Head of Infrastructure at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
The best product for critical server virtual infrastructure.
What is most valuable?
Great product for critical production server virtual infrastructure. No any "gamers" in this area. Latest product can help more than previous. VMware Replication, vSphere Data Protection based on AVAMAR technology, new vCPU architecture and more new features says us that it is the one biggest product.
What needs improvement?
Costs is very expensive. But some cutting features like Vcenter Operations Manager Fundamentls are available in starting versions of vCenter. It is good way for the best marketing from VMware. But Enterprise or higher versions are very expensive.
What other advice do I have?
Now I lead the Upgrade to vSphere 5.1 project in my Company. SSO installation are strange... need to involve DBA in this process. Scripts are not good... This installation must be re-produced. But new features are very great and interesting.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Head of Infrastructure at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Highly usable but cannot be managed from Linux.
Valuable Features:
Most usable hypervisor in the industry. It's well documented, really simple and quick to setup.
Room for Improvement:
You can not manage it from Linux.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
vSPhere version 5.1 and other later releases enable for access from different platforms and not just Windows-based systems only,
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
May 2024
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Executive Director at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Easy and quick to install, flexible, and stable
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are that it's stable, easy to use, and it's flexible."
- "The price is a big issue for us because the market is very competitive in our country, so we can't really push our VMware vSphere products because the customers will prefer to use something cheaper."
What is our primary use case?
We have been using ESXi hypervisors with vCenter. We use it for both private and public clouds.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features are that it's stable, easy to use, and it's flexible.
What needs improvement?
The price is a big issue for us because the market is very competitive in our country, so we can't really push our VMware vSphere products because the customers will prefer to use something cheaper. Customers in our country are very price-sensitive, so if the price were reduced it would be more popular.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with VMware vSphere for the past decade.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a simple product to use and we haven't had any issues with using it, right out of the box. We plan to continue using it in the future.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
This is a scalable product. Our entire business and virtual machines run on vSphere, and our customers do, as well.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have been in contact with technical support and had a good experience. We are satisfied with them.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not use another similar solution prior to vSphere.
How was the initial setup?
The deployment is straightforward and probably takes less than 20 minutes per host.
What about the implementation team?
It is easy to install and we did it by ourselves.
We have two engineers who are responsible for maintenance.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
This is an expensive product, especially because we need to pay in US Dollars. Really, it depends on the exchange rate. If the exchange in our country is bad then the product becomes even more expensive.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I have evaluated other hypervisors and based on my experience, I find that vSphere is top-rated.
What other advice do I have?
This is a good product and I recommend it.
I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Directeur Production, Infrastructure et Architecture IT at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
Best for private clouds and big enterprises
Pros and Cons
- "VMware vSphere is the best private-cloud solution."
- "It is expensive. They can improve the licensing cost for Cloud Director. They can also improve the integration with other applications and the metering feature, which is currently not flexible."
What is our primary use case?
I use VMware vSphere to run all my applications in a private cloud. I had all the applications in the standalone mode. I migrated them to the cloud.
What is most valuable?
VMware vSphere is the best private-cloud solution.
What needs improvement?
It is expensive. They can improve the licensing cost for Cloud Director.
They can also improve the integration with other applications and the metering feature, which is currently not flexible.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for more than seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is very stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is scalable. We have 100 users, and we plan to increase the usage.
How are customer service and technical support?
The price is very high for professional services. I don't know why.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is expensive in terms of cost, licensing, and professional services.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend it for big enterprises. I would rate VMware vSphere a nine out of ten. It is the best solution.
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
Professional ICT at a non-tech company with 11-50 employees
Gives me the most options for integration with other software solutions
Pros and Cons
- "When I use VMware and Citrix there are conflicts."
What is our primary use case?
I have the whole server park in VMware and I have about 14 VDI desktops for Windows 7. I'm not happy with the performance. It's slow. Maybe it's the graphics, because I don't have a graphics card in this server.
What is most valuable?
It's easy to use.
What needs improvement?
The problem often is that when I use VMware and Citrix there are conflicts.
For how long have I used the solution?
More than five years.
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 also very good.
How is customer service and technical support?
It's easy to get support.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is pretty easy.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
About two years ago I tried XenServer, but it stopped because I tried to use Veeam's software which wasn't compatible with XenServer. So I chose VMware.
What other advice do I have?
VMware is a safe solution and it's a stable solution. I would recommend it.
The most important criterion when selecting a vendor is integration. VMware has the most support for other software solutions, such as backup. That's important to me.
I would rate VMware at eight out of 10. It's good but it's too expensive.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Lead System Architect at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Usability is the most valuable feature
What is most valuable?
Usability is the most valuable feature.
What needs improvement?
There is need to resume the C# client.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used this solution for six years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
There are no stability issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There are no scalability issues.
How are customer service and technical support?
I would rate the technical support at a seven out of 10. In practice, the IT has faced vCenter related problems very rarely.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We still continue using our other solution. We did not switch.
How was the initial setup?
The setup was very straightforward and simple.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The costs are inflated for small and medium-size businesses (SMBs).
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
vCenter is the only way to manage vSphere. If we speak about enterprise virtualization infrastructure, there are no special preferences.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: We are partners.
Systems Administrator at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cross vCenter vMotion allows us to perform vMotion from one vCenter to another without the need for shared storage.
Valuable Features:
Cross vCenter vMotion is a valuable feature.
It allows you to perform vMotion from one vCenter to another vCenter without the need for shared storage, like a cut and paste.
This was not possible until version 6 and is built upon Enhanced vMotion.
It requires L2 network connectivity.
Improvements to My Organization:
Cross vCenter vMotion can be particularly useful if you have migration projects, or you simply want to shift workloads to different location.
It can be particularly useful if you have plans to move from a VCSA to a Windows Platform vCenter and vice-versa.
If you have shared resources with public/private cloud, you can move them by establishing several vCenters.
Room for Improvement:
One improvement could be to have the vMotion independent of the SSO Domain.
With Cross vCenter vMotion, it is a requirement to have both the source and the destination vCenter on the same SSO domain. It also requires version 6 and above. You cannot have this between a version 6 and 5.5.
I still experience lag with the web interface
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
Having vMotion independent of SSO would be a great thing but more than like would take some code rewrite. Love that idea though. I see a bit of lag in the Web Interface but not nearly as much as previous versions. Not sure what web browser you are using but I find Opera works very well with the Web UI.
Deployment Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
It has helped organise computing into more logical groups, instead of random physical servers.
What is most valuable?
- Scalability
- Flexibility
- Vmotion across vCenters
How has it helped my organization?
It has helped organise computing into more logical groups, instead of random physical servers all over the place. It has also made the provision of new servers quicker and easier, allowed the space to build proper development infrastructure and also allows quick decommissioning.
What needs improvement?
The webclient could use more features and a cleaner layout.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the product for 2 years.
What was my experience with deployment of the solution?
There were no issues with deployment. It was very smooth.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No issues encountered. It has really improved.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I did not encounter any issues with scalability. This is much better now.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
No, I did evaluate Hyper-V and Xenserver, but stayed with VMware due to features, despite initial cost difference.
How was the initial setup?
The setup was fairly straightforward. ESX is easy to configure and vCenter is intuitive on top.
What about the implementation team?
We evaluated our current project vendor, but discovered we had more knowledge and accountability in-house.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
As I previously mentioned, we evaluated Hyper-V and Xenserver, but we decided to stay with VMware as a result of the features offered.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend evaluating the features that match what you need before deciding. Use the 60 day trials to test.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Updated: May 2024
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