VMware Aria Operations Reviews

I use VMware Aria Operations for logs in my company. I just use it to manage the logs and to see what is happening in the security logs. VMware vCenter is used to deploy virtual machines.

I specifically use the tool for logging and looking over the various traffic flows happening within VMware. It is easy to track and see what is happening where, and it can easily figure out solutions if there are any problems inside VMware's access management tools.

As VMware is moving to Broadcom, I feel the support is becoming really bad. There are some areas VMware needs to look into, specifically regarding the connectivity provided by the tool. My company has been facing the aforementioned problem with Aria Operations, and I think it has been more than two months now, and still VMware hasn't found any patches for it. My company is not able to figure out what exactly the problem is with the tool. I am not sure if there is some problem because of the movements. I think that in terms of where the customer experience lies, I feel I have had a bad experience for two or three months, and it keeps on happening, which is impacting my production. I am not sure if VMware is able to find a solution with the product I use or if there is some other problem. There are some current issues with the support provided by Broadcom, making it an area where improvements are required.

I have been using VMware Aria Operations for three years. I am a customer of the product.

The stability of the product is something that depends on how much work a user has with the tool. If you have a very good experience with the tool, then you can do things in a very good procedure. The tool's initial deployment went well with the support from VMware. VMware's support is really good, but because of Broadcom there are some problems. Initially, the new product's implementation and deployment went well with the support from the solution.

Scalability is easy in VMware Aria Operations. The only things you need to manage are the backups and how much expansion you want with the tool. If you take a product from Microsoft or VMware, both work really well for an initial three or four years. Adding something new would mean taking a different approach, and that would depend upon the company's expansion.

My company uses just one function of the product, which is specific to our environment. There might be some other functionalities in the product that might help with certain enhancements in the area of logs, but we don't have the exact scenarios for which we can use the tool's certain functionalities.

If I specifically talk about VMware's support, then the support offered is very good, especially if I don't consider VMware's integration with Broadcom. I rate the tool's support a nine out of ten. I am not sure if I can comment on Broadcom's support services since it is still in the initial stages.

Positive

VMware vCenter is used to deploy virtual machines.

VMware solutions are easy to install. There are some available steps to install the tool and if we follow the steps, I think it is a good solution to work with for anyone.

The tool doesn't take much time to deploy. I am not sure of the time required to deploy the product because our company uses the solution for a specific function, so I believe that it might also have some other functions. The functions my company uses for logs are very easy to deploy since, just after connecting the solution, it starts getting all the logs.

It is an easy solution to use, and you need to invest in it only one time by looking at your personal usage and expansion plans. Getting a machine and everything within the solutions and bringing in the tool where you have some availability shortage need to be done only once, after which you can expand it instead of buying a fresh machine for A certain period of time, which can be an expensive affair. A product starts from the day you create a machine in the cloud solution. The solution also provides users with some features and facilities that are specific to the licensing models you have from the tool. Considering how much and what type of licenses you have, the cost might be reduced. For expansion purposes, you don't need to think about new tools because you already have the solution you purchased from VMware. With whatever expansion scope is available in the tool, it is easy to expand the solution to a few more servers. If you are going with other solutions for expansion purposes apart from VMware, then there is a cost involved. The tool is easy to use, but from the cost perspective, there might be a huge difference between other tools and VMware. You have to invest less in cloud solutions because you pay as you work with the tool. You can deploy one machine and then deploy another machine tomorrow. With VMware, you need to invest just once, after which expansion options are already available in it.

If we talk about the cloud solutions that are available in the market, I think that instead of collaborating with VMware and Microsoft or with some other solutions, VMware should focus on providing good cloud solutions. VMware should not take advantage of any other products in the market to provide the cloud version of its products since its pricing might change. For people who don't want to move away from VMware, it can be a pricey product. 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 is no specific maintenance required for the product, and usually you get an advance notice if something like that is required. It is up to the user to schedule the maintenance as per their timeline.

I have not specifically faced any challenges in managing the solution in our virtual environment. Earlier, there were some problems with the tool.

If the product is able to fulfill your requirements, then I would say that VMware is a good product for you.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We use it for daily administration tasks.

If a user is experiencing issues with an application running on a Windows server, and the application is almost non-functional, I investigate the cause. If the server is overloaded, I address the issue by expanding the storage capacity of several disks within a few minutes. This ensures that the application can operate at normal speed and reliability.

What I find most valuable is its simplicity, which allows us to seamlessly migrate views from one physical server to another, be it due to resource overloads or transitioning from one set of disks to another. This process occurs without any disruption to the machine, ensuring continuous operation.

While the system itself continues to operate, the user interface may temporarily freeze or fail to display immediate changes. It requires loading and other steps before all modifications become visible. This limitation hinders my ability to customize the display of certain elements, posing a minor challenge within the system. Having the capability to manage the enterprise display would be highly beneficial.

I have been using it for almost twenty years.

I would rate its stability nine out of ten.

It provides excellent scalability capabilities. We have a couple of hundreds of users within our organization. There is a plan to increase usage in the future. With new personnel joining our company each month, I anticipate that this environment will likely double within the next year and a half or possibly two years. I would rate it nine out of ten.

Technical support poses a challenge, especially for large companies with competition centers situated in countries like India and Malaysia. When an issue arises in the morning for us, it's nearing the end of the day for their support teams. As a result, cases are often shifted from one person to another, requiring me to explain the same problem two or three times. Another factor is that English is not our native language. The variations in pronunciation across Europe, Malaysia, India, the United States, and Australia sometimes lead to difficulties in understanding each other. This language barrier has prompted us to resort to written communication, particularly through chat, which impacts the efficiency of problem resolution. I would rate it five out of ten.

Neutral

I've used Microsoft solutions and previously worked with Citrix, but I find that VMware surpasses both in nearly every aspect. It stands out as a superior product, particularly in minimizing bandwidth requirements for communication, whether it's a direct or indirect connection. This is especially beneficial for long-distance connections between two countries or similar scenarios.

The complexity of the initial setup depends on the smoothness of the upgrade process. If any issues arise, resolving them may require a significant investment of time—many hours or even days—addressing nuances to establish a good, proper configuration.

The deployment time significantly hinges on the scale of the environment. For smaller environments, such as a few servers, it typically takes just a couple of days. This includes the configuration process and addressing any potential issues. However, managing hundreds of ESX servers, and deploying such a substantial environment can be challenging and time-consuming.

Over the years, our environment has remained quite consistent, with a moderate number of ESX servers per site. The foundational physical servers for the VMware Infrastructure are regularly upgraded to newer generations. Despite the steady evolution, I've never encountered significant issues where resources approach full capacity. I actively monitor the environment with operations, using it as an additional tool rather than a critical necessity, given the robustness of our system and the reliability of the basic online information it provides.

Overall, I would rate it nine out of ten.

VMware Aria Operations is a new platform that provides visibility into different areas of the infrastructure, reduces or eliminates downtime, and makes customers more proactive. It gives customers the insights they need to be proactive rather than not active, and it helps them plan for capacity needs, ensuring that they are doing their best to avoid over-provisioning or experiencing contention. It also has a self-service option so that end users can be more independent from the infrastructure team and monitor their needs.

Avoiding problems in the monitoring area is our strength. We use real-time monitoring models and real-time monitoring to do this. We also provide other capabilities, such as seeing changes in the environment.

The VMware Aria Operations solution is a very technical product and is not for everyone. As a top-of-the-chain VMware tool, it is only normal that it has a learning curve. While the UI has been improved, it may still be difficult for some users. The solution has a lot of functionality and can monitor all areas of infrastructure, such as storage and network.

I have been using VMware Aria Operations as a partner for seven years.

I rate the solution’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

The documentation is perfect.

Positive

The initial setup is easy. The setup time depends on the scale, but it can be as short as a few hours. Once the valet solution is deployed, you must link it to the infrastructure. This process takes a few hours, as the key must pull data from all the infrastructure components. In most cases, the valet solution will remove the entire infrastructure into CRM within a few hours or less.

I rate the initial setup an eight out of ten. 

Most small users don't adopt VMware Aria Operations until it's necessary. Small businesses are looking for it, too. We need more monitoring and insights, so we're analyzing solutions to help us out here.

I rate the solution’s pricing a five out of ten.

