VMware Aria Operations for Logs Reviews

I primarily utilize VMware Aria Operations for Logs for analyzing the performance metrics of my infrastructure, especially focusing on performance enhancements. Recently, I've integrated some Cisco hardware with VMware API Operations to extract and analyze relevant metrics. My main goal is to optimize the performance of my infrastructure.

It allows us to gain a comprehensive overview of our infrastructure. We now receive real-time error notifications from the logging side, which has proven beneficial.

I had concerns about licensing, but there have been recent changes starting this month. Previously, we lacked VMware licenses for Operations on certain hosts where project owners were obtaining them independently. Technical support should be improved.

I have been working with it for approximately four years.

It is highly stable.

It offers good scalability, we didn't face any issues with it. We manage both Medium and Enterprise options for businesses.

We weren't satisfied with the technical support provided when we needed additional technical personnel on hand. It's essential to have someone available not just for analysis but also for resolving issues promptly. I would rate it six out of ten.

Neutral

I would rate the initial setup as eight out of ten, so relatively straightforward.

Typically, deployment only requires a few hours.

The pricing has been updated recently. Previously, it was costly.

VMware should provide comprehensive training for individuals tasked with managing their systems. However, the cost of VMware training is currently prohibitively high. Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

My company's clients use the product for monitoring purposes and capacity planning.

The most valuable aspect of the solution is related to its features revolving around capacity planning, which helps users when a new project comes up since a user just needs to put the requirements in the product, and it will notify how many more resources are needed for the project. The tool offers recommendations in terms of informing users which VMs are oversized or undersized, allowing users to efficiently manage the resources accordingly.

From an improvement perspective, I think that though the tool offers integration with other solutions and some dashboards are available, they are not full-fledged ones. Suppose there is a need for the integration of VMware Aria Operations for Logs with Cisco or any other hardware storage solutions, and if a customer needs a single pane of glass monitoring, then such a functionality is not in place as of now. The aforementioned areas of concern can be considered for improvement of the product.

The product's price falls on the higher end of the spectrum, making it an area of concern. From an improvement perspective, the product's price can be reduced.

In relation to the product, the area of cloud operations is a little bit complicated, making it one of the elements where improvements can be made.

I have been using VMware Aria Operations for Logs for eight years. My company operates as a system integrator of the product.

It is a highly stable solution.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten.

It is a highly scalable solution.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

My company deals with enterprise customers who use the product with 500-odd VMs.

The solution's technical support takes a lot of time to reply to our queries related to the product, and sometimes, my company is unable to contact the solution's support team directly. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

The product's deployment phase is easy.

The solution can be deployed in a day or two.

One architect and one engineer can manage the product's deployment phase.

The solution is deployed on the cloud and on an on-premises model.

My company has experienced a return on investment from using the product as we could reduce 20 percent of the efforts we used to apply in the monitoring area. The solution has also improved efficiency by 20 to 25 percent.

I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive. My company makes yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no additional payments besides the licensing costs attached to the solution.

The product's maintenance phase is easy.

One person can manage the product's maintenance phase, which involves areas like the product's upgrades, updates, and monitoring.

VMware Aria Operations for Logs is a good tool since it is possible to integrate it with all major public clouds. With VMware Aria Operations for Logs, you can adapt to a single solution that offers centralized monitoring on hybrid clouds or multi-cloud environments.

I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.

We're using vRealize Log Insight version 6.7, and it's due for an upgrade to version 7 now. We predominantly use it for capacity management and overall monitoring. We also use the solution for the automation and deployment of new servers, so these are our major use cases for vRealize Log Insight.

One of the most valuable features of vRealize Log Insight is that it gives you a clear forecast about your existing machines, for example, how long your machines could be supported and how long the remaining capacity is to host your machines. This is one of the best options available within vRealize Log Insight.

Another valuable feature of the solution is automation. My company deploys a lot of automation when required in a very, very short period, and in a very uniform manner, and even if the automation is being deployed for different processes and departments, it's pretty much the same across the environment, so vRealize Log Insight helps reduce a lot of ambiguities and helps my company manage operational efficiencies well.

