VMware NSX Reviews

We're moving towards hyper-converged solutions with VMware, including NSX and vSAN. This direction has promising prospects in the market.

One significant advantage of VMware NSX is the ability to provide advanced security at the micro-level, focusing on securing applications and workloads rather than just the network structure or virtualization-based network security.   

I believe we need to attain a certain level of maturity and work closely with multiple customers to make substantial improvements and achieve notable results. The feature it can improve is essentially application-based load balancing with intelligent load distribution for applications that require redundancy and high availability. This feature operates at a micro-level, specifically focusing on the payloads of applications.

To clarify further, I believe that if NSX offers this functionality along with robust security measures for application payloads, it would greatly benefit customers. Instead of investing in additional devices or appliances for load balancing and security, organizations would likely prefer to leverage NSX's integrated capabilities in this regard.

We have been using this solution for the past six months. 

As for stability, the customer I mentioned earlier is extremely satisfied with the product's stability.

VMware doesn't have a physical presence in Pakistan. They recently initiated their operations here. However, we do have interactions with their team based in Singapore, and I must say they are quite supportive. The customer hasn't raised any complaints regarding their support. The time required for deployment can vary based on the size of the infrastructure, but typically, it can be accomplished within a two-week timeframe.

Positive

One of our prominent clients is a major university in Pakistan, and they expressed dissatisfaction with their current solution, Sentra for SCI. They expressed a desire to transition to VMware, specifically NSX, as they are seeking hyper-converged integrations with both cloud and on-premises solutions.

Regarding the initial setup, VMware products, including NSX, are generally straightforward to set up and deploy, so complexity hasn't been an issue.

The implementation of VMware NSX can be cost-intensive, especially if an organization is looking for a comprehensive solution. The costs can vary based on factors like the level of conversation and discounts obtained during negotiations. Some government organizations, for instance, may find the prices relatively high, leading to concerns about budget hikes, especially when deploying the solution across the entire organization.

Regarding maintenance and support, they are typically included in the standard licensing costs for enterprise-level businesses. While these costs can be significant, many companies opt for standard licensing to ensure they have access to necessary support and maintenance services.

The deployment of NSX security can be somewhat challenging, and it requires a thorough understanding of the organization's specific needs and objectives. To effectively implement NSX security measures, it's crucial to have a clear understanding of the applications, payloads, and various components within the network environment.

Our clients are moving from traditional to virtual infrastructure, so we sold them vSphere, vSAM, and NSX to manage all the workloads inside VMware. All the VMs work just like traditional infrastructure inside an appliance.

NSX has excellent security features like virtual firewalls. I also like the micro-segmentation features, which are useful for the virtual machines inside the servers.

I started working with Nutanix NSX last year. 

I rate NSX eight out of 10 for stability. 

NSX is easy to scale. 

We sell Nutanix, Dell EMC, HPE, and IBM. Right now, I'm working with IBM Storage and Power Servers. We have Pure Systems, too, but I'm still new. It's my first week at the company, so I'm still studying other vendors that I'm unfamiliar with.

I'm not implementing. I am selling the solution. You can use it on-prem or in the cloud. If you are using SRM, including NSX in your workloads makes things easier. You can easily move everything, including the network security and several layers inside the appliance, to the cloud or any other site.

VMware has a subscription and perpetual license. In the New Year, they're changing many things about the licensing model. Previously, NSX was licensed according to the number of sockets inside the appliance, so we bought VMware licenses based on that. However, that may have changed this year. We are still contacting the vendors to understand the new licensing strategy.

I rate VMware NSX nine out of 10. I recommend it.

The solution is used for network virtualization. Normally, in my cases, I was billing it for the government clouds, for NIC, the National Informatics Computer of India. For them, I was making a cloud where a different government, a smaller government entity, wanted to buy a cloud from the government clouds.

Apart from the normal functionality, a few things are quite useful, including multi-cloud networking. They have container networking and load balancing. Those are quite useful in terms of when we are designing a solution.

It's a pretty mature platform right now. 

The initial setup is straightforward. 

We found the solution to be stable. 

It's scalable. 

I haven't found any shortcomings. 

It might be nice to have more AI in the future. It would help keep us from redesigning every time. 

I've worked with the solution for four years now. 

The solution is stable and perfectly fine. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

The solution can scale well. 

We had a user base of around 1200 people.

I dealt with tech support during pre-deployment, and they were fine. They were helpful when we were dealing with staging cases. I wasn't an active part of the actual deployment and can't speak of how helpful they were in that part of the process. 

I was the previous architect for the NSX, not the implementer.

My understanding is the setup process is quite straightforward. 

Our deployment was quite big. Including the staging and all the stuff, we were able to deploy in a four-month timeframe. That is not only NSX, that is the complete deployment of the cloud. We had a few issues here and there, however, overall, it was fine. 

It's easy to maintain for the most part. The orchestration layer for it was a bit hectic work for us. That needed a dedicated VMware team. Apart from that, everything was quite smooth for NSX or vSphere, et cetera, and it is quite simple to manage it.

The finance team handles the licensing agreements. I can't speak to the exact cost.