VMware Aria Operations has many hands-on plug-ins that can help you monitor all the elements in your infrastructure, such as storage, networks, and more, beyond VMware infrastructure itself.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

In many cases, I have worked with vCenter within our virtualization environment. Some problems result in vCenter becoming corrupted, making it unusable. Consequently, I resort to utilizing it as a standalone server for each issue. This is the primary problem I've faced over the past two years, and for every problem that arises, I manage to resolve it. I've observed that using each server independently is the standard practice, and I occasionally utilize it for various purposes.

I have found the backup extremely useful in my use cases.               

In this vCenter, my wish is to establish a backup system that doesn't require VIN. It involves creating a backup ticket directly from the vCenter for the virtual machines and performing the backup task for each server, ensuring redundancy without the need for additional software. This would be a preferable solution if all of this could be accomplished within vCenter itself.

I have been using VMware Aria Operations for the last two years.

I would rate the stability a seven out of ten.

I would rate it seven out of ten. Based on my experience, there have been occasional issues with vCenter. One of the recurring problems involves vCenter going offline, and when that happens, I'm unable to resolve it, necessitating the installation and reintegration into the system. This has been an ongoing challenge throughout its entire lifespan. However, when it comes to accessing the servers individually, there's a different issue. While using the solution, there are frequent occurrences where, when I make changes to a machine, such as adjusting RAM or other resources, I sometimes encounter a situation where the data doesn't load properly, resulting in a yellow screen. To rectify this, I have to refresh the page and then make the necessary changes to the machine. While this can be somewhat frustrating, it's not overly difficult for me to manage, and I've learned to handle it without considering it a significant problem.

I haven't taken any formal courses on vCenter, yet I've managed to install and troubleshoot them successfully. I've relied heavily on online resources, and the wealth of information available on the Internet has proven to be a valuable asset. I haven't sought support from any specific company. However, it's possible that in the future, I might encounter a problem that I can't resolve on my own, even with online resources. At that point, reaching out to a company for assistance might be necessary.

It is not difficult but sometimes requires extensive reading and knowledge to install it. It's not a complex task, but I need to fully comprehend everything in order to install it. Sometimes network-related issues can complicate matters, and having a strong background in network infrastructure, including switches and routing, is crucial for successful execution. If there's a preference, I'd appreciate guidance on which one to install. Also, it would be convenient if I didn't have to create everything from scratch on the switch. Some elements may need to be set up physically, and then I can connect them to two switches for network installation, requiring a three-step installation process. The deployment is scheduled for two months to complete the installation and server replacement. This timeframe should encompass all aspects of the solution.

It's not particularly challenging, but it's important to remain close to the users, ensuring that the data is functioning correctly. We need to verify its operation for a week. Out of ten servers, everything is working fine. Then, I'll proceed to another server, following a similar approach, to ensure it is safely set up. We won't be dealing with desktop servers; it's more about efficient and timely execution.  

I would rate it six out of ten.

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.

I would rate it overall an eight out of ten. 

I've been using this for managing our company's infrastructure. We have a cluster of somewhere around six nodes. 

We're using it in a hybrid mode. We have our on-premise data centers and we are operating on AWS as well. We have multiple legacy apps which require a certain type of monitoring to be enabled and we kept that enabled from the on-premise, but the advanced features for monitoring are being explored on AWS.

Primarily I have found it very useful from the compliance perspective and for control and agility. These are the three main things which are helping us to have a more proactive approach in managing the infrastructure.

We used to have COTS products for monitoring our ESXi hosts. We had a team that would check on alerts and then go on to our approach for remediating the problems. vROps has helped us to reduce the costs and increase the efficiency, because it has a lot of features that tell you where things are going wrong. We have been able to cut down on the cost of resources and we have a smaller team to manage the infrastructure now. The solution helped us to reach a level where we have low resources but high efficiency. Its gives you the most accurate alerts and remediation processes for closing problems.

We have a support operations center where we have a dashboard running 24/7 and that is where vROps manages things and tells us about the health of the infrastructure. If something is going wrong, if it picks up any anomalies, the team takes care of it, remediating based on the recommendation of vROps in the dashboard.

