VMware vSphere Reviews

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. 

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. 

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.

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.

I have been using VMware vSphere for a few months.

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.

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.

I always get great support from VMware technical team.

I did use the previous version of vSphere and I upgraded for the Tanzu support and VSAN improvement.

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.

I'm a VM expert so my level of expertise is great. My solution is an in-house one.

The ROI is very fast due to virtualization, perhaps a couple of months.

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.

I did not evaluate other container solutions. For storage, I also use FreeNAS.

We use vSphere to monitor our ESX hosts and VMs. We use it on day-to-day basis. vCenter one of the first things employees open when they arrive to our offices. It is a good product. It has an array of things that you perform with it, and we use it all the time.

We are planning to use AWS, but we are not using it yet. 

It's easy to use. For an admin who is just starting to use it, it doesn't matter, since it's generally widely used. This is a big advantage. Anybody can just come in and start using it from day one.

It's simple to use. I don't use it a lot, but I can get in and guide myself through the menus. That is what makes it intuitive and easy to use.

It is a single pane of glass that lets you access your hosts and VMs. This makes the solution impactful, as you have one place to go to manage everything from one console.

The encryption security is great. It is a topic we take into consideration daily. It is important that we enable all the features and make sure our data center is secure. Nobody can hack us, get in, steal information, and use it from our systems.

We run an electric grid. Our apps that run on the electric grid are going on VMs, so these are very secure apps.

I would like to see AI in future releases.

We have had downtime, like everybody in the industry.

We scale it both vertically and hortizonally. We have many data centers on it.

We have a great team behind us technically from VMware.

I did not do the initial setup.

It keeps together a lot of different environments, making it easier and faster to work. It definitely has a good turn around.

The pricing could be improved.

I would definitely recommend the product.

The most valuable feature for us is Virtual Volumes because it gives us better control of VM stores.

It's given us the ability to consolidate SAN- and NAS-storage availability.

Even though the Web Client is faster and more efficient in v6 as compared to previous versions, it could be faster.

I've used it for three months.

We've had no issues with deployment. Upgrades from v5.5 went smoothly.

No purple screens of death with ESXi 6 whatsoever. vCenter Server works perfectly.

We encountered no issues with scalability.

We haven't used them often, but they've been excellent.

Technical support has been excellent.

We went with v6 to get the benefits of the better Web Client.

The initial setup was staightforward with the ESXi and vCenter upgrades. It worked the very first time.

We implemented it in-house.

We expect to save in the $100,000 range after only one year since we virtualized more servers.

Just evaluate the features offered in the different versions to meet your needs.

We looked at Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer, but VMware has always served us well.

Install it in a test lab first if the experience level is low for VMware solutions.

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. 

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. 

I have been using this solution for 10 years. 

This solution is very stable. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

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. 

I implemented this solution myself. 

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. 

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. 

We are using VMware vSphere and virtualization infrastructure for IT functions in my company. It is also used in other companies or industries, such as automobile factories, energy and gas factories, and State Universities.

Valuable features really depend on different projects. We are using the traditional infrastructure based on VMware vSphere. We are also using the high availability (HA) and Distributed Switch features to extend our network and switch between different hosts. 

The VMotion and SVMotion features are very essential for us to relocate the storage of virtual machines to different storage or vSANs. We are using VMotion and SVMotion features several times of the day. We are also using another VMware product to replicate a lot of solutions to a second replication site.

The biggest problem in this solution is the incompatibility of some of the features with some of the drivers installed on servers. For example, if I want to install vSphere on an HPE server, the driver is really different from a Dell server or a Fujitsu server. I need to download different drivers and install them manually, which can be improved by VMware. They can offer a special image to match different servers. We face different problems when we install vSphere on an ESXi server and have different drivers on the storage. ESXi cannot detect different kinds of storage, and they should improve this. 

We updated our existing version to vSphere 7 in a private environment, but it seems that this version is not very stable. We are facing issues with restarting the host. In earlier versions, such as vSphere 6 or 6.5, we didn't have any such problems.

