vCenter Orchestrator Reviews

We operate two critical data centers, Data Center A and Data Center H, in an active-active setup. These centers serve 300 remote sites, with all our applications and local servers sending data to both. We prioritize data security using protections like IPS, IDS, and XDR. Data distribution is handled by load balancers through DNSX in our virtual cloud, connecting to application servers. We also have Backup Data Centers ready to take over if A and H encounter issues, ensuring uninterrupted data services.

The most valuable feature for us is the performance stability of vCenter Orchestrator, especially in complex situations, making it excellent for managing virtual machines. For smaller to medium-sized data centers, we also use Proxmox, a German software for server virtualization. Additionally, we prioritize data backup and recovery, with independent data centers located about 200 kilometers away from our main centers, Data Center A and Data Center H. These main centers operate in an active-active mode, while B and C serve as backups.

There are a few areas that could use improvement. Firstly, the pricing could be more competitive. Secondly, we would like more flexibility in sizing data storage and virtual machines, as the current options aren't very adaptable. The management of vCenter could be less automatic and more transparent for our experienced technicians. Lastly, our data stores could be better integrated with third-party options, as they don't fully meet our high-end requirements. vCenter has limited management capabilities, causing problems when you have plenty of space and memory but can't monitor their usage well. The main issues revolve around data storage and management, driven by an overly automatic and simplistic approach that is not ideal for complex or expanding setups.

I have been using vCenter Orchestrator for two years.

It is a scalable solution. We have approximately 4,000 users of the solution. We also have a team of five people who maintain the solution 24/7.

The technical support is customer-oriented but not excellent in terms of speed and knowledge. It is reasonably good but not outstanding. I would give it a six out of ten.

Neutral

We have previously used Proxmox but switched to vCenter because Proxmox is not suitable for larger applications. In addition to using vCenter, nowadays we also use OpenStack.

The initial setup was extremely easy because vCenter handled many things automatically. However, it is not ideal when you need specific configurations, as it may not give you the level of control you require. We obtain licenses through a digital locker or VMware purchase orders, and deploying them is easy. However, there are some issues with data store management. While the system is generally stable, it lacks flexibility for configuration and monitoring. This can be problematic when adding many VMware machines and increasing data store capacity, as it doesn't provide clear warnings or limits.

I have definitely seen ROI with vCentre.

VMware's licensing can be complex with many products, making it hard to find a cost-effective solution. Handling costs, support, and efficiency can be expensive and challenging, so it is an important aspect to think about. Sometimes it seems like VMware offers many products just to generate more revenue, even if some of them end up being unnecessary.

My recommendation for those starting with vCenter is that once the automatic installation is complete, the graphical user interface is user-friendly and easy to use. Overall, I would rate vCenter a seven out of ten.

I use the solution in my company for data center visualization.

The most valuable feature of the solution is DRS. The tool is very beneficial for automating workflow.

The only problem with the product is that it is very expensive, making it an area where improvements are required.

There are some hardware limitations associated with the product, especially when heterogeneous systems are involved, as we face some difficulties. Linux and IBM machines are very difficult to convert into VM machines. Windows can be easily converted from physical to virtual machines, but we have some problems with Linux machines.

I have been using vCenter Orchestrator for almost ten years. I am a customer of the solution.

I have not been using VMware for the last six months. I have shifted to Citrix. We have some other projects for which we need some VDI solutions, and we found that Citrix is very cost-effective, while VMware is very expensive now. We have had a very good experience with VMware for ten years, but now we have shifted to Citrix.

I cannot share some details of Citrix due to some of our company's policies. My company has been using Citrix only for two months, so I would be unable to say whether it has any advantage over vCenter Orchestrator. After my company shifted from VMware to Citrix, we have been testing and comparing the features of both tools. After six months, we can say which product is better and what features we have in Citrix that are not present in a VMware comparison.

The interface of the tool is very useful and user-friendly. We have had a very good experience with the product's initial setup phase in our company.

The integration capabilities of vCenter Orchestrator are very feasible for my heterogeneous network. It is easy to connect with different devices, like some physical systems. With the tool, we can easily and comfortably move our physical infrastructure into our virtual infrastructure.

