VMware Cloud Foundation Reviews

Our clients use VMware Cloud Foundation for SDDC implementations. When it comes to data centers, traditionally, data center infrastructure components are standalone systems, like blade servers or rack servers sitting inside a rack. 

But with a software-defined data center (SDDC), you buy a larger hardware component from a vendor like HP, Dell, Nutanix, etc., and then virtualize that hardware to create a pool of VMs, storage, and other resources. 

This concept isn't confined to just compute and storage. You extend this understanding and capability to your network (e.g., software-defined SD-WAN or software-defined networks) and backup (e.g., software-defined backup running on backup appliances like HP StoreOnce). 

You define backup policies through software, specifying which VMs need to be backed up, how often, and the backup retention period. That's how we technically sell these software-defined data center concepts to our customers.

Another thing to consider with data centers is power consumption, which is directly related to the hardware configuration running in the data center. The capacity and power consumption of the hardware you buy from HP, Dell, Nutanix, Cisco, etc., affects your operating costs. Imagine kilowatts of power running over a period of years, so it's a significant cost factor. So, it's not just about the technical capacity but also the power consumption, which is a major discussion point.

VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) simplified hybrid cloud integration. In the current environment, most customers have their applications and infrastructure running both in data centers and public clouds, like AWS and Azure. 

VCF brings the capability of having a private cloud solution on-premises that offers a similar experience to what hyperscalers' public clouds provide. This means everything is software-defined, whether it's compute, storage, network, etcetera. We can define a pool of resources and segregate those resources with a click of a mouse through software-defined business tools and policies.

VMware Cloud Foundation provides us with the vSphere dashboard through which we can manage, monitor, schedule, and spin up your virtual machines. We can manage, monitor, and get reports of your infrastructure.

It gives you a very beautiful display on the vSphere dashboard, which you can use to configure and generate reports. And, with the vSphere dashboard, you also have your monitoring tools integrated with them.

So, for example, if you have x number of servers running in your capacity, your monitoring tools, like Logic Monitor and SolarWinds, can also be integrated into the system to generate reports and ensure you're keeping a tab on the infrastructure capacity, health, and any potential issues that might come up in the customer's environment. 

So, the integration of the monitoring tools in the VMware vSphere dashboard itself is one of those features that customers like very much. 

Secondly, you can schedule certain VMs from the vSphere dashboard itself. 

Customers are quite interested in the capabilities within the VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) layer that allow for spinning up and scheduling virtual machines in a customer's environment, essentially forming a private cloud. This scheduling capability enables us to power down non-critical, non-production virtual machines, which is a key aspect of managing a private cloud where your critical applications run. 

Unlike the constant operation of all virtual machines, the software-defined data center concept allows for cost optimization similar to what we see with hyperscalers like Azure, AWS, and GCP. 

With VMware VCF Services, customers can manage their VMs efficiently, ensuring cost optimization and benefiting from the private cloud's value in reducing spend and achieving faster time to market. It also supports interoperability among various monitoring tools a customer might have.

Moreover, VMware stands out in cloud computing by providing top-notch virtualization software and cloud foundation services. However, customers often inquire about 'as a service' model offerings from System Integrators (SIs) like us, where infrastructure is consumed on a pay-as-you-go basis, mimicking the billing model of public clouds. This is where vendors such as United Layer come into play.

Additionally, there are offerings from the likes of HPE and from Dell, like Dell Apex, which cater to specific needs in the cloud financial services sector. When preparing material for customers regarding their private cloud requirements, I consider offerings from OEM vendors and companies like Nutanix, which, despite being primarily a software company, partners with OEMs to tailor the foundation to specific hardware needs. They also offer their hypervisor layer, AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor), enhancing their position in the competitive infrastructure as a service (IaaS) market.

The competition is fierce in the on-premise private cloud foundation space, not to mention the public cloud sector, which often overshadows discussions about on-premise private cloud solutions. The market is filled with competitors vying to offer the most efficient, cost-effective solutions.

VMware remains a clear market leader due to its comprehensive portfolio and wide range of virtualization options. VMware has evolved to meet cloud migration needs, particularly for customers moving to AWS. 

VMware's collaboration with AWS allows for seamless rehosting of VMware virtual machines on AWS, requiring minimal customization.  

Cost is a big factor. Clients want a reduced price. Ease of use is definitely there – the VMware interface is user-friendly. But cost is a challenge when convincing clients, especially for large deals. They understand the value proposition of VMware's reliability, and they're willing to pay a premium for it as long as it's guaranteed in writing.

