What is our primary use case?
Primarily, it's a mature and stable solution compared to other hypervisors. Price-wise, it was okay until Broadcom took over. But customers are looking for stability, and it simply works.
What is most valuable?
The ease of use would be the first feature I like, then reliability. It's stable. It probably goes down, like, once in a very long time. So, in terms of the user experience, reliability, and stability, those would be my key takeaways.
A lot of AI features have been brought with version eight. Version seven didn't really have the AI integrations, so it's still an area we are assessing and testing, probably for the next year or so.
What needs improvement?
Right now, with the Broadcom takeover, I think the price point could be improved. A lot of people are complaining in the industry, so they probably need to revise their pricing. But the technical capabilities are sufficient for current day-to-day use. I'm sure they keep on improving other things.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've worked with VMware for a couple of years. I also work mainly with vSphere suite, which includes vCenter and ESXi. Also, Cloud Director and vRealize Operations. Those are the key ones I've been working with for the past two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It's a scalable solution. If you want to scale up your infrastructure and add more hosts, it's quite simple, whether it's scaling up, scaling down, or even scaling out.
It is suitable for enterprise businesses.
How are customer service and support?
With the Broadcom takeover, the quality of the customer service and support has really gone down to a five.
Because of the team reorganization, ticket acknowledgment can now take an hour or two. Resolution can even take up to two days. That has really changed.
So, the wait time for responses has increased since the Broadcom acquisition.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I've used Commvault. I've been focusing more on VMware technologies.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not really complex because I've been using it for all these years, and it's become more and more simple for me to use.
We use it in our on-premises environment. These days, integrations are quite simple.
The deployment time varies. Internally, we have our own on-premises setup, just ESXi and vCenter. That takes a bit longer since the automation isn't fully implemented.
But for VMware Cloud Director (VCD), they have a Lifecycle Manager tool that makes it really easy. Two years ago, Cloud Director used to take about three hours to set up, but now, with Lifecycle Manager, it takes about 40 minutes. That's a real improvement.
What about the implementation team?
I'm a customer, a partner, and an implementer.
What was our ROI?
Efficiency has definitely gone up, but now at the expense of cost. It's become really expensive. For example, if I paid about $10,000 for three years, now I'm paying the same for one year. So that has really gone up. It really increased in terms of pricing.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would rate the pricing a ten out of ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive.
What other advice do I have?
Technically, I would recommend it. Considering the cost aspect, I'd put it at seven out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
*Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner