VMware vSphere Reviews

I'm a Solutions Architect. I advise clients on how to leverage VMware products to provide resiliency in the face of disruptive events. VMware's platform is the most robust for running VMs upon, and it also has the most mature technology. Therefore, it is much more reliable and predictable, and those are the key characteristics needed to ensure a successful business continuity solution. Bleeding edge newcomers have yet to prove themselves production worthy compared to VMware's long history of success.

Portability of infrastructure is the greatest asset of any virtualization platform. By using VMware solutions, there is no lock-in with a particular hardware vendor for compute, network, or storage needs. Likewise, the ability to run various guest operating systems further amplifies that flexibility. The overwhelming majority of my clients are able to use VMware's solutions for 100 percent of their software application needs. Finally, the ability of a running VM to be quickly relocated to another hypervisor or launched at another site via replicated storage greatly reduces downtime.

• Storage vMotion to safely migrate VMs to other hypervisors, storage solutions and sites while the VM is still running. 
• Distributed vSwitches to better manage networking across large infrastructures. 
• vRealize for operations management and automation to remove human error from complex tasks and enable more efficient processes and business activities. 
• The VCSA appliance provides a great interface for most management tasks. 

In general, the combination of VMware products that compose or plug into vSphere enable most organizations to better prepare for disruptive events.

The ability to run ARM based VMs on an x86 platform for testing purposes. With the growing use of SBCs running on ARM architectures for IoT devices, it would be very useful if developers could build and deploy VMs running operating systems like Raspbian used on Raspberry Pi devices on their existing x86 ESXi environments. Even if this is not possible through some form of emulation, the ability to add ARM hypervisors to vSphere environments would be very useful. This will enable more rapid development cycles for customers just getting started with IoT but already existing vSphere users. 

Since 1999 when they only made Workstation.

I've used Hyper-V, AHV, VirtualBox and KVM solutions. Each of these solutions has merits, but none of them are as flexible and reliable as VMware solutions. They are all rapidly improving, but are not being adopted widely enough to rival vSphere's dominance. I rarely advise clients to switch away from a VMware based solution, because of the long history of success and reliability that comes with it.

Do not buy based on price alone. Many of my customers chose the lowest cost option only to discover that the additional funds needed to access even a few more features would have been money well spent. Likewise, if you are going to spend more money on additional features, then have a plan to actually deploy and integrate those features into your infrastructure. Many customers never take full advantage of the many features that they are paying for and that can be avoided by being proactive in developing your overall vision for the infrastructure.

I am constantly evaluating many solutions. I also regularly re-evaluate other solutions. The competition is improving, and VMware has done a great job improving as well.

Our main use case of vSphere is as the lower layer of a cloud service provider. It's the basis for offering our services through vCloud Director to our customers.

The HTML 5 is valuable in the measure of time saved, day by day.

The most valuable feature of vSphere 6.7, is the HTML 5. I find it really awesome because it speeded up all our daily operations.

It's reliable, stable, and much easier than the previous version.

vSphere now is even simpler. It was simple even before, but going through the HTML 5 interface - and 90 percent of the features are on HTML 5 - it's even easier than the previous ones. Version 6.05 still was, it had HTML 5, but not one 100 percent.

A slight improvement could be made to the interface of the management of vCSA, so that they answer on the 5480 ports. That kind of graphical interface could be improved, but it is not a main point.

The stability of vSphere has reached a good point. Especially without the Flash and the so-called FLEX Client, with HTML 5 it is much more stable than it was before. Previously we used vCenter on Windows. We're adopting the vCSA now, it's much faster and more stable.

vSphere is much more simple to scale than before, thanks to vCSA instead of the monolithic installation on VMware.

We use VMware support. We use it quite often, but not because the product is bad, just because we have so many customers. We are talking about 5,000 virtual machines, so it's statistically probable that we would need to access support. The support is really great.

When we chose VMware, of course we checked other vendors like Microsoft because it's present everywhere; even the open-source KVM. But we decided Microsoft wasn't at an enterprise stage and the open-source one was nice to use but, since there was no support, it wasn't suitable to offer to our customers. We didn't have any doubt choosing VMware.

