VMware vCenter Reviews

We use the product to manage the internal infrastructure. We use it in the cement division of a construction company.

VMware vCenter is a well-known tool. The tool is absolutely necessary. It helps manage our server. We have more than 200 servers. It would be very difficult for us if we did not have VMware vCenter. We extensively use automatic Distributed Resource Scheduler and migration tools to move workloads between different servers. The solution has defined virtual infrastructure management. It provides a single pane of glass to manage the infrastructure. We manage practically everything using the solution.

The monitoring features are limited. We need extra features from third-party products. We can do basic management with vCenter. The vendor needs to be more proactive. VMware sells other products to improve its capabilities. However, it would be good if the tool included proactive management to enable users to manage the virtual infrastructure better.

I have been using the solution for 15 years.

I rate the tool’s stability a nine out of ten.

The solution scales well. It is our central point of contact. We need only one vCenter to manage different servers. It’s a good solution. We have four users.

We use the support portal. Sometimes, finding what we need takes time. We can find it after some time, though.

I rate the ease of setup an eight out of ten. The deployment can be done quickly. The deployment process is very straightforward. The vendor publishes the versions, and they can be deployed without any special knowledge or effort. The deployment takes less than an hour.

The product is affordable for now. With the acquisition of VMware by Broadcom, the policies are changing. It seems like the product will become more expensive. The solution costs us EUR 2000 to EUR 3000 per year.

The main purpose of the tool is managing. Performance must be accomplished by correct sizing and analysis of vCenter hosts. I recommend the tool to others. It is not a luxury. It is a mandatory product. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

There are multiple scenarios to consider. One important aspect is the use of snapshots, which are helpful for building anything on Azure. With snapshots, we can capture the state of a virtual machine and revert back to it, using VMware's features. Another valuable feature is vMotion, which allows us to manage and migrate virtual machines from one node to another. This capability is particularly useful for ensuring high availability; if there's an issue with a node, we can seamlessly migrate the virtual machines to another node.

It is easier to manage a larger number of nodes per cluster. Currently, if we are managing a minimum of 64 nodes in a single cluster, that capacity can be increased. Another notable feature is migration, facilitated by VMwareSync. There are minimum memory and CPU requirements, but these can be scaled up along with additional CPU resources for virtual machines, thereby enhancing the available features.

if VMware can introduce multiple other good features, it will further help us work.

I have been using VMware vCenter for ten years.

I rate the solution’s stability a ten out of ten.

Scalability is  impressive. I've worked with clusters comprising 15-16 nodes. VMware vCenter can manage up to 64 nodes in a single cluster, which is a substantial increase.

More than 5,000 users are using this solution.

I rate the solution’s scalability a ten out of ten.

The initial setup is easy and takes an hour to complete. It comes with ready-to-use templates for virtual machines. 

We will download the OEM template from the vCenter side, and then deploy it on the server wherever we need it.

I rate the initial setup a nine out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy.

The product is cheap. It is a one time purchase.

I rate the product’s pricing a out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

The GUI interface for the monitoring tool is good. We have VMware security features integrated, which is beneficial. Data encryption and robust infrastructure are additional advantages.

One feature is DRS which manages virtual machines. Thus, it migrates virtual machines, adjusting the resources in the background.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

You use vCenter in data center operations as the core of your investment infrastructure, coordinating products like NSX, HSL, HSAX, and Cyber Recovery Manager.

Some of the most valuable features of vCenter are LACP and vSphere Distributed Switches, as they simplify VLAN propagation between hosts and enable networking duplication and replication, particularly beneficial in hyper-converged network environments.

Areas for improvement with vCenter include changes in licensing models, such as the shift to a subscription model, which may increase costs and lead to conflicts.

I have been using VMware vCenter for ten years.

I would rate the stability of vCenter as almost a perfect ten out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of vCenter as a ten out of ten.

The main differences between Azure and VMware include the level of control and integration. VMware offers a comprehensive server and virtualization solution with extensive control, while Azure provides integration with other Microsoft services but may lack complete control over networking and troubleshooting processes.

The initial setup of vCenter is now straightforward, especially with the virtual appliance. Typically, one person can handle deployment and configuration, and maintenance is rarely required due to the product's stability.

With the subscription model, pricing for vCenter may be higher compared to the previous perpetual license model. The subscription model requires ongoing payments, and if you stop paying, you may lose access to updates and support.

vCenter has significantly simplified VM deployment and management processes, making tasks easier and more efficient. Its centralized features are highly valued, especially when compared to other solutions like Microsoft's System Center Virtual Machine Manager, which lacks certain functionalities.

