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Engineer at T-Systems
Real User
VMs can be managed on their own but searching in the cloud is problematic
Pros and Cons
  • "We like the basic operations that we can do with the VM such as restarting, rebooting, creating snapshots, and deleting snapshots."
  • "If I just need to look for something quickly, it's quite difficult to find it with the way it's set up now. They should make the search button better."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case of this solution is to manage VMs on their own.

How has it helped my organization?

It has improved our organization by speeding up some basic scenarios. They can manage a simple operation on their own. 

What is most valuable?

We like the basic operations that we can do with the VM such as restarting, rebooting, creating snapshots, and deleting snapshots.

What needs improvement?

I would like to be able to search in vCloud Director more easily. If I just need to look for something quickly, it's quite difficult to find it with the way it's set up now. They should make the search button better.

The option to build up vCloud Director on the flash is quite annoying because you need to have integrated the flash, which can be problematic with the processor. Finding the integration plugin which works with the processor and which works with the flash is hard. I think this is an important feature to redesign. Eliminating the integration plugin would make it much better.

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VMware Cloud Director
March 2025
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Generally, it's quite stable. We don't have issues where the Director doesn't work. However, sometimes the vCloud Director cannot finish some operations for some reason. We'll need to try the operation twice or three times, redeploy, and do other steps. It could use some improvement. It would be better if it was a click and go.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is fine. If we need it, it works nice, but it's not our main focus.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support is good. Their guys are well trained and answer quickly. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Most of our clients are using classic solutions from the vSphere, 6, 5.5, or even older. We give them vCloud Director as an option for their business. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This solution is cheaper than other alternatives. 

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked into other cloud solutions like Microsoft Cloud and ABS. Our clients chose NSX because they have us as a middleman for support. 

What other advice do I have?

I rated this solution a seven because the search button really bothers me. Also, because it isn't always able to finish an operation. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
Architec1b8b - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Real User
Enables us to provision new customers significantly faster and the stability has been rock solid
Pros and Cons
  • "The stability is rock solid."
  • "The initial setup was complex. There's a lot of things you have to factor in, like security, backup, disaster recovery, monitoring, and how to maintain the platform. It's something we still struggle with, but it's getting better."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our primary use case for this solution is to onboard multiple customers into a multi-tenant platform.

    How has it helped my organization?

    My company's a traditional hardware reseller so moving into a subscription-based model is challenging from a sales perspective. It's a new way of getting customers in and getting them tightly coupled with my company.

    The self-service capabilities have affected the way that our customers can now do their own thing. Whereas in our old legacy platform, we had to sit down and do stuff for our customers. We don't require as many people to maintain the platform. 

    It has also enabled us to provision new clients faster. We can provision a new customer in a few hours and they will be up and running. 

    What is most valuable?

    The multi-tenancy feature is very important for us from a service perspective. The recent new capabilities are a huge step forward for this product.

    The data protection, disaster recovery, and container features are limited but evolving as well. We use some third party products for data protection and disaster recovery.

    What needs improvement?

    I would like to see a full transition to NSX-T, more work on the container, and double integration.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability is rock solid. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We're still a small, newly started service provider so we haven't had a lot of scale yet. 

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Their technical support is very good compared to other vendors. 

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    The main reason that we switched solutions was that we were running a legacy based infrastructure as a service. Customers had to submit a ticket and then we did something in the background for the customer. They requested self-service capabilities, so that was the main reason we knew it was time to switch.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was complex. There's a lot of things you have to factor in, like security, backup, disaster recovery, monitoring, and how to maintain the platform. It's something we still struggle with, but it's getting better.

    What about the implementation team?

    I implemented it myself. I designed and deployed the solution myself because I have a long background with VMware. We haven't used any external companies for implementation.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I would advise someone looking into this or a similar solution to get people who understand the technology and what you can do with it to get the program right the first time. You can make a lot of mistakes during the deployment. Get someone in there to help you if you don't understand the product 100 percent. 