The built-in features such as encryption - even including TPM module 2.0, are good, but still not useful for us, just because we don't have a lot of requests for this.

The mission-critical applications - more or less all are critical applications. vCenter keeps all the virtual machines of our customers and we don't know what's on those virtual machines. For us, every one of them - not knowing what is inside - is critical. That is for the vSphere used for resources. For the vSphere that we use for management, the critical ones are the infrastructure applications, the ones that keeps the infrastructure working. So from the databases to vCenter itself, to vCloud Director, to NSX. All those machines are critical in that they keep the system working.

As for VMware Cloud on AWS, we have only tested it.

I rate vSphere at eight out of ten. Ten is perfection and I, more or less, never give a ten because people can improve. It's eight, not nine, because I still don't have complete control of the interface.

The main use case of this product and its performance is server virtualization, and the performance is pretty good compared to what we were used to with the previous version. The previous version for us was version 6.0.

There are built-in security features, TPM and encryption, which are something we're going to use at a later stage. Right now, we are waiting for a hardware refresh to be able to support a TPM version too. But it's something I'm really looking forward to.

The mission-critical apps and workloads running on vSphere are just about everything. Our municipality covers everything from cradle to grave. We are running a retirement home, nursing home, schools. The most important are the healthcare applications.

Since we started using vSphere, there hasn't been as much of a performance boost, but more flexibility and stability. We've actually been running vSphere or ESX since 2003.

How vSphere has improved our organization is that we have a lot of fewer admins today than there were 15 years ago, and we have a lot more servers than at that time. But because of the flexibility and stability we encounter with vSphere, it's manageable.

For me, the most valuable feature would be the EVC, but EVC has been changed to be per-VM which makes it possible for us to migrate the VMs to cloud and not take into account what hardware they're running on.

Also, a big improvement from the previous version is that I'm now able to schedule backup for the VCSA. That is, in my opinion, a huge improvement.

The last thing that I think is really great is, I'm now able to boot the OS and not the entire server. That's going to save me a lot of time.

I find vSphere easy to manage, especially because of both the vCenter and probably because I've been doing it for 15 years.

Where I think there is room for improvement is in the HTML5 interface in vCenter. What it lacks, for me, is integrating into VMware's other products, especially NSX.

The stability of vSphere is, in my opinion, just fantastic. I can't remember the last time we had a breakdown in the hypervisor. 

The scalability of vSphere, for my company, is perfect. It easily fits in, but we are way ahead of what is the theoretical limit.

I have used VMware technical support and the experience has been variable. But I have seen an improvement in the last year.

I was involved in the setup of vSphere. The setup was, in my opinion, very simple. It was very easy to get started.

When we initially chose vSphere, there weren't any other products, so it was simple to select the direction we were going in.

My advice would be just get started as soon as possible.

At the moment, we are not using VMware Cloud on AWS, but that's because we're still trying to get ahold of legislation because of GDPR.

If I had to rate the product from one to ten, I would rate it at a nine. What could they do to bring it to a ten? In my opinion, it would be alignment with other products, and a more automated upgrade, where you take the other products into account, so you can upgrade the entire VMware stack from a single interface.

We use it for call centers and providing server applications.

It's awesome. It works. It does exactly what we want it.

Code: They need to stop pushing it out so fast. Nobody in the real world is really using it yet, because it's not ready for prime time. It needs to be more stable. They need to get their product more stable before they push more code out. 

An example, in vCenter 6.5, they pushed HA, but it doesn't work. I've worked with so many engineers who finally said, "Give up! It doesn't work." 

I asked a question to one of the guys who did a demo with us on 6.7, and said, "Did you guys fix it?" 

They immediately skirted around the question. I said, "I'll take that as a no."

We don't have any downtime, because I built it right. I work a lot with VMware's engineers.

Though, it is not stable. The product was pushed out too quick, and now, there are a lot of bugs. We have seen bugs in vSphere, NSX, and ADDVOLUME, which we haven't even been able to have installed yet because of bugs. Also, with Horizon, we are constantly running into problems.

We are a bleeding edge company. We push it. Yet, we're not even touching 6.7 because it's too buggy.