Since incorporating vRealize Operations over the last two years, I don't recollect there being a big concern in regards to downtime. We have not had any downtime happening in the last two years, since we put vROps in place. If we correlate it to the other models we were using earlier, we had certain incidents where we were not even aware of what was going on, on the ESX level. vROps has helped us to reduce our downtime by 90 percent. I'm taking the 10 percent off to account for planned maintenance, because sometimes we need to go offline for maintenance done for our entire infrastructure. But downtime has been reduced 90 or 95 percent since we incorporated vROps.

It has also increased our efficiency and decreased our mean time to resolution. Infrastructure agility has gone up and we're much more efficiently handling the infrastructure now, whether on-premise or Amazon. It provides the agility to do the deployments, but even then, deployment has to be initiated at a user level. Overall, it has increased our efficiency by 30 to 40 percent, in terms of deployment.

The solution has also played a very vital role in workload placements and we have been able to manage workloads and capacity planning, among other things, in a very efficient manner. We are 70 to 80 percent more efficient in regards to management and capacity planning. It gives you visibility into the infrastructure so that you never go beyond the sources that you have and it has helped increase our VM density by around 70 percent. In addition, performance has definitely increased by a similar rate of 70 to 75 percent compared to the previous product we used. There was a leap forward when we used vROps.

Regarding hardware costs, what we used to do before we had vRealize Operations was to buy things in chunks. If we needed storage or additional memory, we might procure 10 TB of storage at one go and then start using it, despite the fact that only 4 of the 10 TB was being used. That's how we would do hardware resource allocation: we would have to buy that item and put it into the system. But now, because of the visibility with vROps, we know how much storage we will require six months down the line. That means we do procurement in smaller chunks. We save hardware costs and, at the same time, resources are planned in such a way that we never run out of resources. Because we have six- or seven-node cluster, from the power perspective, we are not seeing that much in savings, but definitely due to the capacity planning and the visibility, we have seen a cost benefit.

There's a feature known as Smart Alerts in vRealize Operations, which I have found to be useful if there's anything going wrong in the infrastructure. What usually happens is that you get so many alerts that you become confused. Smart Alerts give you visibility into your infrastructure and also recommend how to fix the situation. That's a feature which I'm really a fan of.

Control, from the compliance perspective, is also helpful because we are a PCI DSS-certified company. It keeps us in compliance so that all of our servers and other things are not breaching any of the baseline protocols and baseline policies which we have laid down for the company. That's another thing which I like about the VMware vROps.

For the initial setup, there should be some sort of auto discovery of the environment. That should be enabled. It has the ability to discover a main node, but it could still be made easier, to reduce the initial configuration and setup time.

We have been using VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) for the last two years.

After incorporating it during the initial phase, there was a discovery period for the infrastructure and for vROps to adopt our set of configurations and advanced policies. Since then, it has been pretty stable. We haven't had any issues.

The scalability is fine. When we started using vROps, we only had a three-node cluster. Over the last two years, we have gone up to a six-node cluster. It is pretty scalable. The good part is that adding nodes to vRealize Ops is a pretty straightforward thing. It has given us the visibility to plan and to scale to the level we are at now.

We have over 3,000 people, out of an employee base of 10,000, using the apps that are running on the ESXi that is managed by vROps.

In terms of increasing our usage, as of now there are no plans because it widely depends on the expectations of the business. It's a global thing now because of COVID-19. We still don't know how we are going to grow this over time because the business is in a "back seat" right now. But I'm positive, down the line, of the possibility that we will go further with this.

We have had a couple of cases where we have reached out to VMware support and the tech support has always been awesome from all perspectives. Their problem-solving attitude has always helped. We have been using VMware for seven to eight years now and we have gradually grown but support has been awesome during that time.

In the past we used Paessler PRTG as well as other tools.

The initial setup is straightforward, not complex.

Initially, because we were not familiar with vRealize Operations, it took us a while to get it set up. Our infrastructure is dependent on multiple volumes, ESX clusters and the storage. It took us seven to 10 days to have a fully functional deployment of the solution. The initial setup took us less time, but setting out and defining the policies, the baseline and advanced policies, happened within 15 days of the deployment.

For deployment, we used a team of four onboard resources and we got in touch with local consultants who are VMware Certified partners for doing the deployment. The initial deployment was done by the certified partner and then a knowledge transfer to the resource team took place. After a month or two, our team was able to be 100 percent hands-on with it and started using it.

