AnkurGupta1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Lead Consultan at HCL Technologies
Real User
Useful automation, beneficial services, and reliable
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of the vCloud Director are global management, added services, and automation."
  • "vCloud Director should improve by having support with other cloud providers, such as Microsoft Azure and Google cloud."

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of the vCloud Director are global management, added services, and automation.

What needs improvement?

vCloud Director should improve by having support with other cloud providers, such as Microsoft Azure and Google cloud.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using vCloud Director for approximately one year.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

vCloud Director has been stable in my usage.

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The environment of the vCloud Director is able to be scaled.

Our customer has approximately 40,000 users using this solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of vCloud Director is simple, it is not complex.

What about the implementation team?

We did the implementation of vCloud Director ourselves. We support the solution 24 hours a day seven days a week and we use two to three people for the deployment. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

vCloud Director is priced higher than other solutions, such as Nutanix.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We compared vCloud Director with Nutanix and we found that vCloud Director had more features at the time. However, they have had some updates and they have similar features now.

What other advice do I have?

I rate vCloud Director an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Director at Silicon Sky Consulting LLC
Real User
Automated virtual resource creation with good options for scaling usage
Pros and Cons
  • "There are various options for scaling and that flexibility is a good option."
  • "The initial installation and setup are very quick."
  • "The stability of the product is better than just 'good.'"
  • "The product could use a billing feature so we can automate billing for clients."

What is our primary use case?

We are VMware Verified Cloud providers. So we run vCloud Director. We run NSX (Network Security Platform). We run the whole suite of VMware products to host our customers' various applications.  

Our primary use case is to enable our customers to use the vCloud Director platform to drive the portal that they create using compute resources from their side. So, it is used for the automation of resources in the VMware on our VMware platform for customers to create Virtual Datacenters.  

What is most valuable?

Our customers host their applications with us like they would host it with AWS or Azure. So, in terms of that, the most valuable part of the product for us is the ease of creating resources for them to run their applications and infrastructure for doing business.  

What needs improvement?

The first thing that I would say if someone asked me for what nice feature I would like to see, it would be a billing feature. To be able to automate our billing for clients would be a nice feature for us and save us a lot of time.  

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using vCloud Director for eleven years.  

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the product is very good. It is better than just 'good.'  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We manage our scalability using multiple pods. We have a certain number of servers and available storage, and when a VMware customer gets to a certain size, we just install a whole new pod. We manage our scalability that way rather than scaling sideways which we do not want to do. If we scale sideways and you have an issue on your platform, then all your customers are affected. We manage the risk for our customers and our uptime by scaling out the pods.  

How are customer service and technical support?

In my position, I do not deal with technical support directly, but I have not heard any bad stories about them. Based on that, I would say the technical support must be pretty good.  

How was the initial setup?

The initial installation and setup are very quick. It takes minutes rather than hours or days.  

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I can not tell you exactly how much it costs, but I know our bill is in the millions (rand) every month.  

What other advice do I have?

I think the product has come a long way since its introduction. It is stable now. In the early days, there were some teething problems. At this point, I would definitely recommend it. It has become a mature product now and it works well.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate the vCloud product as a good eight or nine-out-of-ten.  

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
vCloud Director
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about vCloud Director. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
770,428 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Senior Engineer with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center
Pros and Cons
  • "We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center."
  • "If you use it for a lot of customers, it is too heavy for this solution."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for hosting our customers: a single environment with a single GUI. Our customers are known to have compute and Eos infrastructure cells. 

How has it helped my organization?

We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center.

With vCloud Director, our customers can use the VMs:

  • They can destroy them.
  • They can create new ones.
  • They can change them.

They can do this in simplest and quickest way possible.

What is most valuable?

  • Its simplicity
  • It is powerful.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

You can use it for a few customers. However, if you use it for a lot of customers, it is too heavy for this solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Concurrent users use tends to go slowly.

How are customer service and technical support?

The technical support is super.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We decided to automate our actions.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex because we had more than one solution to implement.

What about the implementation team?

For VMware, we hired an engineer for a couple of days.

What was our ROI?

We are able to provision new clients faster. Every month, we take on more customers.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

HPE and VMware were on our shortlist.

We have also used Microsoft SPLA.

What other advice do I have?

We use vRealize Orchestrator with vCloud Director for creating work flows. You can automate your work.

Using the self-service capabilities, our customers can quickly use the product with instructions and learn it within an hour.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
Head of R&D Department at GigaCloud
Real User
Helped our clients manage their infrastructure and has enabled us to provision our clients faster
Pros and Cons
  • "This solution has helped us make money and provision our clients faster."
  • "vRealize Orchestrator is an expensive tool."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is for our clients to manage their infrastructure.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution has helped us make money and provision our clients faster. 

What is most valuable?

We have found the multi-tenants to be a valuable feature. 

I think that the data protection, disaster recovery, and container features are the future. We work with the cloud Availability product. We want our clients to use it but we have had a lot of problems with it so we'll wait for the next version. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's very stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is stable. I have the ability to scale horizontally. 

