VMware vSphere Reviews

We are virtualizing our x86 server infrastructure with VMware vSphere. It consolidates our environment dramatically. Our virtualization ratio is over 92%.

Using vSphere we have virtualized over one thousand servers and this gave us management, cost and datacenter space advantages.

vSphere offers the High Availability feature which serves automatic recovery of failed host's virtual machines on another host or hosts in the cluster. Also, DRS makes the cluster balanced.

Although vSphere is a nearly perfect product, it does need a little improvement. Datacenter and Cluster structure should be mixed so that the management of clusters would be easier.

I'm building a VDI center and a second-tier user. In terms of mission-critical apps, we use it for our executive pool of users to secure their everyday work. Sometimes we use it for distance education programs as well.

It has been performing pretty well.

We have seen a boost in performance in terms of delivery, but in everyday work, it's just like any other. Our delivery lift is probably more than 50 percent.

In terms of delivery, very often we would have requests for adding some new applications which were not previously there. And in previous deliveries, we would have to lose a day or so to prepare the application. Today it takes me about two hours at the most.

Its most valuable features are reliability, for sure, and quickness in getting the job done. I can spin off 100 or 200 machines in the matter of half an hour.

If I could talk to the engineers I would probably suggest a little bit different approach. There's a process that includes base-lining, then installing the program, and then doing the differentiation. That kind of approach for delivering applications, in my opinion, is way quicker. That approach would take me not more than half an hour to prepare any application. That's a feature I would like to see.

We haven't had any stability problems.

From my point of view, it scales really well; in terms of storage, I don't know.

Test it, give it a try, and see how it goes. Definitely try it.

For me, the most important criteria when looking for a vendor are

• reliability
• ease of use
• customer support.

I would rate it at eight out of 10 because there is still room for improvement. However, we are not using the full extent of the product so I might be wrong. There is some room for improvement in the ease of use.

vMotion between the hosts, deployment of the virtual machines via templates and distributed switches are some valuable features of this product.

It allowed us to move from a physical environment to a virtual environment. It also allowed us to install much more of the hardware, i.e., up to 30+ virtual machines on a single physical server.

There is need for high availability for the vCenter and also a faster/responsive vCenter web interface. True high availability for a vCenter is required in the current virtualised world. With the introduction of 6.5, VMware has now introduced true HA with heartbeat monitoring.

As VMware have gradually decided to move from the C++ thick client to the flash based web portal, and now to the HTML5 web based portal, the legacy flash based web portal for vCenter 5/6.0 was sluggish and slow. On many occasions when going through nested windows for VMware configuration, the flash plugin or browser would crash. Fingers crossed with the new HMTL5 based web portal as so far it's been solid. Even though it doesn't currently have all the features of the flash based portal, I hope VMware releases a fully-functioning HTML5 in the next release of vCenter.

I have used this solution for six years.

Sometimes we have encountered vCenter/vSphere issues that requires the service to restart or the server restarts. The web interface has a lot going on and if the browser crashes, then any progress is lost on the vCenter.

I did not encounter any scalability issues for the VMs.

The technical support is good. I had to use it for iSCSI related issues and was told to upgrade to latest build. However, it didn't fix the issue.

I was not using any other solution previously.

I set up a clustered virtual environment and distributed switches with integration into EMC VNX using VLANs for each SP for iSCSI traffic.

It is expensive for the private sector but it does have a good pricing policy for the charity sector.

We tested Hyper-V - but this was back in 2009. It was very basic then.

You need to place more time into the design phase. You should also build higher spec servers in order to save costs on the licensing.

The 3D Graphics isn’t something I have used yet, but will be very nice for VDI environments. Also, the improvements in vMotion will bring on some major changes.

In general, VMware improves the way almost every business using it operates. Server virtualization cuts down on operating costs by a lot, makes servers easier to manage, and offers increased redundancy.

I think the product licensing is very confusing still and should be simplified on a sliding scale. i.e. one to three servers are essential for four to 10 standard, etc. Instead of licensing per core.

I was using this product at home during the early testing phases and once released we rolled this out to a few of our customers.

No issues encountered.

In the early builds there were some stability issues, but that was resolved early on and is not an issue.

No issues encountered.

9/10.

10/10.

I have used Hyper-V, but it does not even come close to comparing to vSphere. There are plenty of features you cannot do easily in Hyper-V that vSphere makes a breeze.

Very straightforward. Just like moving to any other vSphere release.

