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VMware Aria Automation vs vRealize Business for Cloud [EOL] comparison

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Executive Summary

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

VMware Aria Automation
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
172
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Management (2nd), Configuration Management (11th), Network Automation (7th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (29th), Cloud Infrastructure Entitlement Management (CIEM) (7th)
vRealize Business for Cloud...
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

VasilisGiannitsiotis - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT at ITSolutions
Automation has streamlined complex financial workflows but still needs more intuitive orchestration
Something to improve in VMware Aria Automation would be related to VCF 9, as I do not know what it is trying to bring because they exposed it as the solution of everything. So VCF 9 will bring VCF Automation and VCF Operations, the new product line of VMware. I have not seen what this brings or what else it includes. Maybe in the area of vRealize Orchestrator, this would be beneficial because VRO can do everything. Perhaps a more user-friendly way to use that tool would be helpful because the possibilities there are endless. I am looking for more user-friendly navigation in VMware Aria Automation.
TM
Solutions Architect and project manager at MIB leipzig
Complete solution for automation, orchestration, and end-to-end lifecycle management
The most valuable feature is automation. With the automation, you can easily and quickly implement it by deploying gnashing on virtual environments. It doesn't take long to develop an automation blueprint. You need about half an hour, and then you can install or deploy it on several systems. That was our first great advantage in the project because we urgently needed to deploy across many different systems. So automation helps us to do our work quickly and easily. VMware vRealize has standardized systems for doing work after the deployment. First, you have to set up the language on the system itself. Then there are vRealize's orchestration features. You can implement code in your deployment script to do this configuration automatically. So the orchestrator is a beneficial component. With this, you can implement automatic language selection and automated integration. In other systems, you can implement a multi-blueprint or multi-system environment to deploy the entire database environment and applications on this database with one click. The lifecycle manager is also essential. In version 7.5, you must provide a dir example username and password to access the Citrix server and controller. What's more, you have to include this in your script or your code. But in version 8, you can provide the username and password or store them in the lifecycle manager. So then you can pick it up from there. And that's the only location where you have to change the password. You don't have to change it in every script. That's a massive improvement in version 8.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our users can order VMs using the API."
"Currently, the primary feature we're using in VMware Aria Automation is its ability to execute tasks quickly. However, we haven't explored other features like workload management or the full stack yet. So it's hard to make comparisons or fully utilize its potential until we expand our usage."
"Our time to deliver a fully unified three-tier app, at the right version, is one-twentieth what it was before. There is no manual intervention. No IP management. It just dramatically simplifies all of our processes."
"Fast provisioning and integration with public cloud."
"Having an enterprise service catalog and being able to automate various parts of our infrastructure are among the most important components."
"It's increased the efficiency, as there's less manual work through vRA and now Orchestrator is the one doing most of the work and making everything more automated."
"It provides velocity both from management and customer perspectives, from ingesting new catalog items, developing new workflows for additional features, and/or allowing customer access to multiple guest OS instances at scale in a shorter time frame."
"To manage when VM's aren't being used, we have it set up so that it will auto-destroy them after a certain amount of time, obviously with permission from the user who owns it."
"The way the dashboard works with the main orchestrator to combine different types of cloud providers is helpful."
"The features I find most valuable about this solution is it helps us to automate all the provisioning activities on the platform."
"This solution has made us aware that we are over-provisioning our virtual machines."
"I like the openness of the solution."
"The solution's cost management is very good."
"I like the integration with other applications or vendors."
"It doesn't take long to develop an automation blueprint. You need about half an hour, and then you can install or deploy it on several systems. That was our first great advantage in the project because we urgently needed to deploy across many different systems."
"The flexibility of the solution is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"I hate harping on the authentication issue, but it is huge."
"We are migrating from vRA version 7 to 8, but the migration is really hectic and time-consuming. There are no straightforward paths to migrate. We are doing an entirely new deployment to go to vRA version 8.0, then somehow get all of the VMs to vRA 8.0. Therefore, it would have been great if VMware had some solutions to upgrade from vRA 7 to 8 seamlessly. This includes the management of all the objects or VMs from the older version. Unfortunately, it is not there."
"Web UI."
"The GUI is clunky and hard to use."
"I think debugging can be improved. In case of errors, the devOps team finds it difficult to read the Python stack traces at times."
"Maintaining the product requires effort and a good understanding of the environment, including how to set up the codes and other configurations. Pricing needs to be improved to improve the customer penetration."
"The stability is okay, but could be improved. We sometimes receive strange errors, which can only be solved with specialists."
"I think they are going to have a tough time with the Enterprise licensing. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."
"There are some kinks to resolve with the Web GUI user interface, as it freezes at times."
"The solution's private cloud is much too expensive."
"I would like to have an easy way of modifying the reference data that is used for the purposes of estimating the total billing."
"At the moment, in the POC, we have a very huge issue because you definitely have to implement a vSphere cluster."
"It's not always easy to find the information you need. You must have a lot of technical experience to find the right location for what you're implementing within the program."
"If you haven't established a vSphere cluster and you only have a single server to integrate, you can't deploy any service."
"Better integration with other VMware toolsets would be beneficial."
"It's not always easy to find the information you need."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool is expensive since it is an enterprise product."
"So much can be done with the Open Source side, and especially for smaller shops. I personally think the pricing for Enterprise is hard to justify."
"They should provide one license for all the sub-products."
"I'm very interested in the integration with Puppet. However, my organization doesn't have the funding for something like Puppet right now. If VMware would integrate that feature set (Puppet) into vRA. That would be very awesome."
"There is confusion between licensing levels. There are three different licensed versions of vRealize Automation, and there are different things which can happen in each of them."
"This is an expensive product and the high price is starting to become an issue for us."
"The solution is free of cost."
"It is pricey for what you get."
"The pricing model is complicated."
"It's expensive, which is one of the problems with this solution."
"The product is a cost-effective solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Construction Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business33
Midsize Enterprise24
Large Enterprise131
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

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...
Is there any way to try VMware Aria Automation for free?
When it comes to VMware Aria Automation, you have three choices for free runs: Hands-on Lab (HOL) Advanced lab A free trial I cannot describe in detail the second and third options as my company ...
Which sectors can benefit the most from VMware Aria Automation?
I was looking at VMware Aria Automation case studies recently and I got the impression that three main kinds of companies were using it most often: Social organizations Financial institutions and ...
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Also Known As

VMware vRealize Automation, vRA, VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite, SaltStack
VMware IT Business Management Suite, VMware ITBM, IT Business Management Suite, Digital Fuel
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Rent-a-Center, Amway, Vistra Energy, Liberty Mutual
Rent-A-Center, SAIC - (Science Applications International Corporation), Tribune Media, iGATE, EMC, Deutsche Telekom, GEFCO, Banca Ifis
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