it_user321366 - PeerSpot reviewer
Vice President, Systems Architect at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
vMotion helps with core banking operations and time-to-market, but I'd like to see self-discovery of assets.

What is most valuable?

  • vMotion helps with core banking operations and time-to-market
  • We define architecture tiering
  • Availabity is important
  • Lots of compliance requirements, so being able to maintain application and business continuity

How has it helped my organization?

It's helped bridge business requirements into infrastructure. Because of the cut down in provisioning time, we’ve proved that VMs are valuable as assets, and helps establish trust between business partners and IT department.

What needs improvement?

I'd like to see the self-discovery of assets and integration of application profile into different assets. Also, the challenge we have is deploying an asset into a datacenter.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It’s very stable. Lots of fear in the past (“my application not a candidate for virtualization”), but we’ve proved them wrong.

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VMware vSphere
April 2024
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable, we have three core data centers and six to seven virtual data centers, and whenever possible, we consider VMs as first choice (can’t disclose numbers).

How are customer service and support?

Some applications don’t perform well, so we engage our TAMs. The VMware engineering team works with TAMs.

What other advice do I have?

Don’t hesitate, and go get it. From an architecture perspective, plan out a typical deployment, but you need to understand the business requirements and challenges, be able to define requirements, and make sure you choose the right-size server farm.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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it_user321339 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Systems Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
It simplifies the management of our 30 VMs and allows us to move our DR location from one state to another. The alerting function, however, is unclear both in emails and on the console.

Valuable Features

  • Unified management
  • UI

Improvements to My Organization

It simplifies the management of VMs of our 30 VMs. It's helped with disaster recovery, and we use EMC for disaster recovery, but it's managed with vCenter.

We moved the disaster recovery location from one state to another, and VMs helped us so that we didn’t have to move physical servers.

Room for Improvement

The alerting functions, right now based on performance, is not so clear now either by email or on the console.

Stability Issues

No issues, it's rock solid.

Scalability Issues

We add one or two VMs every six months, and the only issue was with Sharepoint 2013 that required dedicated memory.

Customer Service and Technical Support

It's good, no issues with response time or knowledge.

Other Advice

Make sure you get training on use, and deployment because you won’t know what you’re getting into.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about VMware vSphere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
770,394 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user321339 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Systems Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
The vMotion feature allows us to migrate VMs from one physical server to another with no downtime, though I'd suggest training prior to deployment.

Valuable Features

  • Ease of use
  • UI
  • vMotion, migrating VMs from one physical server to another with no downtime

Improvements to My Organization

It simplifies the management of VMs of our 30 VMs. It's helped with disaster recovery, and we use EMC for disaster recovery, but it's managed with vCenter.

We moved the disaster recovery location from one state to another, and VMs helped us so that we didn’t have to move physical servers,

Room for Improvement

I don't use it enough to suggest improvements.

Stability Issues

No issues, it's rock solid.

Scalability Issues

There's no issues with it.

Customer Service and Technical Support

We’ve had no need for tech support yet; my team have so far been able to solve any issues.

Other Advice

Make sure you get training on its use and deployment, because you won’t know what you’re getting into.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user300498 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Engineer at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
It now has an easier configuration so new server deployments don't take much time anymore.

Valuable Features

It's stable and has the ability to execute the features it promises.

Improvements to My Organization

We have managed to reduce the number of our physical servers dramatically.

It now has an easier configuration, so new server deployments don't take much time anymore.

Also, we're getting much less out-of-work-hour calls.

Room for Improvement

The web client has a lot of problems which hasn't been addressed properly.

The tools that VMware provides with vSphere need improvement, such as vSphere data protection.

Use of Solution

I've used vSphere for about eight or nine years, and this particular version for four to five months.

Deployment Issues

No issues encountered.

Stability Issues

Not at all, I'm quite happy with the stability.

Scalability Issues

This products works quite well with scaling.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

It has room for improvement, but the staff are usually very friendly and they know what they are doing.

Technical Support:

It has room for improvement, but the staff are usually very friendly and they know what they are doing.

