Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] vs VMware Aria Operations comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Read 1 Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] review

100% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations

Read 376 VMware Aria Operations reviews

18,013 Views
12,069 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

VMware Aria Operations

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] and VMware Aria Operations based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Cloud Management

August 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Aria Operations

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

376

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (2nd), Virtualization Management Tools (1st)

Featured Reviews

Enterprise677

BS Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

A simple interface and helpful support for a solution that grows with us

It's a flexible enough tool to submit the changes that you want. It gives you the ability to cancel any loop. You can connect new orchestrations together. It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device. The user interface is simple and easy to use.

Read full review

AldoDomini

Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa

Have faced limitations due to high costs but have maintained reliability over time

The primary issue is the pricing, which is very expensive for my company's budget. We cannot afford to pay such a large fee. We are not Microsoft or BMW; we are a small company. As a small company, I have no power to negotiate directly with VMware. Perhaps larger companies have more opportunity to contract directly with VMware, but I do not have that leverage. The only path I can follow is to change solutions. Net.spA is a company working in the field of waste management. We are not a technological company, so we do not have a large margin to justify purchasing and maintaining the VMware infrastructure at current costs.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"I strongly recommend the solution to people."

"It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device."

"The value from vROps, from a traditional sense that we had, is the visibility into the back-end, to know when we are having issues with VMs before it actually becomes an end user issue."

"The solution has helped to reduce the time to troubleshoot issues."

"We like that we are able to combine all infrastructure monitoring using this solution, meaning we receive analytics from across our whole network."

"Its technical support team responds quickly."

"It is intuitive and user-friendly. It is easy to follow and the reporting engine is easy to use."

"It allows us to give our end users performance data, so when they ask about network utilization, compute utilization, or storage utilization, we're able to get that information in a central location and give it to them when they request it."

"After using vROps, in the second year we were able to offer our customers a new SLA at 99.97 percent."

"The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations include monitoring CPU, memory, and storage."

More VMware Aria Operations pros

Cons

"The solution is just too expensive, so maybe the pricing could be better."

"It needs dashboards that we can present at the executive level. The GUI, overall, could be better."

"During upgrades I'd love to see a single pane of glass showing what the system's actually doing."

"Stability is a significant area that needs improvement as I experience frequent disconnections and interruptions in data collection."

"The pricing is a little bit expensive."

"We integrated vROps with vRealize Log Insight, but it was not helpful to me. It was not giving me any good data."

"It's getting better from what it used to be, but it still has a pretty steep learning curve."

"It's pretty user-friendly, but it could always be better as far as the interface goes, clicking around, and having to go back to different screens."

"One missing component was the integration of Log Insight and vRealize Business within vROps."

More VMware Aria Operations cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"If you compare the prices of VMware and the cloud solutions along with the components that you may use, I feel that it may be costly."

"There's a smaller category that stands out due to its affordability, especially for recent versions, which I rate as four or five in terms of value. However, if you're looking for a vCenter with older, more advanced features, it comes at a significantly higher cost, and I would rate it around ten. They provide us with a choice between a recent version and one integrated, and I lean towards the former."

"Pricing is good for us. We're non-profit so we get a break on that."

"vRealize Operations has proved to be a cost effective solution for our big environment."

"The solution has helped to reduce the time to troubleshoot issues."

"We have licenses on a three year basis. Licensing costs are much higher, but given the stability of the solution, it is a reasonable price."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"We have seen good ROI results. It has made our lives easier."

More VMware Aria Operations pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Outsourcing Company

13%

Construction Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	66
Midsize Enterprise	61
Large Enterprise	281

Questions from the Community

Ask a question

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What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?

vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...

See all answers

Is VMware Aria Operations a user friendly solution?

In terms of user-friendliness, VMware Aria Operations is one of the best solutions out there. It is not overly complex to set up and you can rely on the technical support to provide you with assis...

See all answers

What is the most useful new feature of VMware Aria Operations?

For me, the alerts features are the most unique part of this product, no matter the current name it uses. When they introduced the new version of VMware Aria Operations, they also introduced more a...

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Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 15% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

Flexera Cloud Management Platform (CMP) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Competitors

IBM Turbonomic vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds Virtualization Manager vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 7% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 5% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 5% of the time

Densify vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 3% of the time

More VMware Aria Operations Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

August 2026

Download Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations

August 2026

Download VMware Aria Operations product report

Also Known As

Piston Enterprise OS

VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)

Overview

Piston Enterprise OS (pentOS) is an enterprise grade cloud operating system meeting the security and governance needs of enterprises wanting to use OpenStack for their infrastructure services. pentOS is an OpenStack distro that builds on top of the OpenStack codebase adding some proprietary features to meet the security and governance needs of the enterprise customers.

Cisco

VMware Aria Operations provides detailed metrics, graphing capabilities, and historical data for proactive infrastructure management, offering a single pane of glass for comprehensive views, alert notifications, and seamless integration with VMware tools.

VMware Aria Operations is designed for monitoring and optimizing virtual environments, empowering businesses to enhance infrastructure efficiency and manage workloads. With stress ratings and capacity planning, it facilitates troubleshooting performance issues while forecasting resource needs. Automation and integration with VMware tools streamline operations, making it indispensable for maintaining system health and enabling data-driven decisions. Users appreciate its comprehensive infrastructure views, though they note the interface complexity and high pricing as key considerations. Improved automation, third-party integration, and usability are desired enhancements.

What are the key features of VMware Aria Operations?

Single Pane of Glass: Provides comprehensive views of infrastructure for easy management.
Performance Monitoring: Tracks performance with detailed metrics and trend analysis.
Capacity Planning: Offers insights into stress ratings and future resource needs.
Alert Notifications: Effectively notifies users of potential system issues.
Automation and Integration: Streamlines operations with VMware tools.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Infrastructure Efficiency: Ensures optimal use of virtual environments for effective workload management.
Operational Visibility: Improves decision-making with detailed insights and analytics.
Resource Optimization: Helps forecast and allocate resources efficiently.
Proactive Management: Facilitates early detection of issues to maintain system health.

VMware Aria Operations' implementation across industries like finance, healthcare, and education showcases its utility in maintaining operational efficiency. It aids in tracking usage metrics and integrating workflows, benefiting sectors with critical performance and resource management needs.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Science Applications International Corporation, Tribune Media, Heartland Payment Systems, Telkom Indonesia, Columbia Sportswear, iGATE, CSS Corp, Angel Broking, Adira Finance, Hipskind, Beiersdorf Shared Services, Innovate Mas Indonesia, Adobe, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi , Join Experience S.A, Borusan Holdings, Department of Transport - Abu Dhabi

Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix, Broadcom, IBM and others in Cloud Management. Updated: August 2026.

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