Clients signing multi-million dollar deals are primarily concerned with reliability. They're willing to pay a premium for a guaranteed level of reliability that's spelled out in the agreement. If they pay a significant amount and we can't convince them of the solution's reliability, then it won't be a successful implementation.

I have been using it for the last ten years. 

I would rate the stability a nine out of ten, with one being low stability and ten being high.

Enterprise-level businesses use VMware Cloud Foundation.

I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten. Scalability is the USP of VMware. It offers both horizontal scaling and vertical scaling. 

With VMware Solution, I work with VMware vCenter, VMware vSphere, and VMware Cloud Foundation services.  

VMware vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) are among the key products I've worked with.

VMware products are key for virtualization and setting up on-premise private cloud infrastructure.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. While explaining the features to clients, I always emphasize how easy it is to use and manage.

Automated deployment, particularly through VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), significantly enhances operational efficiency.

Within this organization I'm working on, we've developed multiple automation scripts that help you deploy with a click of a button. For example, for OS hardening or to spin up a virtual machine. First, you need your code your scripts to spin up the VM. Then, you need the OS image, whether it's Windows or Linux. 

So we've developed a lot of scripts internally, from hardening the OS to spinning it up, attaching storage, and even taking snapshots of VMs. 

All these are automated features within VMware Cloud Foundation, and all happen with a click of a button. You just need the script ready, customize it based on customer requirements, and deploy an environment, create VMs, and set up an SDR facility between two availability zones to manage VMs in case of disaster or failover. The traffic on the primary VM should divert to the secondary, and once the primary recovers, it should fail back to the primary node.

So, VMware Cloud Foundation helps manage virtual machines in case of disasters or failovers. During a failover, traffic gets diverted from the primary virtual machine to the secondary one. Once the primary recovers, the traffic gets switched back. 

Most clients with critical applications aim for five nines of availability. That means minimal downtime – ideally less than five minutes per year. The clients might be interested in RPO (Recovery Point Objective) or a highly available disaster recovery scenario.  

In conclusion, VMware Cloud Foundation offers a lot of automation capabilities. We have pre-written scripts that our engineers use to automate tasks like provisioning VMs, scheduling deployments, and patching systems. It's all very user-friendly.

I would definitely recommend using this solution. 

Overall, I will rate this solution a nine out of ten. 

The product provides an ease of deployment. We can refer to the guide for a procedure to check all the prerequisites. Later, it gets implemented seamlessly.

The platform needs improvement in terms of troubleshooting. They could send a hint or an error message faster when the system fails or encounters an issue.

We have been using VMware Cloud Foundation for two years.

The product has good stability.

It is a scalable platform. We have more than 200 VMware Cloud Foundation users. We might plan to increase the number of users in the next two to three years.

The technical support team is very responsive and capable of resolving technical issues.

We used OpenShift before. We switched to VMware Cloud Foundation as it is more user-friendly, easy, and provides efficient support. RedHat is an open-source product; thus, getting support services is challenging. Whereas VMware provides premium support services.

The initial setup is straightforward. It takes less than five days to complete the process.

We took help from a VMware consultant to install the product.

We have yet to receive a 100% ROI from the product. It may take one or two more years to recover the investment fully.

VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive compared to OpenShift.

I recommend VMware Cloud Foundation and rate it an eight out of ten.

Our customers use the VMware Cloud Formation as an alternative to other public cloud services such as Azure or Amazon Web Services. It provides them with an additional option for their data analytics and business intelligence needs.

The most valuable feature is the ease of migrating from on-premises infrastructure when transitioning away from older systems.

It is currently undergoing continuous development and transformation in various aspects. These enhancements include not only migration technology but also infrastructure and automation technology. Working on features that could include the capability to migrate workflows from non-VMware environments would be highly beneficial.

I have been working with it for two years.

In terms of stability, there are still some challenges. These challenges arise during the migration process from on-premises setups to VMware Cloud Foundation. We've encountered certain issues and bugs in this transition, and we've had to involve the vendor to assist in troubleshooting these specific problems. It's important to clarify that these concerns pertain to the migration and onboarding of customers from on-premise locations to VMware Cloud Foundation, rather than the stability of the infrastructure itself. I would rate it seven out of ten.

There are around five hundred administrators currently working on it, so it is quite scalable. It is suitable for businesses of various sizes, including small, medium, and enterprise-level operations. I would rate it eight out of ten.

I found the technical support to be excellent. I would rate it nine out of ten.

