VMware Aria Operations Reviews

The most valuable thing it has is the depth of historical data. You can dig in really deep. If there was a problem at any point in time in the past, we can use it to get an idea where it might have come from.

Unfortunately, it hasn't done a whole lot in that regard. It's taken a lot of setup time to kind of keep it in tune. So, for us, it hasn't given us quite the data we were hoping for. We came from LogicMonitor. We got the data a lot faster and easier from there.

More globalized templates would be much better. Templates for different applications, for example, "this is a web server, so these are the things you're gonna want to monitor on the web server." You would just build from a template and it would apply nicely. The product should already come with 50-100; templates for a desktop, for an active directory server, and other generic server templates, so that you can just apply what you're probably going to want to monitor on any given server.

Also, it doesn't answer any question without you asking it first. I want it to say when it sees something out of whack. It should bring that up higher into the stack and let 99% of the stuff sit out and be ignored.

Stability wise, it's been good. I can't think of any crashes we've had with it yet. It's had some issues connecting to Horizon View, and keeping the connections alive, but other than that it's been good.

We don't have enough scale for it to matter.

I don't think we've used it on that product.

We needed some way to be able to see performance issues, particularly in the VDI environment. We had played around with using LogicMonitor, and we switched because it was cheaper.

Also important for us when considering a vendor is that it's a "set-and-forget" system. Just something that tells us when there's a problem and doesn't bother us when there's not.

It's pretty complex. There's a lot of tweaking to get it to either report on something, or not report on something. There isn't a good set of templates built into the system to really make it go fast. You can install it quickly, you can get it logging quickly, but then it's just a glorified log system.

Try to get it to actually install and run.

For vRealize Operations, we use it a lot for capacity planning and our VDI environment.

It improves our ability to provision and acquire hardware when we run out of capacity for our VDI environment.

More data, at least in the VMware, for their Blast Extreme protocol that they use now.

Stability of vROps is good. We have no issues with it.

We haven't had a problem with scalability for vROps. No issues.

We haven't used technical support.

We weren't using something previously.

We needed the feature set that vRealize Operations had. It was already included in the horizon licensing that we purchased.

I was involved in the initial setup. Part of the initial purchase was to have VMware come on site to help install vRealize. An in-house team was sent too.

Just VMware.

Have VMware come onsite to help with the install and knowledge transfer. Also, make sure to research all the different features to use with vRealize Operations.

Most important criteria when selecting a vendor: Ease of use in the product you are looking to use.

Dashboards, then the troubleshooting parts of it. For example, the dashboards that troubleshoot issues with VMs.

It can create a list of operational tasks that need to be addressed. This way we can give a list to operational people of what they need to do on a day-to-day basis.

Needs simpler dashboards; executive level dashboards.

Get all of your access roles enabled so that you can use them in both places.

It's a large product, but it's very stable after you get all the pieces and enough low balance involved.

Great. We have six main nodes and a bunch of external nodes (remote connectors).

Good. They know the product very well.

We were previously using eg operational intelligence. We got a new system because we needed more integration and wanted more insight into what's going on in our environment.

It's complex, but as long as you follow all the steps and don't miss anything, it's fine.

When selecting a better alternative, look at scalability and support.

Test it out. Make sure you get the dashboards you want.

Customers and non-technical managers and capacity managers love the reports and recommendations vROps generate. In one console, you can see both your Physical and Virtual Infrastructures merging together.

Using vRO, you can potentially get any user custom enhancements implemented in vRA and beyond.

The vRO (using Functional Programming of Javascript) is a hand-down of the favorite component of this suite. You can create your custom plugins to speak with any third-party application, not forgetting how many enterprise infrastructure product plugins are already available.

In addition, vROps is a brilliant tool for capacity optimization, assessment, and leveraging many benefits of SDDC.

vRLI still needs a lot of improvement to even start comparing with the market leader, Splunk, in terms of data analysis and customized charts/reports generation.

In addition, VMware is still essentially selling the vCAC, which was created by Credit Suisse's DynamicOps.

The CAFE part was created by VMware and it is pretty robust. However, I don't feel the same about the IaaS Windows part. They need to stop using these two loosely coupled components and probably migrate the whole thing to a SUSE-based appliance.

Version 6 of vRO did have its own issues, but the current version is pretty robust. Earlier, the Java client on reload lost flows, and the appliance needed to be started. This is no longer the case.

There are no scalability issues at all.

Customer Service:

Lately, it has been an issue with getting hold of the support team, but they generally are good.

Technical Support:

The juniors are strictly OK, but the escalation leads are brilliant with sound knowledge in troubleshooting.

The most valuable feature is its ability to drill down into the very specifics. We're using it for a VDI environment, so to be able to actually look at the conversation and how it's progressing between the client and the server is really valuable for us.