How are customer service and technical support?

The GSS engineers are good. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We analyzed the markets and our clients. We gathered some feedback from our clients and after that, we decided on this solution. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was complex.

What about the implementation team?

We integrated in-house. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

vRealize Orchestrator is an expensive tool. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at VMware and Open Source.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate this solution an eight. It has a lot of features in the roadmap, maybe in a few years, I can give it a ten. 

I would advise someone looking into this solution to test your environment and to determine whether or not this solution is suitable for you. This solution was a good decision for our clients and we get good feedback from them. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
OS & Servers Manager at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Good platform for visualization and monitoring but not for redundancy and distribution
Pros and Cons
  • "vCloud is a good platform for visualization. It is very handy for monitoring. VMware can integrate with all monitoring systems like vRealize, and the management monitoring is good. I'm very happy with VMware. VMware is good in management and monitoring systems."
  • "This is very simple in OpenShift. We are happy with vCloud in terms of the virtualization but not for redundancy and distribution."

What is our primary use case?

For vCloud we use a private cloud. In a distributed system, CapEx and OpEx are better. In storage, when you use a stand-alone system you have to pay much more than with a distributed system.

What is most valuable?

For vCloud we use a private cloud. In a distributed system, CapEx and OpEx are better. In storage, when you use a stand-alone system you have to pay much more than with a distributed system. With a storage system rather than stand-alone systems you have to pay much more than a distributed system.

What needs improvement?

In the virtualization aspect, we are happy, but if we work on the public cloud, not the private cloud.OpenStack has a lot of features. In OpenShift when you configure it you can provide 100 web service in redundancy mode. 

This is very simple in OpenShift. We are happy with vCloud in terms of the virtualization but not for redundancy and distribution.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using VMware for five to six years. 

We've been using vCloud for two years. With vCloud, we have to pay more much for the license but OpenStack is almost an entirely free platform. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We don't have any issues with stability. 

With our license, when we want to expand and connect vCloud with the billing systems you have to pay more.

It's your choice if you want to pay more for a license because the billing system is separate but you have to pay more. For example, if you have the Python team to develop the system, you can use OpenStack and you pay less than wit the vCloud system.

We don't have any issue but when we want to extend the system, we have the problem with the license and so we have to pay more. It's better to use the other solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have three staff members in the network and two people on the storage side. The whole team is around 10 people.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is good but the price and the license are very expensive.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is simple. The support for the deployment is very good. We were happy with the deployment, it is very simple and if you get team that is familiar with various solutions you can deploy very quickly.

In the older version, VMware supported NSX, but right now VMware provides NSX-T. NSX-T can connect your network, your VMware, your vCloud network to the SDN, and you can connect to other platforms. The initialization and the configuration in VMware is simple. We didn't have any issues.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate vCloud a seven out of ten. 

In the next release, I would like to see better integration with VMware and the older cloud solutions like OpenStack. I think VMware is working on it.  

OpenStack works better than VMware in a distribution system. 

We have better performance in surface storage, we have better documentation. 

vCloud is a good platform for visualization. It is very handy for monitoring. VMware can integrate with all monitoring systems like vRealize, and the management monitoring is good. I'm very happy with VMware. VMware is good in management and monitoring systems.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
OSS Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Evolved version and the self-service features are especially valuable
Pros and Cons
  • "It has helped us develop a better way of selling services to customers, evolve from the typical housing, and make revenues for the Telefonica company."
  • "I would like to see mode accessory recovery and integration with SD-WAN."

What is our primary use case?

We are a service provider and our primary use case for vCloud Director is to build our own product.

How has it helped my organization?

It has helped us develop a better way of selling services to customers, evolve from the typical housing, and make revenues for the Telefonica company.

What is most valuable?

We like that it's multi-tenant, is supported, that it evolves with time and allows us to offer services to our enterprise customers in the B2B segment

The self-service features have been very valuable to our organization. We are a service provider so we push access to our customers so that they can self-serve. With every version, it evolves more. It gets better with time.

It allows us to provision new clients faster because we also automate with CLI which is a valuable feature for us.

What needs improvement?

 I would like to see Business recovery and integration with SD-WAN.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is very good, rock solid. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have some limitations with scalability because we are service providers. In the past with things like the number of VLANs, external networks, and the number of volumes per customer, we had to be very, very careful to be able to scale properly and with business sense.

How are customer service and technical support?

Their technical support is very good. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We've been in the hosting business for fifteen years, so it was a natural evolution for us when it came time to switch. In a way, we are growing together with VMware.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward the first time. It was complex the second time. It became a brownfield because we had several products integrated and we had to connect them every time. The roadmap wasn't easy, but we did it. 

What about the implementation team?

We went directly with VMware Professional Services for the integration. We wanted a guaranteed seal and quality from the vendor.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

In terms of costs, I would say there is no comparison between this solution and alternatives. If you are in the market for VMware services, that's just what it is. You don't have any other product like this on the market.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We didn't look at other alternatives because we know that no other vendors have what VMware has. 