I rate VMware vRealize Operations very highly because it gives you multiple features such as compliance, agility, and staying hybrid, although if you want you can do it on-prem or on the cloud. I would recommend it regardless of the deployment, whether it's on-prem or AWS or hybrid.

It is user-friendly, but it definitely requires a little tweaking in the environment when you're doing the installation to set it per your requirements, your infrastructure, and per your expectations. What are you trying to monitor? Once you're done with setting up vROps for your cluster or nodes, then it's very easy to use. It will really help you out to get to the stage of automation for your infrastructure, so you don't need to depend on manual processes at all. 

We are not using Kubernetes or Tanzu as of now, but we are planning to incorporate it down the line, maybe in three to six months.

Overall, I would rate vROps as a nine out of 10. The one point I'm leaving out is because there is room for improvement, as I mentioned earlier.

We use VMware Aria Operations for the provisioning of the servers.

The solution gives suggestions regarding whether resources are underutilized or overutilized. It can also do automatic rescheduling like we do in the cloud. The solution's predictive analysis helps us in our future planning for procurement of the server, provisioning of the server, and capacity planning.

The solution’s pricing could be improved.

I have been using VMware Aria Operations for a couple of years.

VMware Aria Operations is a stable solution.

VMware Aria Operations is a scalable solution. More than 10,000 users are using the solution, and we have plans to increase the usage.

The solution’s technical support is good.

The solution is easy to deploy and doesn't require much effort. The solution's documentation helped us to do the installation and configuration.

We implemented the solution through an in-house team. For deployment, we consider doing some certifications, which is the best place to keep some items, whether on-premises or on the cloud, the cost, and compliance. After that, we make a plan and then do the deployment.

The solution is slightly expensive.

VMware Aria Operations is deployed on the cloud in our organization. If users have a valid case, they should go for the solution. Users need to pay more if they go for the premium support.

The solution's integration with other tools is good. Sometimes, we need to connect the solution with different tools, and all the tools are easily integrable.

Overall, I rate VMware Aria Operations ten out of ten.

The most common use case for vROps is to monitor infrastructure. Infrastructure includes, for example, your virtual machines. 

If a customer has an on-premises data center, they tend to integrate their adapters with vROps. This means that if there are any issues, alerts, or anything else that goes wrong with the system, vROps will pick it up. 

It will then use an inbuilt algorithm, depending on the events and alert system that you have configured, to trigger an email. This can help you to avoid a lot of problems in the future. 

For example, if there are a few appliances that are being monitored by vROps and their root directory or any other issues are getting beyond thresholds, say 80%, it will automatically trigger an email. If you have any ticketing system integrated with vROps, it will then trigger a severity one or severity two ticket to the respective team so that they are aware that there is something that might go wrong if it is not looked at on time. 

So, it is basically helping customers to avoid those situations where they might get into any issues or trouble. So, it is monitoring your system. 

Another stuff, so it is like if you want to have any visual representation of the data, of the performances, or of the data that has gone through in the last hour, last week, you can create a lot of dashboards on that, which is a visual presentation of the data. 

So, it helps you in a long way to monitor and understand your environment.

One of the things that is really valuable is its ability to help you implement security measures into your organization's standards. It helps you to have full control over more than 90% of the hardware and network infrastructure where you are installing vROps, so that you can have granular control over the infrastructure, which is pretty important these days. 

It's deployed mostly on-premises, but you can deploy it on the cloud as well. So, as most customers today are going for hybrid cloud deployment, they need a tool like vROps to give them a standardized, centralized view to monitor their infrastructure across both on-premises and cloud environments. It provides a single pane of glass to see what is going on across the entire infrastructure. 

vROps is a VMware tool, and most of the applications that our customers are running are virtual machines. So, when you have an infrastructure that mostly uses ESXi hypervisors, vROps really help you to have better control over your infrastructure and what is going on. This can help customers to run their day-to-day operations more smoothly. 

Moreover, in the older days, we used to perform health checks and other stuff manually. vROps automates a lot of these tasks, which lowers the burden on the operations team so that they don't have to worry about keeping an eye on each and every sort of thing. Even in the off business hours, when no one is there to take care of any stuff, vROps is still monitoring all of the data, appliances, and everything else. This helps them out in a big way.