Initial Setup

As system admins, difficulty isn't an issue as long it works after the deployment.

Implementation Team

It was done in-house.

ROI

It's saved electricity costs for us as well as costs on unnecessary equipment procurements.

Other Solutions Considered

We did a trial run of Hyper-V. We didn't switch, but Microsoft is very aggressive and tried to leverage the licenses that we had already bought. We also looked at Citrix.

Other Advice

Stick with vSphere as long as they don't screw up the product.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Regional IT at a maritime company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
We did a comparison between Microsoft Hyper-V and VMWare. In the end, VMWare won the battle of evaluation.

Valuable Features:

Robust, reliable, ease of use, good value for money and reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Improvements to My Organization:

Reduced TCO through the elimination of physical servers into virtual servers.

Use of Solution:

Since 2010

Deployment Issues:

No. Setup and installation takes less than 20 minutes.

Stability Issues:

No.  

Customer Service:

Excellent.

Initial Setup:

Setup was straightforward.  Even an entry-level IT engineer could follow the instructions on the screen with ease.

Implementation Team:

In-house team.

Cost and Licensing Advice:

Daily usage is for Critical Business Applications to the users. 

Other Solutions Considered:

Yes, did a comparison between Microsoft Hyper-V and VMWare. In the end, VMWare won the battle of evaluation.  

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user183474 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user183474Senior System Engineer with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor

If it's not confidential, I would love to see the evaluation battle details.

PeerSpot user
Assistant Design Manager with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Works wonders. Very useful product for trying different software products. All the tools are very easy to use.

Valuable Features:

  • Scripted installation.
  • Host Profiles.
  • Web Client.
  • Windows Client

Improvements to My Organization:

Previously we used one server per application, this product has increased our hardware utilization.

Room for Improvement:

For managing many ESXi's at once vCenter is required. when the number of ESXi is smaller, it is not practical to have a vCenter server. This should at least be solved especially for a test/development environment. This may be solved using a Application installed on the end user system like a windows machine where the credentials of the ESXi servers are then pre-configured and a double click is sufficient to open the console. (I am talking of the use case where advanced features of vcenter is not used.)

Use of Solution:

One Year, qe are not using it in our organization. It is being used in out Lab environment for R&D purposes.

Deployment Issues:

I have not found a way to automatically do console redirection to the COM port after scripted installation.

Stability Issues:

Very stable system.

Scalability Issues:

Scalable to any level.

Implementation Team:

In house team using the official guides available.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user82776 - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Executive Officer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
Provides adaptive and cost effective security services within a single management framework

The VMware vShield family provides adaptive and cost effective security services within a single management framework for securing virtual datacenters and cloud environments at all levels-host, network, applications, data and endpoint. The vShield products are built from the ground up to protect virtualized infrastructure more efficiently and economically than legacy physical approaches to security relied upon by vSphere competitors. vShield products enforce security at the ESXi hypervisor level and are managed by specialized virtual appliances to make security virtualization-aware. The vShield product family includes, VMware vShield Zones, VMware vShield App, VMware vShield App with Data Security, VMware vShield Edge, VMware vShield Endpoint and VMware vShield Manager.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Technical manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Real User
Great support, high performance, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The performance of VMware vSphere is good."
  • "The implementation of VMware vSphere is easy. For integration companies, it's easy, the final client cannot do it alone but for an implementor it's easy."

What is our primary use case?

VMware vSphere is used for virtualization.

What is most valuable?

The performance of VMware vSphere is good.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using VMware vSphere for approximately 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

VMware vSphere is a stable solution. However, the bug could be fixed to make it better. Sometimes the new release of the solution can bring errors.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I am satisfied with the scalability of VMware vSphere.

We have approximately 20 people using this solution.

How are customer service and support?

I have been satisfied with the support from VMware vSphere.

How was the initial setup?

The implementation of VMware vSphere is easy. For integration companies, it's easy, the final client cannot do it alone but for an implementor it's easy.

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

There are not any licensing costs.

What other advice do I have?

I rate VMware vSphere 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.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free VMware vSphere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free VMware vSphere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.