We performed a comparison between IBM PowerVM and VMware vSphere based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Server Virtualization Software solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The most valuable feature of IBM PowerVM is the performance of the database workload."
"What I like about this solution, is that it is easy to configure."
"IBM PowerVM's most valuable feature is stability."
"Technical support is great."
"We always recommend PowerVM to our customers; it is better than most solutions."
"It is a complete solution."
"Active Memory Sharing dynamically reallocates memory of running partitions based on changing workload demands. The memory for the pool is carved out from Physical memory and is made logical memory. The said memory is not available to be assigned to partitions as dedicated memory. A min, max and desired as well as weight is assigned to the memory of each lpar to help hypervisor make a decision in case a condition where priority is to be given to a certain lapr to use the memory form shared pool."
"A valuable feature of PowerVM is a feature that is used for higher availability plus stream for posting, which is very useful. There's a flash copy feature which we are using. PowerVM itself, I know, helps us to control and manage our Oracle licensing compliance, since it is our hardware partitioning. This is very important. If you use VMware, there will be a licensing issue. This PowerVM is a hardware partitioner, which is very important for license compliance. We are happy with this solution."
"VMware vSphere is user friendly. It is scalable and stable."
"vMotion is one of the most useful features, which helps to provide both flexibility and High Availability. With new versions of vSphere and vCenter, it is still improving (e.g., vMotion across vCenter Servers and virtual switches)."
"Reduces downtime."
"The vMotion in particular I think is the most valuable because this feature provides migrations of virtual machines in case you want to run do maintenance."
"The solution can scale well."
"The solution is easy to use, user-friendly interface and has high availability features. When comparing it to other solutions it is more robust."
"Gathering all of the hosts together to create one single pool across the enterprise is a terrific feature."
"It is a single pane of glass that lets you access your hosts and VMs."
"I would like for IBM to be more focuses on the cloud."
"Any improvements that can be made in the interface will go a long way to helping us work better."
"The program has very limited solutions for the virtualization of containers"
"As understand it, IBM sells all its hardware to Lenovo, and only PCs servers are managed by IBM. It's uncertain how much longer IBM will continue in this way, especially with the current trend of transitioning from on-premises to cloud and hybrid models. The market is evolving. Given this market shift, it's essential to identify areas for improvement. IBM has introduced the PowerVM Series, including Linux, which is a positive step. However, customers are already moving towards x86 servers due to cost considerations. The cost of PowerVM compared to x86 servers appears to be a significant factor."
"IBM should review the price of this solution in my opinion; it is too high."
"The hardware licensing model could be improved because the licensing model is a bit different from the standard hardware procured."
"PowerVM's platform build and performance could be improved."
"IBM PowerVM does not integrate with Microsoft."
"It could be more scalable."
"We'd always like to see the price drop, but I realize that may not be realistic."
"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."
"NSX is a product of VMware vSphere and it would be nice to see the solution have full integration capabilities with it."
"The technical support is not too bad, but not the best."
"In the next release, I would love to have Java as a service, platform as a service, and container as a service."
"I would like to see the UI incorporating all of the functionality that the thick client had."
"They can lower the price of its license."
IBM PowerVM is ranked 9th in Server Virtualization Software with 25 reviews while VMware vSphere is ranked 2nd in Server Virtualization Software with 446 reviews. IBM PowerVM is rated 8.4, while VMware vSphere is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of IBM PowerVM writes "A stable system for high-end data processing with a great support structure". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSphere writes "Offers good performance and is useful for banking systems". IBM PowerVM is most compared with Hyper-V, KVM, Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI), Oracle VM VirtualBox and Proxmox VE, whereas VMware vSphere is most compared with Hyper-V, Proxmox VE, Oracle VM, VMware Workstation and Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure (NCI). See our IBM PowerVM vs. VMware vSphere report.
See our list of best Server Virtualization Software vendors.
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