be an interesting way to research, as I haven’t ever encountered a site like IT Central Station before, but I can definitely see the value of moving forward with it.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user313830 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Systems Engineer at a individual & family service with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Instead of having one application for every physical host, we can run 30-40 on one host.

Valuable Features

The entire virtualization element has allowed us to utilize the hardware more efficiently.

Improvements to My Organization

Instead of having one application for every physical host, we can run 30-40 on the same physical host.

Room for Improvement

I think the updates allowing me to run through the VCSA appliance could be better.

Stability Issues

Fantastic – I love vMotion.

Scalability Issues

Its been working out great for us.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Our technical support is through HP, but we've had very few issues, and it's been great for us.

Initial Setup

It was way too easy.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

We look at the price point per performance, performance first and then how much it costs.

Other Solutions Considered

We looked at Red Hat but the VMware solution worked out better for us.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user293886 - PeerSpot reviewer
VMware Consultant at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
With its High Availability feature, it's become a standard hypervisor with our customers, though the VDI could use improvement.

What is most valuable?

  • High Availability
  • Distributed Resource Scheduler
  • Site Recovery

How has it helped my organization?

It has allowed us to provide services to our customers more efficiently than ever. Combined with HP Cloudsystem Matrix, it has become standard with our customers.

What needs improvement?

  • VDI
  • Backup solution

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for the past nine years, since v2.5 was released.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Not really, just some tuning prior to release into production.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Not at all, this is by far one of the most reliable hypervisors to date.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

ESXi allows us to grow dynamically and with minimum downtime.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

9/10.

Technical Support:

8/10.

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

I have used Hyper-V solutions that lack many high availability features, and the idea of being a Windows based hypervisor made them not so stable.

How was the initial setup?

It was pretty much straightforward. It all depends on how deep you want to go with configuration.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it for our customers.

What was our ROI?

From my position, it means lot less administration, and better ease of use. It also allows us to have fewer physical servers.

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

Some may say it's not cheap, compared to Microsoft or Citrix, but when you master the solution, you realize its features are unique.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We just looked at the different licensing options.

What other advice do I have?

I would encourage you to try this solution not just for Labs, but for production and DRP solutions. I know there are many others out there, and some very good ones, but VMware has been evolving in the right direction, and it is still the benchmark for all the others.

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: January 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free VMware vSphere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.