It's a really big product, so it gets really complicated really quick. Therefore, maybe more simplicity in pre-configured dashboards and some of those kind of things would be nice, especially around VDI. VMware actually does not have a class in the education about vROps with VDI specifically. They just have a vROps class. When you add the VDI environment, it changes thing around, so that'd be another thing.

I have been using it for about a year now.

It has been consistently stable over the last year. We haven't had any problems with it. It's never gone down; never had any glitches. So far, it's been really good.

We're actually looking at deploying it to our production server environment as well, and we run about 24 different hosts. We haven't had any problems with scalability at all.

Technical support is good. We really haven't needed to call on this specific product, but whenever we needed to call, they're always there.

Initial setup is easy. It deploys as an appliance; wasn't hard at all. Configuring the agents was a little complicated, but once we figured that out, it wasn't bad at all.

We looked at several different options and it seemed to be the most complete package.

I definitely recommend vROps. I think it's a complete package, as I’ve mentioned. It integrates well. It gives us a single pane of glass. We can add on different agents for different applications, SQL or whatever we need. It really gives us a lot of insight into what's going on in the environment.

When selecting a vendor, we go on Gartner a lot, and see what quadrant the vendor is in. We're always looking for the best in breed and those kind of things. We also look at somebody that we're going to build a long-term relationship with, and we know that they're going to be stable as a company. Those are probably our biggest factors.

Probably, the most valuable feature is being able to see what's going on in my environment.

We use a combination of homegrown scripts and vROps for capacity planning. With the two, we get a really good view of what our environment is doing.

Mostly, it has provided capacity planning benefits; we can see where our strongest usage is and our clusters.

It probably has not helped us save on storage, but probably it has helped us more on the compute side.

Honestly, I wish the reports were a little bit more snazzy, if that makes sense.

Stability is good.

Scalability works great.

I have not used technical support.

Initial setup was straightforward. I actually converted from version 5 to version 6. It worked well.

Before choosing this product, I did not evaluate other options.

Look at the price and the features together.

When we select a vendor like VMware, the most important criteria are completeness of the product and support. This product is fairly complete and it works.

I think for me the most valuable feature is really capacity planning; knowing that I'm using our resources efficiently. We're going through a large hyperconversion project here and we really want to make sure that we are sized appropriately, so that we can build our next solution correctly. You know, save money and utilize hard work the most efficient way.

It has helped speed up performance. It's helped us size our environment appropriately, so that the servers that need the resources can get them. So we're not over-subscribing some and under-subscribing others.

I think we've used it to diagnose some things that might have caused trouble down the road, so it's helped us from there.

We haven't really looked at it from the storage standpoint, we're kind of storage strapped at the moment. As we go into hyperconversion, we're actually really going to start to utilize the tool to come up with a better sizing for that.

It's helped me and the IT department get a better idea of what's going on in the environment. Health checks make sure everything is running the most efficient way possible. It helps us plan for growth, to make sure we're getting the best return for our investment in the underlying hardware.

It’s really stable; haven't had any issues with it.

We're not a gigantic organization so, for us, there's no problem with scalability.

I’ve used technical support some; just to start to get to learn it and get it installed. It's an ongoing learning process for me. It's good. I think it's one of those things you have to take the time and learn it. We're gradually learning it over time.

We decided to invest in this solution because we were so heavily invested in virtualization, and just simply monitoring the virtual machines wasn't enough. We needed a full picture of the environment from the host all the way up through. It gives us a great complete picture.

We did not look at any other vendors at the time. This is the only one we looked at.

I was involved in the initial setup. It was very easy, straightforward to install, get running and start getting data.

I like that it's a single pane of glass with a single vendor, with a supportive VMware. It's really easy; it plugs in easy. There’s less to manage because it's all done through the center.

Support is an important criteria for us when selecting a vendor, as well as stability. That's why we like to partner with VMware, because the support is excellent and the stability is second to none.

A lot of my rating is a reflection of me not knowing the product. As I learn more and more, it becomes more valuable to me. I'd say it's not an everyday staple in our environment now, but it's becoming more and more important.

We use VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) for IT administrators to monitor our environment.

I have found the reporting tool, capacity planning, and reports for performance monitoring the most valuable features.

VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) should improve instant monitoring. Currently, the monitoring is on an interval of five to ten minutes, if I want to know what is happening now I cannot.

I have been using VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) for approximately four years.

After three years of using the solution is started to have some operational issues. I was using version 6.5 or 6.7 and we had to restart the solution for it to function well. I believe the new version has fixed the issues we were facing.

The scalability of VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) is limited. It should be open to any platform and handle hybrid deployments. For example, on-premise and cloud at the same time.

The technical support has been good in our experience.

The installation is a medium level of difficulty.

The price of the solution is expensive.

VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) is a good tool that users can use for reporting purposes, forecasting, performance analysis, and in-depth troubleshooting. It is very useful.

I rate VMware vRealize Operations (vROps) an eight out of ten.