What I'd like to improve in vRealize Log Insight is the licensing model. VMware provides vRealize Log Insight along with the VMware Cloud Foundation, but customers who would like to go for the native VMware would have to procure vRealize Log Insight separately.

Today, vRealize Log Insight is offered on two different licenses, one is based on the number of VMs, and the other is based on the number of physical codes on the machine. If VMware can provide a bundle offer for customers who procure more than ten licenses, where you can have an option to run, for example, three hundred machines on vRealize Log Insight with no extra cost, this would encourage more people to adopt the solution.

What I'd like to see in the next release of vRealize Log Insight is for a cloud option to be available, which would be a pay-as-you-go licensing model that would allow me to pick and choose what I'll monitor. For example, I have one thousand and three hundred critical servers, and the seven hundred servers for basic development, I don't want to monitor on vRealize Log Insight today, so I should be able to pick what I need to monitor on the solution and only pay for that specific instance.

If VMware can apply these changes, it would help VMware customers to procure more or adopt more of vRealize Log Insight even in smaller projects.

I've been using vRealize Log Insight for almost four and a half years now.

vRealize Log Insight is very much stable, and my company didn't have any kind of issue with it. It's also not a customer-facing application, but more of a backend application for the admins to manage, so even though it fails for whatever reason, it's not going to affect my business. It's not a critical application as it's not customer-facing. vRealize Log Insight is more of an application that is used by the admin and help desk, but it never had major issues. Now and then, you'll need to update it and patch it periodically. In one of the day-to-day activities of my company, there were two challenges, but those challenges were addressed within a couple of hours without much involvement from VMware.

The scalability of vRealize Log Insight basically depends upon the licenses you have, whether it's VM-based or code-based licenses. Once you deploy, you don't have to redeploy for the scalability options. You have to go and purchase the required amount of licenses, and once you have your licenses available, you are okay to scale the solution.

VMware support is always good, and not just for vRealize Log Insight. Whenever my team reaches out to VMware, the support has always been good to us, so I'm rating the VMware support team four out of five, most of the time.

The initial setup for vRealize Log Insight is straightforward, but you'd still have to make a few decisions about whether you want to deploy the solution on a single data center or multiple data centers, so you need to have an understanding before deploying vRealize Log Insight. Once you've decided with a clear rationale behind it, it's a very straightforward deployment.

The solution was deployed four years ago, and from the due diligence phase to its actual design implementation, it took approximately one week to deploy. Integrations for vRealize Log Insight took another week, but predominantly, the due diligence, design, and implementation of the solution took two weeks, then integrating and authenticating it took another week, so the deployment took three weeks overall.

For people who'd like to go for complete virtualization, then vRealize Log Insight will play a key role and it also provides you a better ROI. You would be able to get your ROI in two years, but if you have a mixed environment that's both physical and virtual, then the ROI might be delayed by two more years.

If you use a third-party solution, you'll need more resources to manage the tool, several servers to deploy the tool, and licensing requirements for the operating system and databases, then periodic support will also be more costly.

On the other hand, if you use vRealize Log Insight, it comes with an open-source operating system from VMware, so there's no specific licensing associated with the operating system or the databases it uses. In terms of support costs, if you have a third-party solution, you'll need dedicated resources to support the tool, you need to patch the operating system and make sure it's updated, and you have to make sure the application running on it is patched periodically. On the other hand, you can do all these with vRealize Log Insight at the same time you do it for the entire suite of VMware tools. For example, VMware has its lifecycle management and own update manager, so when you update the virtual machines, along with that, you can also update vRealize Log Insight, so you can reduce your support and resource costs. This way, you can optimize the overall cost of supporting the product which means your ROI can be much quicker when compared with other third-party tools.

The licensing cost for vRealize Log Insight is a little higher, so in terms of cost, it all depends upon what kind of environment you have. If you have a complete virtualized environment, or at least you're using a ninety-five percent virtualized environment, then vRealize Log Insight will play a very good role because it is a VMware component, so it has very tight integration with other VMware components and systems. This means you don't have to procure any other monitoring and management tool, and you don't need a separate automation tool. vRealize Log Insight will have an upper hand if your environment is purely virtualized on VMware. If you're using a mix of physical and virtual components, for example, a 50:50 ratio, then you need to have a third-party component to manage overall monitoring.

