What is most valuable?
There a lot of good features. One would be the automatic rebalancing of the environment. That was one feature which helped. With that, we could improve our efficiency of our VMware infrastructure.
The second thing is analyzing the workload factors of each and every virtual machine, and then build on the analyzing workload patents. Densify helped us to improve the performance of the software by changing the configuration, like a bump-up or a bump-down of the infrastructure. This, again, helps improve customer satisfaction, if the VM is poorly configured, from a CPU memory or a storage point of view.
And it also helped if this particular working machine is oversized and is not utilizing the resources which are allocated to it. We could bump down the configuration, and thereby improve our efficiency and the capacity management of our environment, so those were the key things.
Plus, the overall recording mechanism is a positive.
Then, when we started with this product, we were in a project deployment model, or rather we were ramping up the infrastructure. We were migrating products from the current workload to the new workload. And one of the features that helped us was to understand the capacity based on the incoming workload. So, we were able to model the incoming workload into the infrastructure and identify how the environment would look after the new workload was added into. So Densify was able to help us with modeling and resource planning.
It simply helps me analyze my infrastructure relatively easily. The data that we get from it is very phenomenal. It also gives us the ability to look at the future modeling of our environment, which helps in terms of planning the capacity, planning. If our workload is going down, we can reduce our infrastructure baseline. If the workload is increasing, we can increase the baseline, and it helps us define that. Also, it helps us optimize the overall infrastructure.
How has it helped my organization?
Densify works basically on the VMware infrastructure optimization and we have the VMware infrastructure in place. Our motive was to perform at capacity management, as well as the optimization of our infrastructure. So, in that sense, Densify helped us to properly identify bottlenecks and improve the overall performance and optimization of our environment.
What needs improvement?
Initially we talked about some custom reporting, wherein our customer expected certain reports on a few areas, like how the storage is allocated, how the network performance is doing, and how the network utilization is happening for a virtual machine. So we wanted that reporting functionality and we have given that feedback to the team.
For how long have I used the solution?
It's close to one and a half years now. We started using it the first half of 2016.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
No, for the simple reason that you're using it as a Cloud, as a service model, and so that was not an issue at any time.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
No, because when we started utilizing the product, our workload was relatively small. Over a period of time, we have grown in every aspect, such as the number of servers and the virtual machines. From that point of view we have not had a challenge with the scalability. I think it will be able to sustain more durability and workload, probably for the simple reason that we're using it software as a service model. And we're not using the product as a compromised model because that is something else maybe that would drive us here.
How are customer service and technical support?
We have regular meetings with the Densify team to monitor our environment. Initially, they were very helpful because we were new. We wanted to understand the old application and the product, so we had a lot of interactive meetings initially. And then, after product utilization became stable, we scheduled regular meetings.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not use any other solution, and then we learned about this solution. But before we decided to use this product, we compared it with other possible solutions.
How was the initial setup?
Overall, the Densify solution was very simple from my perspective because we didn't have to do much to implement it. We just needed one small server to install the Densify connector which holds the data, and the other thing is we needed was the correct permissions given to certain users. And the connectivity has to be there with Densify's back end infrastructure, but that's the part and parcel of any environment. But if we had gone with, say, a VMware product then we would have had a lot of difficulty or a lot of challenges and problems implementing the solution. So, from my perspective, the installation was very simple.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Cost is always involved, but then I feel that this solution is better than other products that we have. Everyone has a different way of defining the cost, an effectiveness matrix. From my point of view, we were looking for certain solutions, to meet certain requirements, and this product helped us attain goals.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We compared the product with VMware's native product, that is vROps, and we found this product to be more intuitive and requiring less effort to put in to utilize it; the VMware product product had a big-time learning curve for us. Of course, the deployment cost was there as well as the learning cost and, of course, a lot of other factors were there, the timelines and everything. Whereas, with this product, the software as a service model, it could be implemented very quickly, very easily, and then we could rely on the recommendations which come from Densify.
What other advice do I have?
From my perspective, this product is really good, and we are not even using each and every feature. But my advice would be, if somebody is looking for a solution for capacity and optimization of VMware infrastructure, this is the right product. It does not require any technical skills to implement the solution.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.