VMware vSphere Reviews

Our primary use case is for integrating data feeds from multiple applications. 

The ability to redistribute loads, to re-spin failed processes, monitor resource utilization, and such are all valuable features in VMware. In industrial IoT, most elements end up being terrestrial. With VMware, especially when you're working with niche products, you can manage the integrated solution and multiple systems from a single pane of glass.

We're moving towards containerization and it was unclear what I'd have to do to support containerized environments alongside multiple systems of Linux and Windows. My aim was to get to a single hypervisor environment in which I could support a container environment as one of the array of other applications. Whether due to a lack of training or information, I was unable to get to that. Some people look at VMware as being an alternative to containerization, enabling them to dispense with solutions like Kubernetes and Docker in order to do away with VMware. That's not the reality and I'd like to have a transparent platform that can support all of them.

Aside from cost, I'd like to see some simplification in the solution. The main issue is manageability or scalability of skilled resources, the degree to which the product delivers a stable environment that can be managed by a less technical person. 

I've been using this solution for two and a half years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is very easy to scale, especially when you are trying to scale resource availability and the management of the solution. You need to have a degree of transparency across all those environments.

I haven't personally had any contact with technical support. 

I've deployed Docker as a standalone using Linux, multiple servers, etc. I'm currently learning Kubernetes so that I can create a new island in the chain and do a container, but I still have the other systems that continue to run in environments best suited to VMware.

The initial setup is straightforward for a computer savvy guy. I haven't experienced any bugs or glitches. Our customers are generally small to medium size organizations. 

For now, I would go with VMware for the Windows and Linux environment and do Kubernetes as a new island in the chain for containers. For most organizations, the ideal is the number of other users of a solution, because they're the ones that find the problems before you. Going off into some experimental environment may sound great and you might have a good initial experience, but if you're going to be the only person walking the minefield, it may not be a good ending.

I rate VMware nine out of 10. 

Previously, we were using the conventional physical server but we now use the enterprise version of VMware vSphere to virtualize all of our servers. All of the servers in our company are now virtualized servers. In 2016, we do not know that virtualized servers can be monitored, we have implemented monitoring for the virtualized systems and management allowing us to create DR for the solution.

The most important feature is the ability to balance the servers with Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS). It is a very useful feature and should be mandatory for vSphere to have but it is only available in the enterprise edition. It should be available in all versions.

We are provided with a mini dashboard that has been improved in the latest version but it still could be better. The monitoring is now available on the vCenter dashboard and the vROps has been added to the basic version that had to be purchased separately before. A complete dashboard has always been provided with some competitors, such as Nutanix.

I have been using the solution for approximately seven years.

The solution is reliable.

We have purchased the platinum technical support and they are responsive. They answer emails and telephone calls quickly.

I have used Hyper-V previously.

The initial setup is easy but the security configuration is complex.

We are on a perpetual license for VMware vSphere and the price can be expensive compared to other solutions, such as Hyper-V. They should lower their price.

I have evaluated Nutanix.

I would recommend this solution to others. I advise those wanting to use the solution to test it out and compare it to competitors.

I rate VMware vSphere a nine out of ten.

It's the main virtualization solution for our clients.

The HA and DRS are very valuable.

It is a very stable solution.

Integration with other environments was simple to achieve.

The initial setup is simple even for complex environments. The documentation for implementation is very good.

VMware vSphere has great technical support.

The documentation could be improved. It does not help me to show the client the value of going with VMware vSphere rather than an open source or cheaper solution.

If we have extensive documentation that is complete and helps us understand all the features, it will help us to try to propose the solution itself and try to show the value of going with it.

I've been using VMware vSphere for more than twenty years.

When compared to the stability of other solutions, VMware vSphere is by far the most favorable.

Compared to Microsoft's technical support, it's by far the best experience that we've had.

The initial setup is very simple. Even for more complex environments, it's really pretty simple. The available documentation is complete, which helps specialists create more complex solutions in VMware.

This is not the cheapest solution, but when you consider the stability of VMware vSphere, it is a great solution.

My clients evaluated Hyper-V because they use a Microsoft environment.

I recommend that they get familiar with the technology and also with the documentation for implementation. It's really complete. I would also recommend that they obtain the training available online, which is really good.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate this solution at ten.

The primary use case is enterprise virtualization for server consolidation, energy conservation, data center space conservation, and overall efficiency and scalability.

The mission-critical apps we use it for are everything from machine-learning to business processing to scientific research and development.

We have absolutely seen a performance boost, in particular with some of our legacy applications. For some of the legacy apps, we have seen at least a 75 percent increase. In addition, some of the newer applications have also seen a boost because they're just more efficient running on VM rather than on bare metal. For the newer apps, depending on how they're optimized, the increase has been at least 10 percent.

Another benefit we have seen is the many-to-one relationship of VMs to hardware, versus one-to-one. It's a real win-win for our data center. It's a win-win for taxpayer dollars. And from a scalability point of view, we're able to rapidly scale workloads where we weren't able to do so before, working with just our pure hardware.

In addition to that, it really fits nicely into our automation efforts, where we can dramatically reduce the deployment times for applications and the services we provide.

The most valuable features for us are DRS, VMotion, and, of course, some of the analytics that we were able to define to quantify our workloads and tell us how we are able to make our data center more efficient.

It's absolutely efficient and simple to manage in general. Set it up, configure it, then monitor, manage, and maintain. That's it. What makes it simple to manage is that we use a flavor of Auto Deploy, storage policies, among other features around policies, where they come online and their policies are in them. Everything conforms to a policy. It's pretty much set up for good.

I'd like to see a little bit more integration for VDI. I think that Composer servers, security servers, broker servers with connections, I'm not sure they are necessary at this point. Perhaps they could have a lot of those functions baked directly into the hypervisor. It seems to me that if the hypervisor is scalable and flexible enough, that the processor and compute can handle all of that. Maybe we eliminate those other components for VDIs and have more mixed workloads: server workloads and desktop workloads all in the same hypervisor.

Having been a customer for a long time, and running this for well over a decade, stability has not been a problem. It has its nuances, it's not perfect, but stability hasn't been an issue.

Scalability has been the goal all along here, to be able to meet in the middle of the scalability, horizontally and vertically. We have over 10,000 users.

We've used technical support in the past. It was "fair" in the beginning, it's certainly better now. We don't necessarily rely too much on support now because there's such a breadth of knowledge in the community and among other customers so that everybody is connected.

I've been involved from the beginning until the end. In the early days, before ESX, we worked with what was called GSX, or Ground Storm X. It wasn't easy, but once you got it configured it worked and it did what it was supposed to do. We didn't have any major issues.

It was all self-installed. A lot of it was a matter of reading the directions, following them, and going to "next".

One of the things I think a lot of people are inherently bad about is assuming ROI and never quantifying it. Where I am, we've done a pretty good job of quantifying over the years. We've not only studied everything down to the number of Velcro ties used but the number of cores, the cost per core for network, even power cords, and including the consumption of water. 

We've been able to quantify virtualizing everything we can, instead of just assuming it, for ROI. We have been able to show quite a bit of good discipline around that. Again, on behalf of tax-payer dollars, I feel confident that with our shift to virtualization over a decade ago, we can definitely quantify our ROI. It's really simple.

Data-centers grow in a different direction now. They grow smaller and they become very dense, very lean, and that, unto itself, shows an ROI. There's really not a whole lot of assuming at this point that needs to be done. It's just there. You can quantify it very easily.

I have recommended VMware over the at least 12 years now that I've been working directly with them and VMware's hypervisor products. I've recommended it to a lot of folks, and this goes back to the days when other players were involved; companies like Virtual Iron and Zen. VMware has always been a leader in that space and I foresee that they always will be.