The first area of improvement is cost. VMware licensing is always a bit costly. It has never been an open-source tool or something like that. So there are costs associated with that. 

Another thing is that you somehow need to have high-end people to perform the integrations with vROps as well. It's not as easy as it seems to deploy and integrate it with the different systems you want to monitor. 

It is user-friendly, but everything needs some specific skill sets. For example, if you go for even vRealize Automation, it comes as a bundle. So vROps is just one part of vRealize Automation suite. So, we need to know the product before we can start deploying it or start using it. We need to have people who have experience with specific tools before we can use them in our day-to-day operations.

So, for me, based on my experience, costing is one thing, and then there are the integration challenges that our company faces. And along with that, it does take up a bit of resources as well. It is resource-intensive.

I have not been using it directly because I work as an architect. Whenever there is a project for customers using vRealize Operations in their environment, we are the ones who have been designing the infrastructure with respect to vROps. 

So it has been around 12 months or more that I've been associated with projects where I have been helping customers deploy vROps and how to make proper use of this tool.

The stability of vROps depends on the environment that you are using it in. vROps comes as a suite, and when you're using it with other VMware products, such as vRealize Automation (vRA), vRealize Network Insight (VRNI), and VMware Cloud Foundation modules, it is already compatible with those products and is generally pretty stable. 

For example, when you are using it for virtualized workloads or VMware Virtual Desktop, it's very stable.

It is a scalable solution. You can scale it up depending on your configuration setup. 

There are different options for scaling, such as multi-node setups and collector setups. If you need to collect more information from different tools, you can simply add a collector to your environment. 

vROps is a good choice in terms of scalability. Even when you scale it up, it's not a big hassle to put more load into the system.

As an architect, we mostly design vROps implementations. The day-to-day operations are typically the ones that reach out to the support team. So, the support is mainly for people who are managed in the customer environment. 

We provide guidance on which integrations or adapters to use, and how to get the endpoint systems integrated with vROps. But when it comes to support, it's a matter of cost. VMware offers different levels of support, and the enterprise level of support is quite expensive.

If you're looking for a higher level of support, then it comes with a cost.

When I started working with vROps three years ago, the company mostly used vROps. When I joined, I started with the vRealize Suite. And they have different types of monitors. For example, there are different tools for different monitoring purposes. Like, for security, they'll have different tools for log monitoring.

We use vRealize Operations. We use vRealize Automation (vRA). We use VMware Cloud Foundation. That's vCS. And then, we have been using vRealize Network Insight. Then, we have been using Cisco Insight or Cisco FlashStack. These are the few software that I've been working on in the last twelve months. So, different teams will have different tools which are being used.

The initial setup is quite easy and straightforward.  The majority of the time, implementing vROps is not time-consuming. 

However, if you are migrating from one vROps version to another, you may need to take care of a few things, such as downloading the new configuration and other necessary changes. But overall,  vROps implementation is pretty simple.

So, besides the license overall, you have to pay for the type of support you want. With the license, there is a support cost as well.

Typically, people don't just purchase vROps individually. It's usually part of a larger suite, like the vRealize Suite, which is expensive. So, the suite includes vROps along with other software. 

If a company purchases vCloud Foundation (vCF) or vRealize Suite, vROps comes with it. vCF and the vRealize Suite have been acquired or purchased by large customers who have the financial resources to support the licensing costs. 

For example, I've seen many banking sectors using vROps when they purchase vCS. Recently, I worked on a design for a major European bank, and they were using the entire suite. 

So, no one really goes for the individual product because its value is significantly higher when it's part of the suite. So, there are many customers who use it, but the number of people who use it within a team depends on the company. For example, service-based companies that support multiple customers may have different needs based on the number of customers they support. They may train or onboard more resources to use vROps, depending on their requirements.

The main reason my company goes with VCS is that they already have a current VMware setup. When people go with the VCS suite itself, suppose you have a VMware virtualized network and VMware workloads running on one platform. 

For the network, you may be using different switches, and for storage, you may be using different SANs. So, with this approach, you have to pay different vendors because you're not relying on the same vendor for everything. 

And whenever something goes wrong, you have to open different tickets, which can be costly and time-consuming. So, people go for VCS mostly because they are getting everything in one single setup.