We did it in-house. We are a VMware partner so we set this up for our customers.

The licensing can be a little strange, since the per CPU licensing will hopefully be gone in the future. Just make sure to know exactly what you need to make sure you purchase exactly what you need. Also, it is pretty easy to use a licensing calculator.

No other options were looked at.

You should work with an existing VMware partner to deploy, but seek proper training or coursework for day to day management.

The level of consolidation that you can implement from a hardware reduction element – it is so valuable to us in our industry. Ease of use and simplicity.

The cost savings in itself from having to buy 15 servers in each hotel. Now we have one server for each hotel. When we release our new applications, we don’t have to invest in new infrastructure, we just scale because its already in place. We're on a five-year lifecycle so we can scale for five years with no further investments.

Centralized management could be better. A server can only be managed by one vCenter. This limits our visibility to remediate, troubleshoot and fix problems efficiently.

It's very reliable. They're is not another product similar, and we've had no major outages for seven to eight years. We have hotels where you can barely reach and because of the stability of the product they can trust the reliability.

It grows beyond belief. In my situation, because Im always dealing with corporate, I have shown that virtual machines can scale to whatever we have asked it to do. If we need to scale we can, and the hardware just needs to be ordered, and setup.

I love them, they are the best in the world. We only call in emergencies, and they are the best in the world. We are changing to v6 and the support model is changing so we to procure the enterprise support even for the basic offices. In the earlier versions, I had it but now we're trying to persuade VMware for that additional 24/7 service.

It's straightforward, and couldn't be any easier. I did training around the world for IT resources, even teams who have never seen it can adopt it, both in terms of administrative and installation.

It's flexibility is most valuable, as we're able to move things around without downtime.

We now have 200 virtual machines because building a machine is so easy that anyone can do it. Now, our answer is "yes" for any requests for new VMs.

More automation would be good. You can leverage CLI or vSphere with the API’s so that allows you to do anything, but if you don’t have programming experience you are limited.

Pretty solid, like any technology there are gonna be some pitfalls, nothing is perfect, but there is no clear disadvantage for making it virtual.

Very scalable, I don’t think we’ve hit a limit. Were running 2000 virtual machines on 50 hosts and that’s one data center, and we haven’t nearly hit our ceiling.

I haven’t used it that often – they are responsive. It's pretty standard, not above average.

Pretty straightforward, I've installed vCenter dozens of times, and I've run into a few issues, but other than that its pretty easy.

We've looked at Hyper-V, Citrix, Openstack, but we continue to use vSphere, because it’s a market leader – it’s a stable company, not going anywhere.

25% of the server costs are now going to VMware; it's expensive. The stability of the company is always important to look at though.

It’s changed my life – I’ve been in IT since 1989 and very few technologies have been life changing and VMware is one of them. It has given me my nights and weekends back. It separates the software from the hardware, and having a hardware failure is not catastrophic, so I don’t have to get up and leave church, whenever I have time. Very few applications can fully utilize the computer hardware but VMware can.

I think room for improvement would be in the site recovery manager. I believe that VMware’s moving more towards using VMware appliances, as opposed to having to load components on Windows servers. I have had some issues with this – I need more tools to allow me to access database features on their appliances. They are sealed at this point.

Very stable.

Very scalable.

Technical support, when I’ve used them, have been very good. Typically, the first person who answers the phone is not very knowledgeable, but afterwards, and once they escalate the case, they are very helpful.

No – I have been using VMware since v3. I choose what I like and I stick with it.

It is somewhat complex – for building an enterprise system, however, you can get the free version, and it's actually the same version you run on your enterprise, it’s the same software.

A quality product is number one, and a strong company is number two, good support. If a company is not going to be around, then I won’t choose to spend millions of dollars on my equipment.

DRS and vMotion are the most valuable features.

Recovery from hardware failures is easier than before, growth is much easier, and it's very easy to scale out.

I don’t know that I'm looking for any improvements. I'm looking to use additional features that are already out there, and different additional products that they have out there.

Good – rarely have any problems.

Very easy to grow out and scale.

It depends on the issue, sometimes we call the support and talk to them but many times it's just an issue of going on to forums and see how other people are dealing with the issue.

Very straightforward – no problems setting up.

Potential vendors have got to provide a benefit which is hopefully not an additional cost. Or, at least be able to make up for that cost somewhere else.

Peer reviews, are very important. I prefer to start with those before I contact the vendors.