VMware helped our company achieve its automation goals using AI technology in a very efficient manner.

If it were not for the issues with the price, I recommend vCenter Orchestrator to others.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

The most valuable feature of the solution is availability.

The solution’s pricing and integration could be improved.

I have been working with vCenter Orchestrator since 2014.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

Installing the solution is very easy if you have experience with the tool.

vCenter Orchestrator is a very expensive solution. If you talk with customers about other solutions like Nutanix, their prices are also very high.

If you have an existing VMware solution, integrating it into another solution is not easy. However, if you have a small company with a VMware solution, you can easily change it because you also need experience with other solutions.

I would recommend the solution to other users because VMware is a big company with very good licensing. More people can choose VMware as it provides good features available to new customers.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

The most valuable features of the solution are the workflows.

I have seen vCenter Orchestrator evolving a lot over the years, making it quite handy. I don't see any areas for improvement in the product. It has already improved a lot over the years.

The product lacks GUIs. The tool should have more GUIs available, along with easier product documentation.

I have been using vCenter Orchestrator for a couple of years. Though I don't directly use vCenter Orchestrator, I provide training sessions and use VMware products most of the time. My customers use the solution. I am a technical trainer who teaches others VMware technologies. My company has a partnership with VMware.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

I recommend the product for medium to large-scale enterprises.

Smaller enterprises might not have the kind of use cases for vCenter Orchestrator, so they might have to go through a bit of a steep learning curve from deployment and use case perspectives.

I have no idea about how my customers get full of technical support. Most of the time, I do not come across any complaints related to technical support, so that's okay.

The initial setup was okay. Someone who is a newbie might find the initial setup to be complex, but most of the time, it is okay.

Deployment-wise, our customers do not face any difficulties since I don't come across any questions from the customers regarding any difficulties they faced during the setup process.

My customers take care of vCenter Orchestrator's implementation by themselves.

My company does not deal with the product's pricing part since it is the customer's responsibility.

The product is intuitive enough. It might be a learning curve for someone new to vCenter Orchestrator.

I don't have much to share with those planning to use vCenter Orchestrator from a recommendation perspective because we are not into that kind of role where we recommend. Most of our customers already have the product, or they are in the middle of a big phase of the tool's implementation, because of which they come into our company for training.

I find the tool to be quite okay. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use the solution to run a development environment. We use Kubernetes as well in our environment.

The virtualization is very good. 

It's the most popular platform for on-premises and is very popular in Cambodia. It's a popular product for the telecom and banking sectors.

It is easy to deploy.

The solution has a very good GUI.

Technical support is helpful. 

I've worked with the solution for only one year and am still working on learning the solution. I haven't experienced the solution fully and need to explore more virtualization. 

Our senior management has plans to migrate, and I'm in the middle of deployment with a VMware platform with plans to move to OpenStack.

I cannot speak to any missing features.

I would like to see more automation added in the future. This could help resolve management and provisioning tasks. 

I've been using the solution for more than a year.

We only have two people from our team using the solution. They are systems and server administrators, and they can handle all systems and servers in our current working environment. 

I've contacted VMware support related to vSAN issues. Typically, I'd email them to get assistance with issues. We've had errors we could not fix and would ask for support. They are pretty helpful and responsive. 

Positive

I'm also familiar with OpenStack.

The initial setup is very easy. It is not overly complex. It's easy for a VMware cluster setup. It is easy as compared to, for example, OpenStack or other virtual platforms. It is very convenient and more popular compared to other options. 

We are customers and end-users.

I'd recommend the solution to others. 

I would rate the solution seven out of ten.

I use the solution for automation purposes.

The solution has the best workflow creation feature.

The solution's analytics feature could be better.

I have been using the solution for four years.

I rate the solution's stability a seven out of ten.

The solution's scalability is a seven or eight out of ten.

The solution's technical support team takes a long time to escalate the issues.

Neutral

The solution's initial setup process is a seven or eight out of ten.

I rate the solution's pricing an eight or nine.

I recommend the solution to others and rate it a seven out of ten.

We use it to manage the overall VMware environment.