    I rated this solution an eight. I believe that everything has room for improvement and wouldn't give any solution a ten. 

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We only looked at VMware. We looked at alternatives like OnApp but we saw that VMware was moving forward with a lot of innovation on the vCloud Director and stuck to that. 

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    VMware Cloud Director
    March 2025
    Learn what your peers think about VMware Cloud Director. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
    857,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    OSMNGR346 - PeerSpot reviewer
    OSS Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Evolved version and the self-service features are especially valuable
    Pros and Cons
    • "It has helped us develop a better way of selling services to customers, evolve from the typical housing, and make revenues for the Telefonica company."
    • "I would like to see mode accessory recovery and integration with SD-WAN."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are a service provider and our primary use case for vCloud Director is to build our own product.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It has helped us develop a better way of selling services to customers, evolve from the typical housing, and make revenues for the Telefonica company.

    What is most valuable?

    We like that it's multi-tenant, is supported, that it evolves with time and allows us to offer services to our enterprise customers in the B2B segment

    The self-service features have been very valuable to our organization. We are a service provider so we push access to our customers so that they can self-serve. With every version, it evolves more. It gets better with time.

    It allows us to provision new clients faster because we also automate with CLI which is a valuable feature for us.

    What needs improvement?

     I would like to see Business recovery and integration with SD-WAN.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    More than five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Stability is very good, rock solid. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We have some limitations with scalability because we are service providers. In the past with things like the number of VLANs, external networks, and the number of volumes per customer, we had to be very, very careful to be able to scale properly and with business sense.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Their technical support is very good. 

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We've been in the hosting business for fifteen years, so it was a natural evolution for us when it came time to switch. In a way, we are growing together with VMware.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was straightforward the first time. It was complex the second time. It became a brownfield because we had several products integrated and we had to connect them every time. The roadmap wasn't easy, but we did it. 

    What about the implementation team?

    We went directly with VMware Professional Services for the integration. We wanted a guaranteed seal and quality from the vendor.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    In terms of costs, I would say there is no comparison between this solution and alternatives. If you are in the market for VMware services, that's just what it is. You don't have any other product like this on the market.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We didn't look at other alternatives because we know that no other vendors have what VMware has. 

    What other advice do I have?

    If you're looking into this or a similar solution I would tell you to start fresh and start with VMware Professional Services and their architects from the beginning. 

    I would definitely rate this solution a ten. It has been working flawlessly for the last ten years and we have been very happy with it.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
    PeerSpot user
    SeniorCl2ed7 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Senior Cloud Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
    Real User
    Enables us to provision our clients faster but the initial setup was complex
    Pros and Cons
    • "Their technical support is great. We had some difficult cases and they were able to solve them in a timely manner."
    • "Initially, the setup was complex."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use vCloud Director for our customers. They use it to deploy work machine networking and to manage their own applications and backup solutions.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It enables us to provision our clients faster but the process is different. It is faster and the customer can auto-deploy via a template. It can take three to five minutes depending on the type of operating system.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable features for us are that our customers can create their own data center.  At the moment we don't use vCloud Director for data protection or disaster recovery. We are thinking about seeing the demo for vCloud Director and to implement the data next year. 

    The self-service capabilities have allowed our customers to have their own templates and to deploy from those templates. 

    What needs improvement?

    We would like to see them up the storage. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    Three to five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We've been using this solution for more than four years and we have found it to be stable.  

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We have found it to be scalable. Each year we know they will implement more and more features. 

    How is customer service and technical support?

    Their technical support is great. We had some difficult cases and they were able to solve them in a timely manner. Overall, we are satisfied. 

    How was the initial setup?

    Initially, the setup was complex but VMware is working to simplify the integration. 

    What about the implementation team?

    We implemented it ourselves. 

    What was our ROI?

    Our customers see reduced costs because they use our solution. I see that the company is growing and is a positive part of the solution.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    Our customers use different products like Azure, Amazon, and VMware. They use our infrastructure for disaster recovery. The objective is to recover. 