VMware has your networking, your virtualization, vSAN storage, vRealize Automation for automating workloads, vROps for monitoring, and VRNI for monitoring specific networks. So, it comes as a bundle, and it's pretty easy for companies to know that if they buy everything from the same vendor, it streamlines their processes. 

It also leads to operational efficiency because they are dealing with one vendor. And then, when you have two different products bundled in a suite from the same vendor, compatibility is never an issue. That's one of the main things. Because if you have different vendors and products, there is always uncertainty about whether upgrading one product will be compatible with another product from a different vendor. 

And if we look at what VMware has done recently, every year they have validated design guides. So, through that, we'll have everything within that guide, which one is compatible with which, which doesn't work with which, and if there are any limitations with any releases. So, we get everything in one suite. 

So, that's the reason most people go with them because they can foresee their future development in terms of hardware, in terms of their workload, or in terms of their business.

First of all, I would always suggest you go for vROps initially and always go for a temporary trial license. That way, you can check your VMware or any workload stuff you have, how your trial license works, and how it works with your production environment. If you have any workloads that you're going to manage through vROps, always go for a trial license first. Don't straight away go with the production license.

Also, always try to use different workloads, different metrics, and different configurations. This is because it also depends on the specific data center you have and the different products you're using. Ensure you are trying to integrate or get the alert generated for most of the products you are trying to integrate with vROps. A POC (Proof of Concept) kind of thing is always required before you go for the production license.

During the trial period, you can see how your dashboard looks, how the alert system is working, if it's not working, and if it's really meeting your security considerations as well. So, these are the things before you fully decide to go for the production license. Always take a trial license integrated with your current setup, which you have appliances and tests on, before you even decide to go ahead with it.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten. The reason is that there are many new advancements coming into the market that are AI-enabled. VMware really needs to do more when it comes to preventing alerts. For example, many security tools use algorithms to detect alerts and give you a whole scenario of the reports that show how you can prevent this action from repeating again. These are a few things they absolutely need to work on more.

Also, security has been a boom for companies in the last few years, and considering how important security is, there have been a lot of tools that do the rating. So, it is more integration-friendly if the current tool can be used for any integrations in any environment, which is something VMware is not yet that efficient at. But I would still give it an eight because most of the workloads currently being used are virtualized ones, VMware workloads. For them, it's perfect.

Our clients use VROps to monitor their virtual machine performance, create reports, do capacity planning, and do project planning. We also use the tenant-student app for billing purposes.

I've found the reporting and analytics features to be the most valuable. 

The latest release of VMware Aria Operations has some great new automation features, but I think the pricing could be improved. It's quite expensive, especially for the entire VM workload.

In future releases, I would like to see VMware Aria Operations integrate with Ansible. I understand that VMware has their own orchestration and automation product, but I think it would be valuable to be able to integrate with Ansible as well. This would give users the flexibility to choose the best tool for the job, without having to invest in two separate products.

I have been using VROps for about eight years.

It is a very stable solution. But it requires a lot of knowledge to manage. For example, if you are collecting a lot of data for analysis, the virtual appliance drive spaces can fill up. In this case, you need engineers who know how to expand those spaces. The procedure is simple: you just add a new VMDK and start the appliance. The appliance will automatically expand the drives with the NVMe and stuff. However, the problem is that you need engineers who know how to manage and clear up the logs and ensure that they are sent as a stop.

I would rate the scalability an eight out of ten.  I did have some scalability issues when working with the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) stack. For example, if I deployed one instance and needed to scale out to a second instance, I would sometimes run into problems. 

VROps is most suitable for enterprise-level companies.

The initial setup process is fairly simple, especially if you are only setting up a standalone instance. However, if you are setting up a multi-tenant or multi-cluster environment, the setup process can take longer.

Our clients have hosted it on cloud as well as on-premises. 

The licensing is quite expensive for our company. I would probably give it a rating of seven out of ten, where one being expensive and ten being affordable.

I've used both VMware Aria Operations and Veeam ONE.

If I need to troubleshoot a problem, I would use VMware Aria Operations. If I need to get a complete overview of my environment and generate reports, I would use Veeam ONE.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. There is only one area of improvement for me.