What other advice do I have?

If you're looking into this or a similar solution I would tell you to start fresh and start with VMware Professional Services and their architects from the beginning. 

I would definitely rate this solution a ten. It has been working flawlessly for the last ten years and we have been very happy with it.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
System Administrator at Bezeq
Real User
Organizations can use this product for disaster recovery
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support is great. They help us 24/7."
  • "We are having a bit of a problem with vCloud Availability. We know that vRA has a new product, HCX. We would like to know about it, then migrate to the product."

What is our primary use case?

It's a virtual data center for customers, and it's performing well.

How has it helped my organization?

Organizations can use this product for disaster recovery or for migration to our cloud.

This solution enables us to provision new clients more quickly.

What is most valuable?

We are using it like a virtual data center for customers with all the benefits.

What needs improvement?

We are having a bit of a problem with vCloud Availability. We know that vRA has a new product, HCX. We would like to know about it, then migrate to the product.

We are also looking for upgraded VMware environments to the latest versions.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good. We are working now to increase the size of our environment.

How is customer service and technical support?

Technical support is great. They help us 24/7.

What other advice do I have?

I recommend this solution. It is a very good product.

We would like to start using the container feature and PKS. We are mostly using the vCloud Director, vSAN, and vCloud Availability.

Right now, we are not using their self-service. We implemented our self-services. Developers in our company make a self-service portal. However, we are also looking at the self-service of VMware products.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
System Administrator at a cloud solution provider with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Although deployment is simple, I suggest taking security and licensing compliance into consideration when doing so.

Valuable Features

The real multi tenancy and distributed administration for vDCs is the goal of this product, which combines consuming resources as a service with a great governance model for different customers.

Suppose you need to build one or more virtual datacenter, and meet the demands of customers, supplier and departments. In a traditional architecture (vCenter and esxi hosts) you need hard integration work to answer this problem.

vCloud director solves this problem weaving computational resources, storage and networking with consumption requests from companies, departments and individual operators in a dynamic and safe way.

Improvements to My Organization

We combine this architecture with existing vDCs with limited business impact (because vMotion could aid to limit or eliminate downtime). Now selling VM, request demo or trying an environment is very simple: just a few clicks to go!

Improvement in IT departments regarding the delivery of virtual datacenters for Business, Government and Captive area (holding headquarters and associated companies). Hospitals and Governments could use this because data is under their control, with very low risks for stability and security: governance still remains with the cloud consumer.

In my scenario I'm using 2 vDCs (marked as gold and platinum) in 2 different places and allow an organization (our customer) to use parts of these vDCs to stretch VM distribution across a datacenter, make DR on-demand (and without up-front costs) and respond quickly to business demands.

Use of Solution

I've been using this solution for 3 years.

Deployment Issues

Deployment is very simple, but I suggest a little design and hardening phase to meet security and licensing compliance.

Stability Issues

Product is mature enough to support huge loads: the underlining technology is the best in class to meet many customer needs. The product is very stable.

Scalability Issues

Product is born to be scalable, because it should be used in different modes (cloud provider and private cloud environment).

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

People say that VMware customer service is very helpful and quick to solve issues. In my life I've use this service only for administrative issues (contracts, portals, licensing); this is because documentation, their knowledge base and community always are enough for problem solving.

Technical Support:

Official documentation is very good, and could give you skill to deploy, run and improve your vCD system (VMware always work hard for this phase).

Initial Setup

Setup was quite straightforward, because VMware always provides great documentation for deployment, configuration and troubleshooting.

Implementation Team

I deployed and set up this system in-house (my team staff: virtualization area), because this is a company core-business, and it is the minimum to do to learn and solve problems quickly.

ROI

Our ROI was reached considering 2 factors:

- A service provider model built on VMWare contracts and many resource delivery models, cost are as-a-service and bound to the VM vRAM: licensing cost is 1:1 to the assigned resource. Considering 50% of infrastructure cost per VM in 3 years, 10% of VMware cost and 10% of infrastructure cost, break even could be in 1.5 years.

- In both private and public scenarios many administrative tasks are solved by on-demand models that could be elastic and efficient. Considered a manpower reduction of about 40% and a potential reduction of 99% for provisioning tasks. IT Virtual administrator staff finally do the real job: troubleshoot, provision and do only heavy activities with less effort.

One more important thing: vCloud works with his chargeback product to show and take many costs under control.

Pricing, Setup Cost and Licensing

As mentioned above, the service provider model costs are calculated considering:

- physical environment cost (up front cost or by loan)

- licensing cost 1:1 to vRAM

- setup requires no more than 1 week.

Other Advice

Before installing vCloud director, I suggest:

1. Check HCL and compatibility matrix between vCloud director, vSphere and vCloud network and security (ex: vShield manager)

2. Use vDC resources only for vCloud director purpose, don't mix traditional vSphere and vCloud director usage.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: VMWare Partner Service Provider
PeerSpot user
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Updated: April 2024
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free vCloud Director Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.