Positive

The pricing is moderate. I would rate it six out of ten.

This product is well-suited for refreshing and migrating workflows from legacy vendor environments to the new infrastructure. It excels in supporting migration processes. I would rate it eight out of ten.

The solution is cloud-based.

There are two people using this solution in my organization.

I'm able to deploy many platforms like AWS, Google Cloud, Oracle, and Azure on VMware.

The documentation could be easier to read.

I have been working with this solution for less than a year.

The solution is stable.

It's scalable.

I have worked with other solutions, but we switched because it's easier to use VMware in our environment.

Setup was straightforward. So far, we don't have a contract for maintenance.

I would rate it eight out of ten.

Deployment was done in-house.

I would rate this solution seven out of ten. I would like to see improved documentation.

VMware Cloud Foundation can be deployed on a private cloud or hybrid configuration.

The most valuable aspect of VMware Cloud Foundation is you can manage everything from area.

VMware Cloud Foundation can improve the process of upgrading. For example, if you want to upgrade or migrate any component it is very complex.

In the next version of VMware Cloud Foundation, I would like to see a Metro Cluster feature with Kubernetes.

I have been using VMware Cloud Foundation for approximately three to four years.

The stability of VMware Cloud Foundation is good.

VMware Cloud Foundation is scalable enough for our needs.

We have approximately 500 to 1000 users in our company using this solution.

The support from VMware Cloud Foundation could improve.

I rate the support from VMware Cloud Foundation a three out of five.

Neutral

The initial setup of VMware Cloud Foundation is simple.

We have two people who do the maintenance and support of VMware Cloud Foundation.

The price of VMware Cloud Foundation is expensive.

I rate the price of VMware Cloud Foundation a two out of five.

I compared VMware Cloud Foundation to Sentinel before choosing VMware Cloud Foundation. I found that Sentinel has only single automation, while VMware Cloud Foundation has a lot more.

I rate VMware Cloud Foundation an eight out of ten.

We have various on-premise environments. To upgrade user lifecycle management of those standalone environments with repeated patch upgrades, hardware lifecycle management, and software lifecycle management. For all of these issues, we use VMware Cloud Foundation because it does everything. 

The interoperability checkings, and supportability matrix, it does internally and gives recommendations automatically on what type of hardware we're using. For example, it gives automatic recommendations of all the hardware lifecycle drivers, and firmware, including the software stack. 

VMware Cloud Foundation reduces time complexity for the VMware administrator.

VMware Cloud Foundation's most valuable features are password and certificate management. The SDDC manager tool is the front tool we are using to manage the entire VCF stack. In the SDDC manager, we can able to rotate, and update the passwords of all users. Anything in the VMware portfolio, we can manage from a single dashboard and we have various data centers. We have connected everything into one Federation. From one single place, we are managing our entire virtual interactions.

In the early adoption of VMware Cloud Foundation, we have seen minor problems. For example, in our Federation, I see the single pane of glass where we need to manage everything, which is good. However, internally, we have a Kafka database that is distributed by the database used by the SDDC manager. During the distribution and synchronization, there is some issue and we need to stop the process. 

There are some other upgrade issues because it includes a lot of solutions, such as ESXi, NSX-T, vSAN, and some other components. The problem is it does not automatically upgrade. If it fails somewhere, we are stuck there. Until we solve this problem, we cannot move on to the next step, we are seeing some bugs, but those issues are being addressed in the later versions. Every version has some issues, but it has been addressed in the next version. In the earlier versions, we've seen a lot of issues, but VMware has done a lot of good progress in resolving them. The latest resolved whatever issues we have seen thus far. This is why why we are upgrading to the latest version, which is 4.5.

Initially, we are in a physical space and moved to a virtual one. From there, we are moving towards cloud and container-based environments. We don't have any future VCF to manage the containers. We have to come back to the vCenter to manage everything. If the features, could be inbuilt and available on the SDDC manager which is a VMware Cloud Foundation solution, it would be great.

I have been using VMware Cloud Foundation(VCF) for approximately one year.

The performance and stability of VMware Cloud Foundation are good. There have been some minor issues but overall the solution is good.

VMware Cloud Foundation is easy to scale out.

We have approximately 50 people using the solution in my organization.

We have a good relationship with the vendor and if we have any issue we are looked after, and our issue gets resolved.

I would rate the support of VMware Cloud Foundation a four out of five.

We have previously used Citrix XenServer. We started using VMware version 6.0 and move to 6.5, and 6.7, and are now using 7.0. We later implemented VMware Cloud Foundation.