We use the Distributed Resource Scheduling, the HA, the affinity features, and the fault tolerance that is available.

I believe a transparent view and better terms of condition between Oracle and vCenter Orchestrator would be helpful.

I have been using vCenter Orchestrator for the past ten years.

It is very stable. I have been using vCenter Orchestrator from version three now to six plus.

Scalability, I think you can add hundreds and thousands of machines to it. Even though there are some hard limits, they are huge in numbers. I can go and add four thousand plus steps, and in every case, I can have up to sixteen machines running. We are talking about thousands of hardware and thousands of VMs can be added to a single center.  It depends upon the requirement. We will increase it and decrease it based on company growth.

Technical support is very good.

Positive

It is pretty straightforward. They have a deployable product. We do not have to design and build it before deploying. It is readily available from their side. You just have to download and provide the IPS. There are very few configurations to decide on and you are up and ready in a few minutes to an hour. They have made it very simple now.

The licensing cost is manageable because they have different versions available, standard, essential, and advanced. It depends upon the business requirement. You can pick and choose what you need. I think they do have a free version as well. 

I would rate vCenter Orchestrator a nine out of ten.

I'm a reseller of this solution. 

I use vCenter if I need to do administration on a centralized layer when using multiple VMware ESX servers. I'm able to manage the VMware environment where all of the VMware machines and multiple ESX are hosted.

There are multiple versions of this solution available. We have more than 100,000 people in my organization. We have over 500 customers. If I look at the landscape, I have more than 300 customers, whose landscape in terms of number of servers is more than 10,000. For the virtualization, at least 60 or 70% is running on VMware.

If I need to do DR, VMware can enable me to use vMotion, which requires use of vCenter. You cannot do vMotion without vCenter. We do a lot of automation, orchestration, and simplification for that purpose.

Many times, customers' licenses are not used because the client is not aware of the features and the product benefits. When somebody is buying a product, they just do a default configuration.

Then, a really qualified person will do an assessment of existing stuff and realize that 60% of products are not well configured, and some licenses are not used. The client will be struggling because the benefit they want to achieve out of these automations isn't achieved to the maximum. 

I think an organization should be in a discovery session to look at what is unused because Microsoft offers a lot of things. If someone has too many unused licenses, why don't they move to the cloud and optimize the cost? Microsoft is proactive to help large customers reduce cost. In the case of vCenter, those initiatives are not there.

We are looking for more consolidation on optimization through VMware. We are dependent on directly working with VMware because the product launch and product knowledge within the companies are limited within the day-to-day operation.

For example, we work with Dell. Dell is selling VMware and other products. Dell has given us dedicated resources in our office. I'm not sure if there's an agreement VMware has done with customers to start giving free consulting, advising, and solution support – at least for large customers – so that the virtual landscape is more optimized and scalable.

When I speak with various other people who have legacy knowledge of VMware on-premises, they are not spending time learning about the products and the enhancements VMware is doing. They don't really have the understanding of how VMware can help to have a virtual firewall, the vCenter on-premises server being moved to the cloud, and the cloud being moved to on-premises. VMware has a product that can enable me to have on-premises storage, replicated to cloud, and then cloud being replicated to on-premises through vCenter.

This becomes very challenging because if I propose anything as the enterprise architect, I cannot have a sign off until my delivery gives a sign off. If they have not experienced this, they're dependent on third parties to do so. These are some of the gaps I see: knowledge, product knowledge, use cases, and pre POC.

I have been using this solution for more than eight years.

It's very scalable depending on the architecture. 

There is absolutely ROI, especially for medium to large customers. Microsoft is much cheaper for smaller clients who don't have large applications because Microsoft Windows license allows them to have multiple extensions running on the hardware or hyperware they're using. When it comes to the large environment and multiple data centers, vCenter is unbeatable in terms of virtualization benefits to customers.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

VMware has been doing a lot of investment and acquisition in all the possible domains in terms of securities, etc. It's not a 10 because of the lack of imparting knowledge to customers.

For a new customer, I always say that whatever environment you have, you should have an understanding with VMware to have free advising and consulting so that you'll have the right products. With a third party vendor, they try to make a maximum sale and include products that are sometimes not required.