It would be good if VMware can offer specific applications for mobiles to enable us to control the management of all servers by mobile. They should also improve the vCenter GUI because it is currently not compatible, and there are a lot of problems. Some of the options do not appear well in the browser. VMware should spend more time resolving the problems in the GUI.

I have been using this solution for five years.

It is very stable. However, we are facing some issues in a private environment after upgrading to vSphere 7. We are facing issues with restarting the host. In earlier versions, such as vSphere 6 or 6.5, we didn't have any such problems, and it has been very stable.

It is scalable. In my company, we have a lot of end-users, but around 16 users are involved with VMware products. We have different projects, and each project has around 10 users. 

Our teams have a specific structure. We have an operational manager. After that, we have different technical teams. I am a Senior Infrastructure Architect, and in my team, there are around eight engineers. Out of these, five engineers are involved with VMware products, and two or three engineers are involved with the network and storage concepts.

In my country, we cannot use direct support, although the direct support and technical support from VMware is very essential and influential to help and solve many problems. 

Its installation was very simple. Because we need to install vSphere on different servers, we do customized installations by using a script. It doesn't take more than 13 minutes to install each server and configure different settings.

I did it myself. I have worked as a VMware consultant with different companies, and I am certified in VMware. We cannot use direct support and specific consultants in our country.

I recommend this solution to most of my customers because it is very stable, and it has a lot of good features. In comparison to other solutions, I prefer to use VMware. I also recommend Hyper-V, but VMware vSphere is my first choice.

I would rate VMware vSphere an eight out of ten.

We use the product for server virtualization.

VMware vSphere has a user-friendly GUI. It is easy to deploy and find troubleshooting articles as well.

There could be an inbuilt dashboard for reporting purposes. At present, we have to use another paid solution for the same.

We have been using VMware vSphere for the last ten years.

I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the product's scalability a ten out of ten. We have a huge environment with VMware infrastructure for multiple users.

We encountered some delays with the responses from the technical support team. The resolutions could be more informative.

Neutral

We used Citrix before. It could be more stable. Comparing both the solutions, VMware is better than Citrix.

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. 

The product helps us save around 20% to 30% of costs.

The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a three out of ten. They have multiple products with extra services. It increases the cost.

I recommend VMware vSphere and rate it an eight out of ten.

I use vSphere for general server virtualization. I am not doing anything spectacular with it.

vSphere has absolutely improved the way our organization functions. This is because of the ease of management and the number of servers that we are able to virtualize. When we first went to VMware, we took 200 physical servers and converted them to virtual. Instead of running on 200 pieces of hardware, they were running on 8.

Obviously, this is much easier to manage from a hardware perspective, power perspective, and reliability perspective.

The vSphere is very good at advanced things like memory sharing between VMs, and CPU scheduling between VMs.

I use the automation tools that they have today.

Their command-line tools integrate well with other Microsoft products like PowerShell, so I can manipulate VMs using it.

The capability to add on new features like site recovery and monitoring is helpful.

The web user interface can be a bit clunky from time to time, so there may be some room for improvement in that regard.  I was a fan of the C# client for as long as I could use it.  The move from flash to HTML5 for the web interface is an improvement but still not a good as C# was.

I have been working with VMware vSphere for approximately 12 years.  Since VI 3.5 days.

In 12 years, I can think of one time that we've had a server crash. It was one of our host servers and the problem was hardware-related. It was attributed to bad memory on the physical host server, itself.

The VMware operating system is stable and I've never had it crash.

Scaling is very easy. Just build it, acquire a license from them and add it to vCenter.

We have about 2,000 people in our organization, and everybody has some server on there that they do something with. It may be file services, file servers, or Citrix XenApp servers.  Most of our VMware environment is our legacy servers because they still support older operating systems that I can't put on Hyper-V or AHV. For example, we have a couple of Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 servers. VMware is the only hypervisor that I can run those on.

It has probably been 10 years since I've had to call support for anything but from what I can remember, they were helpful and they solved our problems. It has been so long that I've had to use them that I would hesitate to give them a perfect rating, since I don't know what they're like today, so I think that rating them a nine out of ten is appropriate.

vSphere was our first hypervisor.

Since then we have added additional hypervisors in our environment. We have AHV from Nutanix and Hyper-V from Microsoft.

