vCenter Orchestrator Reviews

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is that it's simple and very ergonomic to use the product compared to other virtualizing product. Out of Microsoft, Red Hat, and IBM, we found VMware to be the best one. It's a single pane of glass. We can manage… more»

What needs improvement?

It is too expensive. One of the main issues is the price. I don't know if vCenter Orchestrator can automize the provisioning of other products and other virtualizing software besides for VMware. If it will develop the ability to be a… more»

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

Our licensing is on a yearly basis. We pay for the license and then we pay the support every year.

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We compared vCenter to Microsoft SCCM and other tools and I think vCenter is the most dynamic and the easier one to use in any complex environment.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it a nine out of ten. Not a ten because of the price.

What is most valuable?

In regards to the workflows, the fact that we can actually have a full dashboard library of all the existing workflows on this is great. We can see all the workflows and what all the actions do and… more»

How has it helped my organization?

The solution helps us to manage our resources more efficiently.

What needs improvement?

We haven't gotten to that level of usage yet as to be able to see the downsides. The solution has been able to handle our basic requirements at this point. Maybe in a year, when the team has used the… more»

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

We're a partner, so we have a PLU licensing model; we have a partnership agreement.

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We didn't previously use a different solution.

What other advice do I have?

We're using the on-premise deployment model. It's a great solution and it's great to work with as well. Anything coming from VMware is pretty much top-notch, but, of course, you still have to look at… more»

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of this solution is the workflow creation. The user interface is ok.

What needs improvement?

The custom workflows are very difficult and confusing. The IDE for developing is not user-friendly and does not have IntelliSense for checking your code. I find this to be very challenging. It would be nice if the IDE accommodated all of… more»

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

We did not use another solution prior to this one.

What other advice do I have?

This is a product that I'm still exploring. I would rate this solution a six out of ten.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate other options before choosing this solution.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is workflow automation. I was interested in data and provisioning servers.

What needs improvement?

The migration from site-to-site needs to be improved. It should be easier to automate tasks in bulk, such as instantiating several VMs. I would like to be able to automate RDMs for clusters. This solution needs to have more built-in workflows.

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

I used another solution prior to this one, but it was not for VMware. It was for Microsoft VMM. We also use an Oracle solution for private clouds. We did not switch. It depends on the user environment.

What other advice do I have?

My advice is that Orchestrator will ease your life in your tasks. Once you teach yourself this product, it will make difficult jobs relatively easy. It is a good solution, but it needs the capability of bulk deployment. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

What needs improvement?

Storage has room for improvement. It's a big problem for our solution. The interface also needs improvement, it should be simplified. They should integrate more storage systems for the replication. There should be an integrated replication tool. We have two sites and we want to have the data between the sites and all the data replicated. There is no ability to do that now. You have to buy this… more»

What other advice do I have?

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We also looked at Microsoft Hyper-V.

What is most valuable?

The hardware abstraction layer, being able to make the VMs portable when moving to a different platform or over a WAN.

How has it helped my organization?

It allows us to maintain an offline catalog of a bunch of product configurations that can be powered on remotely, so they don't use any resources while they are off.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see, from within the Web Console, being able to define the project and custom templates per user; almost like how CloudSpec has approached the solution.

If you previously used a different solution, which one did you use and why did you switch?

There was no previous solution. It was all bare metal hardware. When selecting a vendor the most important criteria are time in the industry and cost.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution a nine out of 10 because of its simplicity, scalability, and availability. The one ding would be the need for better manageability of VM sprawl, that would be nice. In terms of… more»

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I looked at Zen, VMware, Microsoft Hyper-V, and the free Linux solution. My decision was made by the fact that our product support team only specifically supports virtualization on VMware.

What is most valuable?

The solution's HA feature is very good. The VRS and multi-source scheduling are very helpful. The port to run feature is good as well. The user interface is very user-friendly.

How has it helped my organization?

The powerful management console for each allocation gives the foundation of the organization. The ability for maneuvering in the location of computing resources and storage to reach the required performance for the IT department satisfies the organization's basic needs.

What needs improvement?

The solution could be a little bit less expensive. It used to be cheaper, but now it is very costly and the license model counts by the processor. The currency conversion rate in Egypt is very high, and a couple of thousand dollars means here a lot of money to us here. Mainly VMware integrates with… more»

What other advice do I have?

We mostly use the private cloud deployment model. I would recommend the solution. I'd rate it 8.5 out of ten.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is that this solution is complete, and you don't need any add-ons.

What needs improvement?

The UI should be more simplified so that fewer tech users are required. The workflow can be complicated. I would like a simpler workflow, and I would like it to be more friendly to use. In the next release, to make it easier to write the workflows, I would l like to see more HTML GUIs.

What other advice do I have?

We do not have a business relationship with VCenter Orchestrator, we are customers. To do a day to day job, you already have everything that you need in this solution. Add-ons are not necessary. This is why it is a good solution. I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.