The scalability feature of vCenter has supported our growth by providing flexibility and efficiency. As an expert, I have found it invaluable in resolving issues and managing growth, especially during transitions to cloud-based infrastructures like Azure, which have reduced the need for extensive on-premises resources.

Our experience with vCenter backup and recovery functionalities involved integration issues with our existing tool. Currently, we use Commvault for backup, which is straightforward to configure but lacks full integration capabilities.

I would recommend VMware vCenter to others because it is a stable and reliable product. However, new users should consider the costs associated with the subscription model.

Overall, I would rate VMware vCenter as a ten out of ten.

Our primary use case for VMware vCenter Server is to centrally manage our virtualized datacenter infrastructure. We run a mixed environment of Windows and Linux VMs across a TIA Tier-3 certified datacenter on VMware vSphere clusters, with Cisco networking, Palo Alto firewalls, and F5 load balancers integrated.

vCenter allows us to manage hundreds of VMs and ESXi hosts, streamline provisioning, enforce resource allocation policies, and monitor performance from a single pane of glass. We also rely heavily on vCenter for high availability, vMotion, DRS, and lifecycle management of hosts and VMs.

VMware vCenter has significantly improved our organization by providing a centralized management platform for our entire virtualized datacenter. Earlier, managing multiple ESXi hosts and VMs individually was complex and time-consuming. With vCenter, we can now:

• Perform seamless vMotion and DRS to balance workloads automatically.

• Ensure high availability and resilience, reducing downtime for mission-critical applications.

• Simplify patching and lifecycle management of ESXi hosts.

• Gain end-to-end visibility into performance, storage, and networking through a single interface.

This has improved our operational efficiency, reduced escalations from support teams, and increased uptime for services we provide to customers through our public cloud platform.

The features we find most valuable in VMware vCenter are:

• vMotion & Storage vMotion – Seamless live migration of workloads without downtime has been critical for maintenance and load balancing across our clusters.

• Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) – Ensures optimal resource utilization by automatically balancing workloads, which is especially useful in our multi-tenant cloud environment.

• High Availability (HA) – Provides resiliency for critical business applications, reducing downtime and meeting SLA commitments.

• Lifecycle Manager – Simplifies patching and upgrades of ESXi hosts, improving compliance and security.

• Centralized Monitoring & Alarms – Single-pane visibility of performance, storage, and networking health enables faster troubleshooting and proactive management.

These features together have improved uptime, operational efficiency, and customer experience in our datacenter and public cloud platform.

While VMware vCenter Server is a robust and mature platform, there are several areas where it could improve:

• User Interface Performance – The HTML5 web client has improved over older versions, but performance can still lag when managing large-scale environments with hundreds of hosts and thousands of VMs. A more responsive and intuitive UI would help.

• Native Backup & Restore – vCenter still relies heavily on third-party solutions for full-featured backup and restore. An integrated, enterprise-grade native backup tool would add value.

• Reporting & Analytics – The built-in reporting is limited. More advanced dashboards, historical trends, and predictive analytics powered by AI/ML would be beneficial.

• Simplified Upgrades – Upgrades and patching, while improved with Lifecycle Manager, can still be complex. A more automated, zero-downtime upgrade path would be ideal.

• Cost Optimization Features – As organizations move toward hybrid/multi-cloud, native cost visibility and optimization tools within vCenter would help IT teams manage budgets better.

Suggested Features for Next Release:

• AI-driven capacity planning and predictive analytics to proactively avoid performance issues.

• Integrated backup and DR orchestration without needing third-party tools.

• Role-based dashboards tailored for operations, management, and security teams.

• Enhanced API integrations with public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) for hybrid cloud management.

I have been using VMware vCenter Server for more than 13 years, starting from version 3.x, and have continuously upgraded through versions up to the latest 9.0 release

From my experience, vCenter server has rarely been a point of major concern regarding availability. It mainly provides centralized administration, so its unavailability doesn't directly affect the functionality of our cloud infrastructure. 

I've encountered a few instances where vCenter was unavailable or crashed, but the impact was minimal since ESXi servers and the virtual machines on them continued to run smoothly, although features provided by vCenter were temporarily unavailable.

Initially, when vCenter was introduced, scaling it to support a certain number of ESXi hosts and virtual machines was quite challenging. This was around 2012 and 2013. 

However, it has become increasingly scalable over time. Nowadays, we can deploy multiple vCenters in a cluster formation to scale extensively. I haven't reached the maximum capacity of vCenter because it's huge.