    We chose to switch to VMware because our customers don't want to spend a lot to change make a transition.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would advise someone looking into this or a similar solution to use vCloud Director if a customer wants to remove their old hardware.

    I rated this solution an eight because it's a good product.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
    PeerSpot user
    SeniorSo53e6 - PeerSpot reviewer
    Senior Solution Specialist with 1,001-5,000 employees
    Real User
    Our customers can take care of their virtual data centers with the self-service portal. It could be more stable.
    Pros and Cons
    • "The self-service portal is the most valuable. We are acting as a service provider, so our customers can take care of their virtual data centers with the self-service portal. Therefore, we don't need staff for it."
    • "We consider it intuitive and user-friendly. It offers a variety of functions for the customer to control the networking, virtual workloads, disk snapshots, and all of vSphere's core features."
    • "It could be more stable. We have had issues with multiple different versions."
    • "vCloud Director could use the vCenter database to store information. This way, we don't end up in a situation where we have things going out of sync."

    What is our primary use case?

    We using it for the public cloud.

    What is most valuable?

    The self-service portal is the most valuable. We are acting as a service provider, so our customers can take care of their virtual data centers with the self-service portal. Therefore, we don't need staff for it.

    We consider it intuitive and user-friendly. It offers a variety of functions for the customer to control the networking, virtual workloads, disk snapshots, and all of vSphere's core features.

    What needs improvement?

    vCloud Director could use the vCenter database to store information. This way, we don't end up in a situation where we have things going out of sync.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    More than five years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It could be more stable. We have had issues with multiple different versions. However, we are managing it.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability works as it should.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    The technical support could be better. We managing with the current support though.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We did not use a previous solution.

    How was the initial setup?

    The setup is complex as we have our own customized portals which we integrated with the product. It's quite a complex solution.

    What about the implementation team?

    We did the deployment in-house.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    The solution is costly, efficient, and robust versus alternative solutions.

    What other advice do I have?

    Do a proof a concept before making a decision.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
    PeerSpot user
    Pre-Sales Engineer at Secura
    Real User
    It makes provisioning new customers so much easier, and our customers are given power over their platform
    Pros and Cons
    • "vCloud Director requires less knowledge to get into in the first place. Therefore, when we bring in new members of staff, we can always give them the customer experience straightaway, and they can pick it up quite easily."
    • "We have had very minor problems with it when we've been upgrading."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use the vCloud Director as a multi-tenanted cloud provider, and it's amazing. It makes provisioning new customers so much easier, and our customers are given power over their platform. It gives them the idea that they have a virtual private cloud. It is the main product that we sell in our business.

    How has it helped my organization?

    vCloud Director requires less knowledge to get into in the first place. Therefore, when we bring in new members of staff, we can always give them the customer experience straightaway, and they can pick it up quite easily. This means the training is easy to start with, then we can introduce them to the more advanced features behind the scenes later on.

    In terms of disaster recovery (DR), we sell it as a service to our clients. We have our vCloud Directors spanning across two different data centers. We've had some of them that had problems go wrong in one data center with their software. Then, we are able to just move them across with no problems, except for minor downtime. Everything works together, which has been great.

    What is most valuable?

    The scalability is amazing. It gives our customers the options that they need. If they suddenly need to add more resources, they don't need to plan for it. They just need to pay us for it, and we can extend it for them.

    It's good giving the customers power. Thus, if a customer wants to reboot their server or if their server is hung, they don't need to give us a call. They simply need to log into their portal and reboot it. 

    What needs improvement?

    I've seen that there are more HTML5 bits coming in. With that, it's exposing more of the NSX. So, if they keep going in the same direction where they give more features under the hood in vSphere to be exposed to the vCloud Director, that would be great. The bits they've done so far as we've been going forward into the vSphere 6.5 have been good. I would like them to just keep doing what they are doing going forward.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Stability has been great. We have had very minor problems with it when we've been upgrading, but VMware has always stepped in. They have been able to fix everything for us. It's a fantastic product.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The scalability has been very good. We can add more hosts in. We have not had any problems with it so far. 