My company has close to forty users of vRealize Log Insight.

For the deployment of vRealize Log Insight, one architect is required for one week, then one SME for two weeks, so overall, three weeks is good enough for the solution to be deployed in an environment with one thousand servers to manage.

I'd strongly recommend vRealize Log Insight if you're running a VMware environment or if you're running a virtualized environment using VMware or VCF or VMware Cloud. I'd recommend the solution even if you have any other cloud environment because vRealize Log Insight would be a better platform to overall manage your on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environment easily. Another advantage of the solution is that it can also integrate with your network and other hardware and software devices, so you would be able to manage your entire IT estate using just one single tool which is vRealize Log Insight, so I would strongly recommend it to anyone thinking of purchasing the solution.

My rating for vRealize Log Insight is nine out of ten.

I'm an end-user of vRealize Log Insight.

My company uses the product for log analysis and troubleshooting.

The tool helps my company deal with security and log analysis, which are very important areas for us.

I haven't reviewed or compared other products in the market against VMware Aria Operations for Logs, so I am not in a position to discuss what additional requirements are needed in the solution.

From an improvement perspective, the tool needs to be made more user-friendly.

I have been using VMware Aria Operations for Logs for four to five years. I use the solution in my company. I use the older version of the product, VMware vRealize Operations 8.4.0. My company is a customer of the product.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution.

My company has around 50 users of the solution. My company has ten members as administrators for the solution.

I am satisfied with the technical support for the solution. My company is happy with the support offered by VMware. I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

The product's implementation phase is easy.

I think it is a reasonably priced product.

VMware Aria Operations for Logs is a very stable product that we have been using for quite some time in our company, and we are very happy with whatever support we are getting from VMware.

Even if you are a first-time user of VMware Aria Operations for Logs, you will find the deployment phase to be easy.

The documentation by VMware is very good.

The product has been promoted enough to be visible in the market.

I haven't tried to integrate the product with other third-party solutions. My company already has a VMware infrastructure in place.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

We use Log Insight when a log has been rotated in another product and we can't find it or when we need to locate incidents in the log. It has a log history going back to about six months ago. This is customizable, even on the environment side. Log Insight is used by 10 people on the operations team.

Log Insight correlates with the VMware product log. It can assemble the logs you want, making it easier to find the output, incident, or keyword you want to search.

Log Insight should be better at dealing with audits and security logs. We use another product called QRadar for that. 

We've been using Log Insight for about five or six years.

Log Insight is stable.

You can scale Log Insight by adding more storage if you want to extend the log archive.

I rate VMware support seven out of 10. 

Neutral

Setting up Log Insight is easy. The deployment time depends on whether you have a single node or a cluster. 

Log Insight is bundled with other VMware vRealize products. The price depends on whether you have the Advanced or Enterprise bundle.

I rate vRealize Log Insight seven out of 10. It is a good option for monitoring VMware products, but I need to set up a management solution for other products, and sometimes it is not free. 

If you are planning to deploy Log Insight, you need to understand the architecture, environment size, and features you want to get from the solution.  You don't want to pay for features you don't need. You also need to ensure your infrastructure is compatible. 

We use vRealize Log Insight in various companies and organizations.

I used to configure VMware enrollment for different companies and organizations.

It's a VMware component, so you will have to scale it. If you have a VMware environment you will have vSphere or vCenter. You have vRealize Operation Manager in vCenter, and you must add the vRealize Log Insight, to understand the event log and other features. 

It's a good thing because it is similar to Syslog. 

We used to monitor vCenter events because it is integrated with the vCenter. You can monitor all events from Log Insight. Such as who is going to sign in, and Who will carry out these tasks? 

The entire purpose of the Syslog-specific log trap is to handle servers. 

I believe it is a very useful solution if you have a large environment and C4 vCenter, or if you have thousands of virtual machines in your environment.