I've been working with VMware for about 10 years now.

Earlier, VMware support was very good. The technical guy on the call used to understand the issue from their side. And then, if that issue was beyond their expertise, they generally called other guys or used to forward our call to the next escalation team or something like that. We just used to call them once, and then we got our solution during that one call.

But in the last four to five years, there's been a kind of 360-degree change in terms of customer support from VMware. And most of it's going in the negative direction, which we are not happy with. 

The technician now says, "Okay, this is beyond my expertise. I'm going to escalate it to the next team, and they will be in touch with you in a couple of hours or maybe the next day." And trust me, nobody contacts us until we open another ticket, reference the ticket we opened previously, and ask them to give us priority one support. And again, they start troubleshooting it from scratch. Again, "This is beyond our expertise, and we will forward this call to our next escalation team, and they will get in touch with you." We get stuck in this kind of loop most of the time.

If I'm using ten tickets with VMware, three to nine times it happens when we, you know, keep chasing them for the technical things. Even though they fixed the issue, we ask them to provide a complete justification, the root cause of why this issue occurred, what exactly we did to fix it, and how we can make sure that this issue will not come again in the future. They don't have a clear answer for us. But since things start working for us, most of the time, we don't bother about that. 

But for our reference purpose, we want to keep RCA (Root Cause Analysis) and other documents updated so that we can fix those issues from our side or take any preventive action even before we hit the same situation again. But in the last four or five years, we've been lacking there. Because we're not getting that much good support from VMware, which we used to get back in 2012, 2013, 2014, or so.

Neutral

We have one of the Microsoft Hyper-V solutions.

I've installed it on servers and provided regular support, so I do have experience with the initial setup process. 

Earlier, it was a bit difficult because it required a separate database server installation before installing the central server, and then the database had to be integrated during the vCenter server installation. 

However, this process has been significantly simplified now. vCenter now includes its own database, eliminating the need for separate database installation. We just follow a single setup to deploy vCenter along with its required database, which we are quite pleased with.

The deployment takes approximately 30 minutes to 45 minutes, depending on the infrastructure where it's being deployed, so generally less than an hour.

When I was part of the deployment team, I was the only one responsible for it. Now, we have a dedicated team for installation and deployment, but only one resource is required to deploy the vCenter server.

Assistance from VMware is not really required because the process is very straightforward and simple. 

We just need to follow the instructions provided in the setup wizard, enter the required values, and the installation completes smoothly and straightforwardly.

I have mostly deployed it on-premises and haven't had the opportunity to deploy it in a hybrid environment.

The licensing model was a bit complex, but thanks to the vCenter product usage program, which VMware introduced, it's kind of easy for us to use a pay-as-you-go model. So, it's streamlined now, and we are okay with that.

I would advise that at least you should be very well aware of all the functionalities you are going to offer to your customers. Then, you should see whether those functionalities are there in the vCenter server and working as per the documentation provided by VMware. You should be very well aware of it. 

One example is the fault tolerance problem. Although VMware said it was fine, practically, we haven't seen it working as expected. So features need to be identified in advance before choosing vCenter server.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten because I'm very much happy with all the features provided by vCenter.

vCenter is primarily used to manage hosts centrally. It handles multiple scenarios, such as creating a distribution switch instead of an individual standard switch. Centralized management of policies and applying user-based restrictions are some of the potential use cases.

With vCenter, it becomes easier to manage a hundred hosts manually and to create scenarios such as authentication. It makes the process quite cost-effective.

The most valuable feature is the ease of migrating services from one host to another during maintenance. Adding network paths is also simple, and it has a direct integration with Active Directory for role-based access.

There needs to be improvement in the pricing model, as the host license is already very high, and customers should have more open options for creating automation scenarios out of the box.

I have been using vCenter since 2014, which indicates a duration of nine years.

The solution is quite stable and doesn't have many issues from the beginning. However, it is stable to an extent of eighty percent because it may encounter blue screen errors and other common issues.

The normal environment is sufficient to handle multiple hosts, so it doesn't require frequent scaling.

vCenter is under support, and it doesn't have many issues, which makes it easy to maintain.

Neutral

The initial setup of vCenter is straightforward.

One technician is usually enough for the setup.

vCenter helps save time and costs by making it easier to manage multiple hosts and scenarios, thus being cost-effective.

The setup cost is high as the host license is expensive, and there is a concern about charging too much for a management tool.

