VMware vSphere Reviews

We're using it to run all kinds of workloads.

Its stability and manageability are valuable.

There should be more stability in the updates. They had an issue with the last release.

Their support should also be improved.

I have been using this solution for 15 years.

It's absolutely scalable. We have 130 users who are using this solution. All of the company is using it.

I am not satisfied with their performance or speed for anything below P1 or production-down status. Anything below that is worse than we could expect.

Its installation is straightforward. That's not a problem.

The deployment duration varies. For a specific installation, it could take 15 minutes to set up the whole thing, and it could also take three weeks. It depends on how we're scoping it.

I could do it myself.

Its licensing is typically yearly. From a value standpoint, it's worth it.

I would absolutely recommend this solution. I would rate it a nine out of 10.

While we work with the latest version, we also support customers when it comes to backing up their older versions, meaning we work with a variety of different ones. 

Many of our customers have their core infrastructure on vSphere platforms. They make use of the solution for their virtual environments when it comes to their educational and healthcare institutions.

We consider the virtualization of CPU and storage resources to be a valuable feature.

The integration with containers should be addressed. While they have started to integrate with Tanzu, the integration is not that good at the moment. 

I have been using VMware vSphere for 15 years.

As the solution has been around for a while, it's quite stable.

The solution is easy to scale. 

We have take advantage of technical support. It is very good.

The initial setup is very simple.

Its duration depends on how big the environment is. Huge ones may take several weeks for implementation, while smaller ones would take several days. 

Once the solution is deployed, there is a need for specific maintenance, as there are security vulnerabilities which must be considered, or new features or versions that may be put out. 

We provide all the maintenance for the customers. As we also have services organizations, we manage some of these environments on the customers behalf.

As the vSphere platform allows for a variety of additions, it is quite good. There is enterprise plus, enterprise and standard, so the pricing is not too bad.

The solution is mostly deployed on-premises, although we also have cloud deployments.

This product is suitable for a company of any size. 

The solution rates competitively against Nutanix and Microsoft. Overall, I feel it to be a pretty proven platform, although the underlying platform, or the management and features that surround it, are of secondary importance. BDI is the main focus. 

I rate VMware vSphere as an eight out of ten. 

I use VMware vSphere as a regular VM for different workloads and different configurations.

I like the capability of vMotion, DRS, high availability, and resource distribution.

The price could be better. The licensing is definitely expensive and tech support is sometimes frustrating.

I have been using VMware vSphere for 15 or 16 years.

VMware vSphere is a robust and stable product. It doesn't break that often.

Technical support is sometimes frustrating. Lately, we have been dealing with some tech support on SRM and they are not able to solve it.

The initial setup is straightforward. Once you have some understanding, it's straightforward.

The price could be better. The license is definitely expensive.

I don't find anything that I think it would be a bottleneck or any challenge. I've been using it for so many years. It's a robust product, and I don't see anything lacking. I would advise potential users to go for it. It's something you can rely on. It's very robust and doesn't break if you implement it correctly. It actually gives you peace of mind.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give VMware vSphere an eight.

We virtualize our infrastructure with this solution. 

We saved a lot of time and hardware with this solution. It also prevents fewer incidents. 

I would like to see more software as a service solutions.

The tech support is very good.

The setup was a bit complex at first. Now, it is more simple. 

The implementation was fast.

The pricing is a little expensive, and the licensing is a bit complex. 

I have been a VMware Certified Professional (VCP) since 2008 and did several projects for server consolidation on-premise and migration to vSphere-based cloud. Currently, I am working on project to build a private cloud on-premise with Cisco FlexPod (Multipod environment stretched over two datacenters). The Cisco FlexPod includes Cisco UCS (computing), Cisco ACI (networking), VMware vSphere (virtualization), and NetApp (storage).  

vSphere has enabled an enterprise class virtualization environment with a central point of monitoring and management stretched over multiple datacenters (multi-site use), adding all the features of clustering for high-availability and failover, VM migration, and operations. 

vSphere brings the features required for an enterprise class system with a lot of supporting components: An intuitive user experience that simplifies and helps operational management, e.g. provisioning and monitoring the status of the VMs and the underlying resources capacity. 

As we introduce the DevOps culture, we need to make sure that the principles and tools used to support this approach can be easily integrated and interoperated with the vSphere environment with no (or less) redundancy in tools and functionality.

It's made us a lot more agile. We don't have to acquire new hardware just to bring it up or utilize new services for our customers. It makes it a lot easier for my team to allocate resources for the other business teams at the company.

The most important feature for us is clearly the foundation it provides. In addition to that, we've found the High Availability and flexibility to be important as well.

I definitely could see some improvements in Operations Management. That's another product that they have, but it's lacking in a few things. I feel that it's not as aggressive as it should or could be. They have different levels built into it, but I think they should have more aggressive levels.

Another area of improvement would be the further development of graphics virtualization. They've starting dabbling in that, it seems, but it definitely needs a lot more. They need to make it a little quicker and better.

I could count on one hand the number of times I've had issues with it and it's generally been related to hardware faults.

It's been very much scalable. When we started using it, we only virtualized a handful of servers. We've since expanded it to virtualize about 90% of our infrastructure at this point.

Customer Service:

Not really applicable to my situation. I've always had a good relationship with the regional sales rep but I don't need to contact him very often.

Technical Support:

It's been a little bit hit-or-miss at times. I think that's related to who picks up the phone first. They always get my problems resolved, but sometimes it ends up being quicker for me to figure out on my own than it is for them to get back to me. I've probably rate technical support a 6 out of 10.

We evaluated Citrix, but in our testing, vSphere was definitely more stable. Once we got started with vSphere and saw what it could do, we liked it more and more.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward, but it can get complex as you want to use more features. When we first started, it was very, very simple, but we've since made it a lot more complex to account for redundancy.

We implemented using in-house talent.

Make sure you find a good reseller you can trust. I don't have any advice with regard to pricing though, because the product is worth what you pay for it. I definitely feel like I"m getting good value.

Because there are multiple tiers, you want to make sure that you size your licensing appropriately. If you're going to have a stack, you're going to want to weigh the features that are available with the Enterprise versions versus the standard versions and really understand what you're going to get out of it.

Yes we looked at Xen server, but we had issues with VM stability. This was over 8 years ago though so obviously that isn't likely the same anymore.