    How is customer service and technical support?

    The technical support is great. We've used VMware support primarily with our upgrades, and they have been great every time. We've had some issues, and they've always been able to fix them in a good time frame.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was complex at first, because none of us had dealt with the technology before. However, as we followed documentation and had help from VMware to get us off the ground, it became easier as time went on and we became more familiar with the product.

    What about the implementation team?

    We deployed it in-house.

    What was our ROI?

    Provisioning new clients is normally very quick. It's quite easy just to roll out a new client. The only complicated bit is deploying the service for them afterwards.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    VMware was always the way to go because other platforms, like Hyper-V, were already out there, but the products weren't as mature. They didn't have as many features. VMware is very good for HA and disaster recovery. We needed the scalability, because we started as a very small business and VMware allowed us to expand without too much hassle.

    What other advice do I have?

    It is a great product. It is like magic. It allows you to do so much.

    Put it in a lab, and you'll instantly fall in love with it. That's all you need to know. Just give it a go. If you're looking for something that allows your customers to get access to their VMs and stop bothering you, then get in there and try this solution out.

    vRealize Orchestrator is a powerful tool. A common query that we get from our customers is they might have issues where their servers are slowing down, but they have no idea why. So, we can pull up all of the graphs and say, “Very clearly your storage is too busy. It has too many IOPS or your CPU is maxing out.” This gives us a sales opportunity, because we can sell them a resource, and hopefully fix their problem.

    We don't use the container features.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
    Senior Engineer with 501-1,000 employees
    Real User
    We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center
    Pros and Cons
    • "We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center."
    • "If you use it for a lot of customers, it is too heavy for this solution."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use it for hosting our customers: a single environment with a single GUI. Our customers are known to have compute and Eos infrastructure cells. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    We use it to replicate VMs for our customers from one data center to another data center.

    With vCloud Director, our customers can use the VMs:

    • They can destroy them.
    • They can create new ones.
    • They can change them.

    They can do this in simplest and quickest way possible.

    What is most valuable?

    • Its simplicity
    • It is powerful.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    You can use it for a few customers. However, if you use it for a lot of customers, it is too heavy for this solution.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Concurrent users use tends to go slowly.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    The technical support is super.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We decided to automate our actions.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was complex because we had more than one solution to implement.

    What about the implementation team?

    For VMware, we hired an engineer for a couple of days.

    What was our ROI?

    We are able to provision new clients faster. Every month, we take on more customers.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    HPE and VMware were on our shortlist.

    We have also used Microsoft SPLA.

    What other advice do I have?

    We use vRealize Orchestrator with vCloud Director for creating work flows. You can automate your work.

    Using the self-service capabilities, our customers can quickly use the product with instructions and learn it within an hour.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
    PeerSpot user
    ICTspe3287 - PeerSpot reviewer
    ICT specialist
    Real User
    It is fast at deploying environments. If you have a deployed environment and lose it, you can't easily deploy it back.
    Pros and Cons
    • "It has helped us with user segmentation and QA."
    • "If you have a deployed environment and lose it, you can't easily deploy it back with vCloud Director. Because of this reason, we don't have the data protection, disaster recovery, and container features."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are using it as our QA environment.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It has helped us with user segmentation and QA.

    What is most valuable?

    It is fast at deploying environments and good for segmenting users.

    What needs improvement?

    If you have a deployed environment and lose it, you can't easily deploy it back with vCloud Director. Because of this reason, we don't have the data protection, disaster recovery, and container features.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Stability is okay.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Scalability is great.

    How is customer service and technical support?

    I haven't used technical support.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is straightforward.

    What was our ROI?

    It enables us to provision new clients more quickly.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I haven't used any alternative solutions.

    What other advice do I have?

    Go for this solution, but you will need quite a big environment to utilize vCloud Director.

    Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
    PeerSpot user
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    Download our free VMware Cloud Director Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.