We switched to VMware because we know they are a good vendor in the market for virtualization. We have many public vendors, but in a private cloud, VMware is good, they penetrated well in the market. Our business use cases match nicely with VMware virtualization.

For the implementation of VMware Cloud Foundation, you need to have data center knowledge. Additionally, having network knowledge is very important. You need to have multiple skills to deploy VMware Cloud Foundation. It is not very easy to do. 

There are a lot of design decisions that need to be made. We need to fill up the Excel sheet. For example, if I am the only one aware of the data center components, but not the networking components, then I cannot deploy VMware Cloud Foundation. Multiple teams need to be involved. A single person cannot deploy this solution from end to end. There need to be multiple storage, networking, and vSphere administrators. The initial setup is a bit complex, if you missed anything in the initial phase, you cannot modify it. You need to tear it apart and you need to redeploy it from scratch. This is one of the substantial pain points.

Our full implementation took us approximately five weeks.

We used the help of the solutions architects. However, our in-house team is very good at networking, storage, and vSphere, but the design of VMware Cloud Foundation is a bit complex. We need to have experts from the vendor side.

The price of VMware Cloud Foundation is a bit high. However, it comes with a lot of useful features and can handle a lot of operational complexity. Overall the price can be seen as being fair for what it offers.

If you want to reduce the operational overhead and manage your entire virtual infrastructure from a single pane of glass, then I would recommend VMware Cloud Foundation. It is the best solution to manage our data center virtualization.

I rate VMware Cloud Foundation a seven out of ten.

I have seen a lot of issues with VMware Cloud Foundation that needs to be resolved. However, we are not using the newest version.

We are using it for infrastructure automation. We have a manager of a manager to take care of day zero, day one, and day two operations, which makes deployment and management easier. We also have workload clusters that segregate the workload based on the different types of applications we have, such as sat clusters, PC clusters, mixed-door clusters, and container clusters.

The most important thing is the VMware platform. We have the product piece that completely simplifies different data center components. We have to compute, store, and network all under one data stack. Apart from this, starting from planning deployment, you have a planning seat, and then you have a cloud builder to bring up this composite stack. It's a complete solution, and you can deploy it easily. You need to upload only the build site in the cloud builder. The cloud builder will take care of bringing up the complete infrastructure. Then you have strategic management that will help handle password, license, configuration, and lifecycle management of these clusters.

On day zero, you have a template and a build cloud builder to bring up the template stack. It's a full-stack deployment. Then you have a conversation manager, lifecycle manager, password rights, and certificates- everything is taken care of.

I would like to see an improvement in the SDDC Manager. Specifically, VMware Cloud Foundation should improve some of the federation types, such as multi-site managers. For instance, if we have similar SDDC Managers, like the ones we currently have, which have three DCs in them, it would be helpful to have the ability to have multiple SDDC managers so we can look for foundation across multiple SDDC segments.

Apart from this, there are some features that could be added. For example, I think it would be useful to have better integration with other VMware products, such as vSphere or NSX. Additionally, the ability to customize resource usage based on business needs would be helpful. These are just a few examples, but I think they could really enhance the product.

VMware has duplicated a lot of functions. For instance, when I'm doing any individual upgrade, I have to follow the orchestration and upload. It takes time, and I cannot manage individual life and need an orchestrated process. We have to follow the sequence and the pre-check. So it's still easy, but I have to follow the system approach. I cannot do it on my own.

I have been working with VMware Cloud Foundation for the last three years.

The Veeam confirmation was launched five years back in 2015. But I have had some experience for the last three years.

From a stability perspective, there may be some issues, and that is very difficult. If I have to fix any issues, I need to connect with multiple teams within VMware. For example, if there is a DNS issue, it may impact multiple products. To fix it, I need to connect with different technical teams within VMware. It takes time, and it's not a one-step process. However, if you have skilled resources and knowledge, it is quick and simple.

The scalability depends on the hardware. For example, if it's on a VxRail or vSAN ReadyNode, I would rate it a nine. However, if there are some challenges, it would be rated lower. It depends upon the hardware stack.

It is suitable for companies with a lot of footprints, like a virtualization environment. If they have a software-defined data center, then it's fine. However, if they have a mixed environment of software and physical, it is not suitable. It also depends on their storage and network performance needs. If they need external storage or a physical kind of thing, it may not be suitable.

We have a Professional Services team. It's easy to connect with them since we are partners.

The setup process is complex. The adoption is not simple, but we need to ensure we've screened the resources. If we screen the resource who has knowledge of this product, it is easy.