It is easy to add stuff to the product.

Technical support is not that great. It is too slow. When you get them, they are honest, and about what is going on, which is helpful. Because if they lie to you, then you're even more screwed. So once you get somebody, but it's too slow. We've had Level 1 support where it can take hours (maybe a day) to talk to somebody, and our company can affect millions of customers.

I find the initial setup easy, but it has been becoming more difficult and technical.

Pricing is insanely expensive. We spent millions of dollars on NSX. If you want anything, it costs you more. The pricing model is constantly changing. We wanted to look at HCX, but we had to get it bundled with NSX and vRNI. We already have vRNI. I will be installing, architecting, and rolling it out. However, how does it affect the cost for HCX? We still haven't received a real answer.

I'm anxious for 7.0 to come out because I'm curious to see how the HTML will function. We keep hearing the web client will be better, and it's not. Bring back the fat client!

• DRS (compute and storage) is one of the best features for practical purposes.
• HA is a great feature, but if you keep hosts patched, HA doesn’t come into play. It’s not a day-to-day feature you use.
• Ability to vMotion across clusters. We took smaller clusters and consolidated them into one mega cluster because of the ability to vMotion from other clusters live into newly-created clusters.

The consolidation. Pre-VM, we had pain transporting applications from one physical machine to another. Now, we can consolidate machines that aren't using computer resources into an environment where they can all exist without performance degradation.

I'm excited to see in 6.0 the enhanced vMotion capabilities to connect our Phoenix, AZ and Culpepper, VA datacenters. It will have the ability to geo-vMotion instead of just metro-vMotion machines.

Now, it's much better than used to be. HA doesn’t even come into play, but you must manage the environment to maintain that.

There’s some bugs (zero uptime bug, and RAM disk issue), but those were resolved. They were hiccups/annoyances.

Phenomenal. Multiple 32-node clusters and 6.0 can support 64 nodes. Don’t know if we will get that large because it gets unwieldy, and will be hard to vMotion all of that off one host onto another and patch within a reasonable amount of time. It’s so condensed in clusters that it makes it hard to maintain.

Periodically used as sounding board for things we want to do. Not high marks, though, because first-level support is not knowledgeable. I would rather rely on peers in blogs, forums, etc. Also, sometimes they're not communicative.

Involved in the beginning with v2.5, not overly difficult (in ESXi had to come up with some scripts, because at the time it didn’t have a GUI).

Consider the scale of environment, especially if you're in a position to have closeted datacenter. It’s self-contained and cost-effective.

vSphere is great, I’ve made a career of it.

• High Availability options
• High server consolidation ratio
• Space, noise and power consumption reduction
• Easy to administer

• Response time to all areas of our company.
• Server deployment, SLA, everything was accelerated rapidly.
• Testing environment, templates, storage usage, all areas were enhanced.

• Server consolidation
• Response time
• Internal process management
• Storage usage and performance

Five years

We never found any issue during deployment of VMware vSphere. From version 5.0, 5.1 and now in 5.5 works everything fine.

The virtualization changed everything in our company, and is the way to lead from now.

We never found any issue of stability using VMware vSphere. From version 5.0, 5.1 and now in 5.5 works everything fine.

The virtualization changed everything in our company, and is the way to lead from now.

None.

VMware vSphere is a solution that offers excellent resources optimization and utilization. The solution himself improves the data center management and resources utilization is many ways.

We can't think our data center without virtualization.

Customer Service:

Customer service from VMware was always excellent. Being a client of VMware, our company have the best response, even from our partners.

Technical Support:

Never required technical support from VMware. As a VCP, I always solve the issues myself, but I know some examples from other companies and they are very happy about this.

No. The initial solution was VMware and we loved the product. There exists other solutions, but no one offers the level of trust and features that VMware offers, even open Source solutions like Xen.

No, anyway. From initial installation of ESXi servers to configuration in vCenter Server the installation process is very intuitive and easy (remember that I'm VCP).

In-house.

Our ROI was 6-12 months. The budget required to mount our virtual infrastructure was high at first glance, but the ROI was more quick than expected.

We are very happy with this and consolidation that VMware offers.