It is a very useful tool if you have a VMware environment.

The user interface is fine.

There are numerous add-on services available for vRealize Log Insight. You must collect logs from your routers, firewall, load balancer, and other components.

It is an optional feature that is extremely useful. Sometimes you have to use a different vendor, like Palo Alto or F5, and there are more vendor add-on services you can use for it. 

Not everyone uses the Cisco environment. Different people have someone who uses Cisco, someone who uses Dell, and someone who uses Juniper. 

As all of the components that we used to specifically add ons this Log Insight feature for the log services are very good. 

I believe they have improved the new version.

Integration with other vendors is something that could be improved, they could add more vendors.

The events monitoring and the VMware integration are the most valuable features that could be included or improved.

I have been using vRealize Log Insight for three to four years.

We work with a variety of versions.

vRealize Log Insight is very stable.

vRealize Log Insight is scalable.

Because it's a VMware product, you'll definitely need to scale based on your needs.

I don't need any help configuring, maintaining, or anything else because we have been using VMware for a long time. We don't need any kind of technical support.

We are also working with syslog-ng.

vRealize Log Insight is a component that is designed for a VMware environment.

Because you have a VMware environment, you must maintain those things. 

syslog-ng is for everyone, regardless of which vendor you use. 

You can use vRealize Log Insight if you have a VMware environment, and if you don't have that, you can use syslog-ng.

It's different components and different integrations.

vRealize Log Insight has very limited integration and is primarily designed for VMware environments. While syslog-ng can be integrated and used in any environment. No matter how many vendors you use, you may be in a multi-vendor environment, but VMware is a single vendor.

It is definitely easy to deploy. It is relatively simple if you are very familiar with the VMware environment, specifically the vSphere environment, if you have configured vCenter, ESXi, and other VMware. 

You will have to deal with some obvious issues, you will have to deploy it, and you will have to decide how many components to monitor. 

You will have to know what exactly is the size of your environment, how many virtual machines you will be running, and how many vCenter instances are you running in your environment. 

It is pretty simple because you don't have to configure or click, click, click those things.

It has the ability to automatically add to the services. As a VMware person, I am used to configuring everything VMware. In my opinion, it is easy.

It's easy, I would rate it a four or five out of five.

When you have a cluster environment, or, a multi-site environment, or a few locations in different zones, you must deploy the same. You have to put this in a cluster now.

When one of your nodes is located in Sydney, while another is located in Amsterdam or something along these lines. In cluster mode, you must comprehend the mechanism. I am referring to how the cluster works.

A load balancer must be installed on top, and the load balancer will determine where the traffic goes.

It would be difficult in cluster mode.

It will be difficult for those who do not understand the cluster terminology. However, in a single-site environment, it is straightforward in my opinion.

We do all of the configuration and maintenance ourselves. We have a team of two people to maintain this solution.

It only requires maintenance once a year. It's a seamless tool, it does not require a lot of maintenance.

Because we have a dealer suite, the price is reasonable.

Under the dealer suite, you are not required to purchase those items. The CPU licensing mechanism is quite good.

vRealize Log Insight is a component of the VMware suite bundle. We are not paying extra to include it.

I am not sure what the exact cost is. However, I believe the vRealize suite costs $2,500.00 per year. There are numerous components, such as vRealize Log Insight and vRealize Operation Manager.

It all depends on your point of view. If you have a VMware environment, you are unaware of the components required to run your environment effectively. I am referring to monitoring, scaling up, and event analysis. 

It is entirely up to you. You are not required to deploy these solutions in some environments. However, if you have multiple sites, you will have different components.

I would rate vRealize Log Insight a nine out of ten.

The solution is used for troubleshooting in our application. Since we have a lot of components like email components and third-party components, the solution helps in managing the logs, and it helps in correlating the logs between products and in finding the problem in our infrastructure. 

We also use the solution if we want to debug something or if something is not working as expected, and it verifies everything. Also if there is any question about the infrastructure not resuming.