AHV doesn't support things like memory sharing, at all, and Hyper-V is just not very good at it.

I knew what I was doing, so I found that the initial setup was very straightforward. If an inexperienced user's initial setup involves a little bit of searching in Google then I would think that it wouldn't be very difficult.

We did use a vendor for our initial implementation, 12 years ago.  Since then we have done multiple upgrades and I have done several new implementations for other orgs.  They were competent at their work and I learned a lot from them that I used in my future implementations.

Basic vSphere, without centralized management, is free. When you get into the centralized management vCenter server, it starts adding cost. Then, it's license-based upon the number of CPUs in your host servers.

VMware vSphere is my preferred hypervisor. It always has been, and always will be. I suggest using it, and not hesitating. I'm sure that they're working on great stuff to enhance this product that I can't even think of, but from my perspective, everything that they do today is great. I don't know what they could possibly do to make my life easier, but I'm sure they'll come up with something.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

My primary use case of VMware vSphere 6.7 is that I manage some 100 clients who are using this product in their day-to-day work. These are businesses that use it. It runs the core of their networks. It runs their business. It is critical for them to be up and running, so vSphere is pretty important for them.

The mission-critical application that we run on vSphere is our main program that we use to actually monitor all of our customers. We have hundreds of customers. Our main application of remote monitoring runs in our vSphere environment. We also run our Exchange, which is critical. That's how we get our alerts about all of our systems that we're managing. We also run our ticketing systems. When a customer will submit a ticket via email we get it. All of that is running on vSphere.

While I don't have percentages to share, I can say that I have received a performance boost (using vSphere).

The solution has improved our organization because it's made our jobs a lot easier. We're able to monitor all these customers and, with vSphere, they're much more stable than they were previously when they were on physical servers. The fact that they're more stable makes our jobs a lot easier.

The most valuable features of vSphere are really the scalability and its reliability. It's really helped us, as a managed service provider, because we have so many customers that we have to be pretty much on call for, so that when it's up and running and it's working well, that makes our jobs a lot easier.

The built-in encryption of vSphere really helps us to secure our customers, especially customers in the medical field who need to be HIPAA compliant. Being able to encrypt the VM itself helps out a ton.

I find vSphere very simple and easy to manage. It has a very good GUI that you're able to use. Anybody can log in and start clicking around and figure out how to power on a VM, how to create a new VM. It's pretty streamlined for the most part.

As far as the ease of use goes, if you ever were in a situation where something was down, I feel like the logging in VMware makes it really easy to report what's going on. The logging is a really helpful feature. Also, some of the features built in, like vMotion - if you do have a server that's down - you can use something like vMotion to get it back up and running.

As far as room for improvement goes, I really feel like each release they're coming out with new features, making it better and better. The new HTML5 client is almost there. It needs just a little bit more and then it will definitely be ready.

Stability has been awesome. Like I said, we have 100 clients who are on vSphere and it has made all of their systems a lot more stable, which is great for us.

Scalability is really great. Being able to have a customer who decides, maybe a year after they've purchased their hardware, that they need to add another server because maybe they've decided to purchase a new product - being able to scale that system out really helps a lot.

Getting vSphere set up for the first time is pretty straightforward. The installation process is not that painful. It really guides you through it so it makes it a lot easier, especially if it's your first time doing it.

As far as our ROI goes, vSphere actually reduces time to set up a server by a ton. By a server, I mean a virtual machine. In the past, you'd have to order in hardware, wait weeks for it to come in, and then install Windows, patch it, and actually go deploy it at the customer location. Now, if the customer's already running vSphere, all we have to do is log in to that, build the VM, and install Windows and we're good to go. We've gone from days to an hour, probably.

When we were looking at vSphere, we did look at some of the competitors. Of course, we looked at Microsoft Hyper-V because we're a Microsoft partner as well. However, it lacked a lot of the things that vSphere had.

The best advice I could give somebody looking to implement the solution is definitely to download the trial because you can try it out for free. Put it on some test equipment and run it and you're going to love it.

We don't have a customer that uses VMware Cloud on AWS, but we've been very involved in hoping the price gets cheaper so we can sell it.