When going for multiple OEM solutions, like Juniper, Cisco, HPE, et cetera, NSX will be quite useful. Don't go for the ACSIs and all Juniper proprietary options since future upgrades will be a bit tough if something needs to be added. Therefore, if it is a multiple OEM architecture, go for NSX, it'll be more helpful.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The most valuable feature of VMware NSX is the load balancing and routing of firewall rules. Many of the features are beneficial.

I have been using VMware NSX for approximately four years.

VMware NSX can be stable. However, before you start, you need a very thorough sturdy design. Once this is complete you can go on building your VMware NSX in your environment. 

I went to VMware to look at their best practice designs, but they didn't apply to our environment. I had to take some parts of different designs and build my own that was exactly what was right for us.

Get the designs first, study them very thoroughly and after that, you can implement what will work for you.

The scalability of VMware NSX is very good. However, you have to take into consideration that you have to study their documentation.

The amount of users or devices VMware NSX  can handle depends on the resource that you allocate to the Edges and to the management cluster. They are small, medium, and large. A large allocation can handle thousands of virtual machines. We mostly deploy medium to large-scale systems.

The support from VMware NSX could improve. We are a large company and when we have an issue we do not need to waste everyone's time with level one and two support. I try and explain to them I need level three support but they say they have to follow protocol and pass me through the different levels.   

I have used previously Cisco 1000V. It was much more expensive than VMware NSX. We cannot compare them because the Cisco 1000V is obsolete and I don't know if they have a newer version or something similar. They are not the same technology, Cisco 1000V is from 2015, and NSX-T is from 2021. There is a big difference between time and technology.

If you have experience with the setup of VMware NSX it is simple, but if you do not it could be difficult. I would advise new users to contact professional support from VMware.

The price of VMware NSX is reasonable.

I rate VMware NSX a nine out of ten.

NSX is under the platform. NSX is used on a cloud-only platform for clients.

The solution works well overall and we are happy with it.

We enjoy the micro-segmentation and the ability to extend the network on Layer Two.

It is stable. 

The solution can scale well. 

We have found the UI to be very good. The interface is intuitive enough.

It offers good documentation. 

I'm not sure where the solution can be improved. 

We did recently need a patch to deal with an outage on NSX.

The price is rather high.

We've been using the solution for two years. 

The solution is stable. We have just had an issue that caused an outage of some of our NSX. However, now it's okay. VMware gave us a patch to correct it.

It is a scalable product. It's not a problem.

There are about 3,000 VMs on our data center. There are a lot of customers.

When we had an issue recently, VMware asked to upgrade to a high level of support to correct the problem.

The initial setup offers an average level of complexity. It's neither too difficult or too hard. 

I'm a system engineer, so I don't know exactly what the price is. However, I am aware that it's high. It's better suited to larger enterprises.

We are service providers and partners.

I'd rate the product eight out of ten.

It is for internal networking. Basically, we will be migrating the workloads to the cloud vCenter, and to manage those workloads, networking is required, which is called NSX in the VMware environment.

It provides a single pane of glass. You can do the switching, routing, load balancing, IPS, IDS, etc. Everything is under one umbrella. So, there is no vendor dependency over there.

They have some limitations in the firewall features as compared to the on-prem or dedicated hardware appliance. They can add more features, such as IPS and IDS, to the cloud firewall.

I have been using this solution for the last seven to eight months.

As per my last seven to eight months of experience, it is a stable solution.

It can be scaled.

I'm not technically involved with technical support. I'm not from the operational part where the day-to-day activities are performed. I'm from the project team, and my job is to deploy something on the product. Untill now, I haven't used VMware support for any issues. So, I'm not aware of the quality of their support.

It was easy to set up. It hardly took a week.

It provides all the networking features under a single umbrella. So, you can go with it. It is cost-effective because you don't have to spend money on different vendors.

I would rate it a seven out of ten because some of the features are missing.

VMware NSX is used for server virtual machines.

The most valuable feature of VMware NSX is the ease of use and its user friendly. For example, it is simple to change the subnet masks.

The solution could improve by having a more streamlined setup.

I rate VMware NSX for approximately one year.

The solution is highly stable.

We have approximately 2,000 users using this solution.

VMware NSX scales well.

I have rarely used the support of the solution.

I rate the support from VMware NSX an eight out of ten.

Positive

I have not used a similar solution to VMware NSX.

The installation process for VMware NSX can be intricate. We obtained the executable file for the specific server we intended to install VMware NSX and then proceeded to configure it. This involved ensuring that the IP and ID matched the installation, as well as completing other necessary details such as setting up the gateways.

We are using the free version of the solution.

We have 10 analysts and administrators that do the maintenance of the solution.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate VMware NSX a nine out of ten.

We use the solution for our DMC firewall to micro-segment the networks for the CRUD matrix.

The most valuable feature is the integration with the firewall.

The cost of the solution has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for three years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable.

We have around 4,000 people using the solution.

The technical support is sometimes delayed but they always resolve our issues.

Positive

The implementation was completed by a vendor.

The cost of the solution is a bit high.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

The maintenance is done by our vendor.

The solution is great and I recommend it.