Although I work in government, we are actively pursuing VMware on Cloud and we are awaiting certain certifications to help drive the initiative. At the moment we're at a standstill with that.

In over a decade, from where we started until where we are today, I would say that this solution is right around a 10 out of 10. And I can confidently say that for any customer. Even for those who are just starting up, you're working with a product that's tried and true. It didn't just come out yesterday. It's been here for a very long time.

The HA and DRS capabilities are great. Right now, we’re able to basically use the ESXi and move all the blades without the users ever knowing anything was different.

Having all the VMs and everything work without the user experience being affected.

That’s a hard question since I don’t know what new features there are in v6 other than single-user sign-on. I’m curious to see the release of v6 here, as I want to see how the client version works. I also want to get an overall view of how it works, as well as how well the mobile management works.

Of course it has room for improvement, but it’s the best in the field as there’s not many better options.

It’s been very stable for us. I’m still on version 5.5, so one of the things I wanted to do is check out if 6 is worth upgrading to.

We don’t have many users, and right now, it’s just me who's running this solution. For the VMs, we’ve been able to get requests from my internal customers to just improve on the sizes, and it works very, very well.

I’ve had mixed results primarily because I’ve had issues that have dragged on for a while, but for the most part in terms of responsiveness and explanation they’ve been very good. Once I articulate my problem to them, they explain the steps to take next very well.

We had lots of servers, and the costs were also huge. The cost was not only in buying hardware, but also looking at, in the data center, the footprint that we were taking up, and having to pay for all of that. Thus, we knew we needed to become more cost effective, and we were able to move from many locations into one server location in a chassis.

The environment that I manage now was set up about six years ago. We had an outsourcer (third-party) set it up since we wanted a professional to setup a new technology. He royally screwed it up, and we had to come back, completely rip it up, and restart. VMware had to help us get it back up to speed since that point.

Capabilities, as we do a bake-off to essentially evaluate options. We look at multiple vendors, and see if they meet X and Y demands, and see who does it best.

I have a list of things that I think I need, but it helps to see what others need and want as well. After seeing their pros and cons, we can reevaluate on what we need in our environment accordingly.

VMWare was the vendor that won last time, nobody wanted Hyper-V. We looked at Hyper-V and VMWare only, and nobody wanted Hyper-V. VMWare delivered far better test results.

Without explicitly saying look at VMWare, understand what functions you need in your products, look at different vendors and what they claim to provide, and then bring them in house to see if they deliver on their claims. They have to pass all of the tests that your company needs.

The most common use case for VMware vSphere is, of course, virtualization, specifically operating system virtualization. We also have containers that are running on them.

Essentially, we have the flexibility for a hybrid cloud. We could easily move workloads from on-premises to the cloud and vice versa if we were running on-premises and cloud, which is one of the most important points in the new releases, in particular.

The quality of support could be better.

We have been using VMware vSphere for six to seven years.

We have dealt with various versions that range from 5.5 to 7.

VMware vSphere is a stable solution.

In our organization, we have at least 60,000 users.

It is being used extensively. It is one of the core products in the infrastructure.

Support has not been as good as it once was. It used to be better, but it appears that the quality of support is declining for some reason. I'm not sure why.

Previously, we were using Hyper-V, but I don't have a lot of experience using it.

The initial setup was quite straightforward. It's very simple.

The time it takes to set up will vary, but it will most likely be within a day. You could set up the environment in a day. It is determined by a variety of factors. If it is done by an experienced engineer, it will be done within a day. If not, it will take longer.

We have a team of three engineers to deploy and maintain this solution.

Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis. The license is a one-time payment. You buy it once and own it forever, but you must pay for support, which is provided by the vendor, on a yearly basis.

We are also using NSX and vSAN. We have been using NSX for three years.

It's not strictly a cloud solution; it can be on-premises as well as in the cloud. It is, in essence, a network virtualization solution. It can be used for virtualizing the network, virtual routers, virtual switches, and virtual firewalls.