My advice is not to use any recent products but to opt for open-source solutions.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

I don't directly use VMware because I am in charge of the network side, and there is a server team that uses it. However, I use the solution in my company for the servers, local development, and production, as well as for managing all the servers.

I can say that the product is stable because we have been using the tool for the last fifteen years in our company, and there has been no issue. It is a very good product.

Nowadays, there are some problems with the product, especially after VMware was taken over by Broadcom. People face some challenges since Broadcom does not share any licenses with customers. The tool's licensing cost has increased too much compared to what it was in the past. Our company needs to check all the hardware to see if we need to buy VMware. To get some more details regarding the challenges faced, I will have to contact my company's server team. There have been some ongoing conflicts since VMware was taken over by Broadcom.

The tool's price and the hardware compatibility are areas of concern where improvements are required.

I have been using VMware vCenter for fifteen years.

It is a very stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

As of now, there are no scalability issues with the product. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

My company uses SolarWinds for monitoring purposes.

The product's initial setup phase is easy and not very complex.

The solution's initial setup phase takes three days.

During the installation process, my company contacts the OEM and support and not the consultant's support. My company already has a technical team, so we take care of the tool, and if any issues arise with the product, we only talk to the OEM.

The tool's ROI is good since the last fifteen years my company has been using it, and there have been no issues. I know the tool has a very minimum number of issues. The entire production and development servers are hosted on VMware vCenter, so there is good ROI experienced by the organization.

Speaking about the disaster recovery capabilities, my company has two data centers, one in Delhi, and the other one in Chennai. If there is a need to use the disaster recovery capabilities, our company can go for the failover.

I recommend the product to others who plan to use it, but before that, I would also suggest that they need to understand that VMware has been taken over by Broadcom and that they can face some price and hardware compatibility issues.

All of our company's development servers and production servers are hosted under VMware vCenter, which is valuable for our business since it allows our business to continue without any downtime. Not just the user communication but everything else is hosted on the vendor server.

I rate the tool an eight or nine out of ten.

We don't use VMware vCenter daily. It's installed and runs our servers, which we use daily but don't actively interact with it.

VMware vCenter has significantly improved our infrastructure management by enabling virtualization. We can virtualize our infrastructure, eliminating the need to access servers physically. Everything can be managed remotely.

The tool's most valuable feature is virtualization. It has positively impacted our operational efficiency by offering remote management capabilities through a user-friendly web interface. Its ease of use, as it doesn't require qualified personnel to operate, was a factor in our decision to purchase it.

One area where VMware vCenter has room for improvement is its transition to Broadcom. The change in licensing structure and pricing, particularly the shift from perpetual licenses to subscription-only models, is a significant drawback.

I have been using the product since 2016.  

I would rate the VMware vCenter's stability as an eight out of ten. It's very stable, but after a long period, it started generating a lot of log files, which caused some server issues.

In our organization, only one administrator, myself, manages and uses VMware vCenter. No other users access the vCenter management console.

I haven't contacted technical support yet. 

The tool's deployment is very easy. Our deployment of VMware vCenter took approximately two to three weeks. Due to the software's large size, it couldn't be completed in just a few hours or days.

We deployed the product in-house. Two resources were needed to complete it. 

The tool used to be worth the money, but after Broadcom acquired it and changed the pricing structure to subscription-only, it became too expensive for us to continue using. Unfortunately, we haven't found any alternative solutions that meet our needs, so this is a significant drawback for us as we explore other options.

I wouldn't recommend VMware vCenter to others, especially since Broadcom acquired it. I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

I installed VMware vCenter and ESXi. I use vCenter to manage the several ESXi under it. I have used the DRS, high availability, and fault tolerance in my vCenter.

I usually use the DRS, distributed resource scheduling, to balance resources between many ESXi. I also use SDRS to balance storage. High availability so if an ESXi server is down, the VM is started on another ESXi. This feature helps eliminate downtime. Additionally, I integrated with VMware products, which makes integration easy.

The performance is well, however, i didnot use different products to say my opinion.

I have used it for about two years.

If I use a critical system requiring zero downtime, I utilize vCenter and its features.

After replacing the license with the new one on Broadcom for VMware, I faced some problems, however, I tried to solve them.

Neutral

Setting the solution up is easy.

I searched for the differences between automation tools like Morpheus and other features. I don't know if I may migrate to hyper-v or Nutanix, which are famous, or AWS, or Azure.

I used the product extensively and didn't work much with different products, so I can't comment on that. 

Overall, I rate this product seven out of ten.