We performed a comparison between Azure Stack HCI and VMware vSAN based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, VMware, Nutanix and others in HCI."Starwind support is excellent. They are very fast and have very good knowledge of Starwind and Hyper-V Cluster software."
"The management interface on the software is very simple. It is insanely simple compared to most SANs. The interface is also powerful when used to complete tasks that an IT administrator needs to complete."
"Ten gigabit Ethernet compatibility, support, ease of use, and management are some positive features."
"The support has been amazing and quick to reply."
"Virtual SAN runs on iSCSI, which is free and easy to configure. It's easy to manage from StarWind's GUI console, and it only required a few extra switch ports."
"You can build cheap, reliable, replicated virtual machines clusters using simple servers with an all flash disk or SAS\SATA hybrid tiered by performance storage."
"The solution is also quite flexible. As an example, other vSAN solutions that we looked at had more stringent requirements regarding mixed HDD/SSD storage which wouldn't have worked in our environment."
"High Availability is the best feature of product."
"The solution has the latest processor."
"In my hybrid cloud setup, there are three features I've found very efficient. The first is software-defined networking. Similar to Azure where you create virtual networks and software load balancing, Azure Stack HCI lets you configure them with a drag-and-drop experience on the on-premises cluster. That's one of the good feature."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is its ability to manage VMs."
"All the features are working great."
"The most valuable feature of VMware vSAN is you do not have to use additional hardware for storage. The operation of VMware vSAN does not take a lot of effort. If you have VMware technology on your site, then it's easy for the operational support of the system."
"It helped us survive power outages in one of our data centers, then continued to function without a hitch."
"The high availability is very good."
"Very easy to implement in any existing environment."
"Allows us to implement more quickly, and to ease the maintenance."
"vSAN Health is a feature designed to monitor the health and performance of the vSAN environment. It's crucial for us and our customers to frequently check on this to ensure everything is operating smoothly."
"The most valuable feature is fhe flexibility, the ability to move the machines around without hesitation."
"I would like to see options for automated notifications of any changes, including, for example, synchronization issues."
"It is difficult to control all of the hardware components."
"StarWind really needs to market its product more."
"I'd prefer it if a remote console was provided."
"The StarWind Management Console is available only for Microsoft Windows/Windows Server, and should also be available for Linux and macOS, as it would reduce implementation costs."
"Sometimes documentation on their site can be out of date."
"It would be great if it provided thin provisioned virtual disks."
"I would like to see more monitoring and alert tools."
"The product's initial setup phase can be a bit complex, making it an area where improvements are required."
"We faced multiple problems with the product’s stability."
"There are a lot of areas for improvement. Since I've been working very closely with this product, there are many areas, especially in software-defined networking. We had to improve multiple areas because we depended on the service fabric cluster to manage the software-defined network. That means we're already running a hypervisor inside a VM, and we're managing the control plane of the software-defined network. That's another cluster. So, multiple layers make the complexity more. So, from an operational perspective, it's very difficult to manage."
"The biggest room for improvement I see in vSAN is the lack of SAN connectivity. I've kind of joked around that there is no "SAN" in vSAN. And it's something that we've worked to try and introduce some options for, and we're going to continue to work towards that."
"This is quite an expensive solution."
"The pricing could be better when it comes to renewing the licenses."
"I would like to see better performance graphs, maybe something that you can export outside to a different console, and maybe a little bit longer time period. The 18-hour maximum, or 24-hour maximum, is kind of short. Also, the hardware compatibility limitations are a little frustrating sometimes, but as everybody's starting to adopt vSAN more, you get more options for hardware."
"The customer service is good but there is a cost for it. It does not come free."
"I have used the VMware Replication but I can't get it to work properly. The process should be simplified."
"I would love for this product to be cheaper and easier to configure."
"One area that could be improved is the management feature."
Azure Stack HCI is ranked 17th in HCI with 3 reviews while VMware vSAN is ranked 2nd in HCI with 227 reviews. Azure Stack HCI is rated 8.4, while VMware vSAN is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Azure Stack HCI writes "Performs well, provides good features, and has the latest processor". On the other hand, the top reviewer of VMware vSAN writes "Very stable, easy to set up, and easy to use". Azure Stack HCI is most compared with VxRail and Sangfor HCI - Hyper Converged Infrastructure, whereas VMware vSAN is most compared with VxRail, Microsoft Storage Spaces Direct, HPE SimpliVity, Red Hat Ceph Storage and Pure Storage FlashArray.
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