Some licenses are expensive, mailny Enterprise Plus versions, but the features that this versions includes are impressive. Just make sure you get the right version for every business or needs.

We evaluate other options, but VMware is centuries ahead other solutions of virtualization. Microsoft Hyper-V is the closest, but not reach the level of VMware. Open Source solutions was not considered at initial instance, they do not apply for a serious project of virtualization.

Evaluating migration to vSphere 6.0 in brief. I'm currently taking vSphere 6.0 courses and reading a lot, including writing a lot in my blog about this version. The improvements are really big and we wait more announces in VMware World 2015 very soon.

The ability to maximize the use of existing hardware resources and run multiple servers at the same time.

Without too much detail, we use the ESXi Server to host our SBS for DNS, DHCP, and Exchange in conjunction with another server the is used to run our file share. We have another ESXi we use in our test environment that has worked out in not only pretesting certain configurations, but also we use it to recover data from, say, an infected hard drive. We simply grab an image of the drive, restore it to the virtual machine while isolating the network connectivity and perform all solutions and testing that may be needed.

At this time and with the way we use it, none.

The company has been using the solution for a couple of years now.

Yes. With ESXi one must make sure the hardware that is used matches the compatibility list provided by vmware. Once the host machine is configured appropriately, it's smooth sailing.

Amazingly, no. All is stable with the host, and the VM's whether Windows XP, 7 Pro x86/x64, 8, 8.1, and Linux.

I think the only limitations with scalability are related to the ESXi host machine itself. If it is not configured with enough horsepower, then it wont be very scalable. However a simple machine with an intel i7 processor, z87 chip-set, Intel nic cards, and 32 gigs of ram has the ability to run multiple servers with ease and speed.

Customer Service: I have not needed to contact their customer service.Technical Support: Support has been self driven via research and VMWare's web site. Being that ESXi is free, the support is great.

Previous to the current environment. I was dabbling with virtualbox. Awesome software but the application for it is different because its small scale and does not optimize its usage of the hardware its running on. It can crash windows.

The initial setup was fairly easy ONCE the correct/compatible hardware is set up for the host machine. I found the learning curve very minor, as well.

The initial setup was performed by our IT consultant. The consultant then showed me how it works and configuration that one can do. I also dove deep into research on ESXi. I would say the level of expertise about 7 on a scale of one to ten because of the way we use it.

Well I am not in the accounting office, but I would "guestimate" that it pays for itself with the increase in efficiency, the ability to circumvent the need to have a ratio of 1 machine for every server, and it doesn't crash.

I built the machine for the test environment we have in-house. The machine ran about $700.00 over all. Day to day cost is only that of the electricity used to run it. The 4 other ESXi hosts were built before I arrived. I can estimate the cost about $400 each plus the OS's (SBS, Win2008r2, etc, etc) to build and to run daily is again only the cost of the electricity.

I came into the environment where it was already in place. Despite that fact, I have test drove Hyper-V and virtual box to compare and get a feel for which is best. I am a believer in VMWare.

Plan, plan, plan. Always plan out your network changes, test those changes, implement, monitor, and note take along the way. Aside from that, do it.

It is a compute virtualization software. It is mainly used to virtualize physical servers and deploy virtual machines on top of virtual servers. So, instead of having one workload per server, you can have multiple workloads.

The fact that you can use all the CPU and memory power that the server can provide is most valuable. In a physical server, you might end up not using all the physical resources. There are a lot of benefits, such as flexibility and mobility, in virtualizing computes.

The improvement is more from a licensing perspective rather than from a feature functionality perspective. There could be more flexibility and fewer model options to make it easier to sell. Today, there are so many different options available, and sometimes, it is not really clear which one is the right version or the right model to propose. 

We have been providing this solution to our customers for 15 years.

It is definitely stable.

It is scalable. In our country, I believe 50% of the customers are running vSphere virtualization.

I don't have experience with their technical support. 

I never did an installation, but as per my understanding, it is straightforward.

The number of people required for installation and maintenance really depends on the scale of the project. Usually, one engineer can deploy vSphere very easily.

It depends on the contract they have with VMware.

I can recommend this solution. I would rate it at least an eight out of 10.

On-premises