Virtualization and on-demand networking are two of the benefits. On-demand networking is the best option if I can memorize it. If you need virtual switches, we can create them as well as routers.

Virtualization would be our area of expertise.

VMware vSphere is, in my opinion, one of the best in its class on the market. However, depending on the use cases, we could certainly recommend it.

I would rate VMware vSphere a nine out of ten.

There are two versions of function more popular in our industry. One is the VMware solution, and one is Hyper-V. We choose VMware. We manage the VMware solutions with the vSphere. If you have a VMware solution, we have to use vSphere. However, if we choose Microsoft we have to use Microsoft management tools.

It is easy to deploy and manage backups for me. That said, I've used it a long time and therefore am quite comfortable with it. Upgrades and restores are simple.

The product is stable as well.

The scalability has been good.

Technical support could be a bit better at assisting. 

The solution should be more secure. Of course, it can depend on the deployment of your system on your side. Sometimes if the system is closed, you don't necessarily need more security. However, since we use different applications and tools, we must use different tools. We don't combine our security tools. However, we need to ensure that products like these are secure, and it would be ideal if more security was baked in.  

I've been using the solution for about 14 years or so. It's been well over a decade. I've used it for a while now.

The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

Scalability is very simple. You can improve or expand it as needed. It's not a problem at all if you want to expand it out. 

vSphere is for managing an organization's solutions management software. The size is not based on the number of users. Only IT, those responsible for managing the system center, or the hardware, or software of the solutions really have access to the product.

Technical support isn't ideal. They are slow to respond. We've had issues previously.

We also have used Microsoft's Hyper-V solution.

I find the solution, based on my long history with the product, very easy to set up. It's a pretty straightforward step-by-step process.

Typically, you just need one person to set it up. It only takes maybe an hour or so. Of course, the first time a person does an implementation, they might go slower.

We have two people on the system side and five people on the software side that are capable of working directly with the product.

I handled the implementation myself. I didn't need the help of any integrators or consultants. I'm capable of reinstalling it or doing a whole new setup as needed. 

We pay a yearly licensing fee. 

We're using version seven or thereabouts. 

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

I would recommend it to other users and companies. 

Our clients have a lot that they want to be deployed in an environment. What they normally do is buy two or three boxes, and then it's virtualized. We make the VM sit on those boxes. Within three boxes, they can have at least ten or 20 servers working for them. They have less power, less racking space, less cabling, and all that. That's how we use VMware.

VMware vSphere is a stable platform. We never had any issues with VMware vSphere. Once you deploy it with a stable version of the server or the hardware, there's no issue at all. 

A little automation would help. VMs normally use CPU resources. Let's say that a particular host or a server has ten VMs. Out of that, five VMs are performing, and the others aren't performing at the best level. It would help if VMware automatically learned that, and the suit itself came down to that level. When you normally give a VM four CPUs and the entire GB memory, then memory and the CPU belong to that VM.

But let's say that the VM is not using four CPUs. It's just using two CPUs. Then automatically at the VM level and without the client or the customer knowing, it should just use it at the backend. It would be better this way instead of telling the customer that they are going to reduce it. For them, it's always four CPUs, but at the backend, it's always working with two CPUs or something like that. That would have been a cool feature.

I know VMWare has this Operations Manager. I know that it comes at a price because VMWare normally wants to charge for everything in the software. But I'm not seeing all the features of the Operations Manager. I only see a few features. If all the features can be included in one package, that would be good.

VMware vSphere is a stable platform.

VMware vSphere is a scalable platform.

Technical support is fantastic.

The initial setup is straightforward. It takes a normal amount of time to install the operating system.

Normally our clients go for a one-time cost because that's easier for them. They don't want to go for recurring costs. But some clients prefer to go for recurring costs. It depends on the client and doesn't depend on us.

Once you pay for the standard license, that's it unless you want another feature to be activated. That's a different thing.

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