The solution's simplicity, flexibility, and extensibility are valuable features as we can integrate everything in vRealize. We have customers who create

customer agents, to be deployed on every component to be monitored with vRealize.

In vRealize login files, we have limitations regarding log partitions. We are limited to a maximum of five partitions, but in our case, we need more. Is it possible to provide more log partitions? I would like to see more log partitions in the next version.

I have been using the solution for two years.

It is a very useful and stable solution for troubleshooting and for going forward with any issue.

I prefer to talk about connection for Log Insight because vRealize is the expert connection for component logs. So we have a lot of components and plug them into their live Log insight. 

We have a rich VMware ecosystem with many components: the NSX, the SCCs, the data center, and the SQL. So every component we have is configured with the vRealize. So there are over fifty connections to support logs in general Log Insight.

The initial setup was straightforward. The solution was deployed quickly, but we are very specific in our case as we use Boolean Block Infrastructure based on VTS/VCF. Also, the VTS/VCF comes with their live suite, so there is a VN and a second manager for the solution we manage.

I don't know exactly how many technical guys were needed as the file got deployed very quickly, but to manage and configure the solution in the right way, a lot of staff were required to fit exactly what we needed for test practice configuration, and for every component they delivered logs on their licensing side. So the technical guys took some time.

In the case of my clients now, the platform was deployed by VMware. But for me, I deployed it myself many times.

I have not seen any Return on Investment yet. This is the job that the marketing and technical staff have to do.

The licensing cost is charged by VMware.

My advice is to apply for the documentation and to follow the command of the official documentation to use it.

I rate it nine out of ten.

We integrate VMware for our customers. Our customer requested Log Insight, and we tested it. Log Insight is for logging the system to provide more information aside from alerts and anything related to the testing environment. It makes the environment more manageable through a single pane of glass.

Improved manageability is the main benefit.

It gives the customer a quick overview, so they don't have to dig. There's a clear dashboard with many sensors in a single space. He gets a helicopter view of his environment, but he can investigate further if there are serious issues. It's pretty user-friendly.

I would like to see more tutorials or at least an introduction video from the supplier, so you can become proficient and get the most out of the solution. You might not get the full benefit from a logging or reporting solution because you might not have a particular tool enabled. You could leave something out of your analysis because you aren't aware of it or you don't know how to set it up. 

I've worked with Log Insight for a year.

LogInsight is stable, but sometimes it's somewhat sluggish because it has to gather the information. It should be no problem if you deploy it on the right platform and have all the requirements in place. 

LogInsight is scalable. You can update it, and it's straightforward. 

VMware technical support is excellent.

LogInsight is user-friendly and straightforward. I rate it 8.5 out of 10 for ease of setup. After deployment, maintenance isn't a challenge so long as you keep it updated. You may need to update the software to stay in line with the upgrade roadmap, but the rest is fine.

LogInsight's licensing model is a bit complex. Runecast's licensing is more straightforward. On the other hand, licenses for just about anything is expensive, but ultimately it comes down to a return on investment. LogInsight's price is worth it in the long run. A proactive approach in the world saves you a lot of money by preventing catastrophes. 

Still, the license cost is a pain point for the customers. From a sales perspective, our challenge is to persuade the customer to see it as a long-term investment.

We also tried Runecast because we wanted more features to present to our customers. Log Insight is more about reports, while Runecast gave us additional reporting capabilities. 

This was for testing purposes only. We offer VMware, so we're always looking for the latest tools, and we test them for about four months. I have no preference for LogInsight over Runecast. It depends on what you want from the intelligence you're gathering from your system. The more intelligence you have, the easier it is to be proactive about your decision-making. 

Each solution has what the other one lacks.  Runecast is better for some situations, but LogInsight might suit you better in others. It depends on what you need, but both are good. They are not interchangeable. LogInsight is a bit more costly. 

I rate LogInsight seven out of 10. I give it a seven because it isn't easy to scale, and the cost is too high, but it's a good product overall. 

Customers should have a test environment to keep abreast with the latest software available in the industry. They can evaluate it and check themselves as well. Partners like us can help them make the right decision, but it's useful for customers to have their own test environment.