VMware is on-premises. When it comes to hybrid cloud, we have rebranding like VMC. But the framework, the approach, the deployment, and the operation are the same. So the VMware Cloud Foundation installed on-premises is the same automated deployment and full-step deployment, and the single pane of management license is used. But on-premises, it is a VCF portfolio, and on a hyper-scale, it is rebranded to VMC-AVI.

If you purchase VMware Cloud Foundation as a bundle license, the pricing and all the VMs will be included. It's a better option compared to buying individual licenses. You can save up to forty percent of the cost. It's like getting a Visa and a Sixty license as a bundle instead of buying them separately.

However, if you purchase the products separately, it will be costly. I would rate the pricing within VMware a five out of ten.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. VMware Cloud Foundation covers all of its bases. It includes computing, networking, hyperscale containers, and more.

It's a reference architecture. It's based on vSAN Ready Node, however, it basically is tied to VMware in the public cloud, so it has all the VMware components tied to it.

It's a hybrid-based solution, so it's installed on-premise. Basically, you can drag and drop resources without having to do any type of conversions, IP changes, or anything else, into AWS Azure, where they have the VMware workloads running as well as VMware partners that have their VMware public environments up and running. It's that reference architecture that gives you that complete elasticity to be able to transport workloads seamlessly to pretty much anywhere.

The solution can scale.

The stability is good.

You can grow in much smaller pieces through hyper-converged, and that's true of all systems. For my customers who had converged infrastructure, when they needed to add just a little bit of access capacity, it was a couple hundred thousand dollars at a minimum to add just a little capacity. This is due to the fact that they had to buy a bigger chunk of capacity, even though they only needed a little bit. Where, with hyper-converged or Cloud Foundation or Nutanix or whomever, you could grow much smaller chunks. You can grow in $20,000 increments versus $150,000 increments.

They've improved a lot of the supporting products, like NSX. They have NSX-Ts. They've done a lot of ancillary improvements as it's a conglomerate of products. They have VxRail where the whole platform's automated. Before, you had to say, "Okay, I'm going to have this type of server hardware. And I'm going to have these cards, these individual components." And they all had to line up based on the software. You had to have certain switches as it was all software-defined. Therefore, when you would basically push the scripts down, they had to have supported kernels et cetera. There were only two switches that they used for management. There was a Dell switch and one other obscure switch. Of course, then, you could use your leaf and spine switches. You could use Cisco, Arista, et cetera. However, it was very limited.

That was the tough part. To build out the solution, there was a limited amount of hardware. However, now, it's completely automated. The whole platform now stands up very clean, very automated. They've made it really easy.

The solution is quite expensive.

I've used the solution for five years at this point. 

The stability is very good. there are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

The solution scales very well and can get quite sizable. I've had environments where we've had 25,000 plus users on it.

I've dealt with technical support. I actually coached a lot of them myself. I was on the partner development team, therefore, I was involved with it in its infancy period, when it was currently being developed. A lot of that hadn't been out yet. As a partner, I was being brought in to coach the Dell teams and even some of VMware SAs. And that's kind of how I got brought in to a specific contract, as Dell was doing a sale direct and the VMware product development team was really limited. I was, as a partner, basically coaching them on how to position the product and sell it to the customer and everything, and present the whole thing.

A lot of the initial setup is automated depending on what workloads you're running. If you're going to run Horizon on it, which is what a lot of my customers did, that's completely automated. It's kind of like a cloud in the box. A lot of the things are automated. 

They maintain the product in terms of providing software updates and things like that. That said, you'd still need someone in the organization or a services partner or something like that to help properly maintain everything.

If you're going from one hyper-converged to another hyper-converged, there's probably not as much in terms of ROI.

It's not a cheap product. It was pretty expensive.

For example, both of my implementations were about $15 million, however, I was displacing solutions that were over $30 million. I was displacing converged infrastructure, like Vblocks from VCE that were costing the customers over $30 million. I was able to really cut that cost in half with the hyper-converged platform. IN that sense, we really saved the client money.

Amongst everything that's out there, I would rate the product a nine out of ten. There's always going to be room for improvement on some things, however, it really hit the mark on a lot of things. The issue is, for example, it's the same thing with Azure Stack - it only works with Azure. However, it scales with pretty much everything VMware. To me, to be a ten out of ten, if you could get it to seamlessly scale into everything Public Cloud, it would be great. Nutanix is trying to do a lot of that, however, there's still some conversion process that has to be done.