VMware vSAN Reviews

We use it for our whole infrastructure. We use it for about 50 servers.

We are using its latest version.

We use it on three hosts, and we find it very easy to administer.

It is user-friendly, and its performance is good.

It could be cheaper.

We have been using it for two years.

Its stability is good. Its performance is good. We haven't had any breakdown in the last two years. We are very satisfied with the solution.

At the moment, we have a limit because we host 50 servers. We could have a bit more memory, and we have to buy it.

There are 60 users who are using all the servers. Its usage is moderate.

Normally, when we have a problem, we contact the consultant who had set up the system. He can usually fix the problem, but there haven't been many problems since we set up the system.

We used VMware but not vSAN.

Its setup was done by a consultant. It took about one or two days, but I don't remember exactly.

In terms of maintenance, it doesn't require much. We have to update it once in a while. It takes about two or three days a month.

We don't look at these figures. We buy a system and use it. We don't look at the figures like ROI.

It could be cheaper.

We are very satisfied with this solution. I would advise others to go ahead and just use it.

I would rate it an eight out of 10. It is a good product.

We are using it for the consolidation of compute, network, and storage.

For VMware, we're mostly using on-premises deployment.

It is very well known in the industry, and there are a lot of technical resources around it. This is a big thing for me because, at the end of the day, when you implement it, you need to support it.

It is easy to use and easy to implement.

The big thing is pricing, and the rest of it is mostly good. From a scalability point of view, scaling the storage from network or compute should be easier. It is again all around the cost, and it would be good if it was easier to scale your storage separately from your compute. One of the things that I have observed is that when you start off, you've got too much storage, and over time, you've got less storage, and you have to build new clusters to scale. So, if you can scale compute and storage, it would be good. I know it is scalable separately, but it is a complex process.

I have been using this solution for more than 10 years.

It is pretty scalable. 

Currently, we've deployed VxRail, and it comes with everything. So, support is good.

We used Nutanix with VMware for about a year, and then we switched over to the packaged solution with VMware. 

Dell has got a product called VxRail, which incorporates vSAN. So, it's a packaged solution. We've now implemented VxRail, and it is a new experience with them. VxRail is an all-in solution, but there might be an additional cost that you have to pay to get the support at the vSAN level.

It is easy to implement, but for big organizations with multiple products, it becomes complicated. If you're going to have different clusters for your databases and workload, then setting up and deploying it could become complex. 

Its price could be improved. 

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

Our company works in a multi-cloud model, hybrid environment using both the hyperscalers AWS and Azure with a combination of public and private clouds. Our organization is an integrator so VMware vSAN is used for our end customer.

VMware vSAN is used for VM workloads. We show our customers that they do not need to keep everything on-premises and that they can move not critical data to minimize data compliance security. We move them to a public cloud with the two hyperscalers. For workloads that they are not comfortable keeping in a public cloud, we recommend using a hybrid model. My use cases deal with virtual workloads, retailing and manufacturing solutions.

VMware vSAN is easy to configure, with basic functionality and the customer can maintain the solution.

The only thing that can be improved is the cost.

I have been using VMware vSAN for more than two years.

VMware vSAN is stable. We would not recommend it to so many of our partners if it were not. It is foolproof; it's on multiple workloads.

The solution is scalable. Our customers have varying workloads, so we use the combination of on-premises and hybrid cloud, moving from private to public, and public to private so the scalability is always there. 

We have in-house support for normal operational transactions. We also have a contract with VMware vSAN. Even our end customers have direct support contracts for the solution. Normally escalations to VMware support have to do with product bugs, a defect, or an engineering issue. 

Our team deploys the solution in the customer's environment. We use VMware administrators to manage the storage. They have a combination of storage and VMware background. Our virtualization administrator is VMware certified and cross-trained with the storage administrator to increase productivity. 

VMware vSAN is less expensive than having a traditional three-tier solution or a full virtual VFX using a hyper-converged soluton. The cost is still too high and should be lower.

VMware vSAN is not right for all types of use cases. It is specific to an opportunity if the customer is looking at an interim solution and wants to keep the costs low. This environment is more to do with development testing.

VMware vSAN is a good fit if you are looking at security and scale. In an environment that is more productive and needs better performance, this solution may not be the right fit.

I would rate this solution a 9 out of 10.

We are using VMware vSAN for data center virtualization.

The solution has benefited our organization from all the consolidation features, such as disaster recovery and backups.

The most valuable features of VMware vSAN are that it receives updates frequently, has good compression, optimized storage, and they provide webinars on what is new. Additionally, the integration with third-party products is good and it is easy to manage.

Customers who are using Essentials Plus or even Essentials have to pay for technical support. However, they should not have to pay for support.

I have been using VMware vSAN for approximately seven years.

The solution is highly stable.

VMware vSAN is scalable.

We have approximately 20 to 30 customers using this solution.

The support is very good. However, there are times it could be quicker.

I have worked with other solutions, such as Hyper-V and Citrix. Our preference is always VMware.

The initial implementation is straightforward. The time of installation can vary, it depends. If you're looking at virtualizing a host only, it can be done in five minutes.

We use one engineer for the installation and maintenance of the solution.

There is a license required for this solution, it is a one-time payment. However, if they want support for the solution, it can be paid annually or for three years.

I rate VMware vSAN a nine out of ten.

We primarily use VMware vSAN for ERP, for the assisting environment. The main environment in my company does not depend on VMware—for the production environment and operations, we work with Nutanix. 

This solution is deployed on-premises. 

One of the most valuable features of this solution is that it is stable. 

This solution could be improved by having more than one controller for the environment. VMware depends on one controller for the whole environment, whereas Nutanix has one controller for each node. Because there is only one controller with VMware, if there was any drop, then the whole environment would stop working. In Nutanix, I have five nodes—there is one controller for each node and it depends on a virtual controller—so if the controller of any node is down, the whole environment will still work. 

I have been using VMware vSAN for three years. 

This solution is very, very stable. 

This solution is scalable. 

In our organization, there are around 1,000 users of VMware, including some servers and the self-service website. We have plans to increase our usage. 

VMware's support could be faster. We don't currently have a contract with technical support because we didn't make a new one for the support license. 

I previously used Hyper-V from Microsoft, but there were many issues and lots of troubleshooting. 

The installation is easy. My team worked on the installation and, for our company, we only need one engineer for deployment and maintenance. 

We implemented this solution through an in-house team. 

I have two environments: Nutanix AHV and VMware. We use the Nutanix environment more than the VMware environment. 

I rate VMware vSAN an eight out of ten. For virtualization, I would recommend Nutanix over VMware. 

We are a university and we initially designed our data center such that it would be centralized, between branch offices and headquarters. There is a small data center in each branch but we're not interested in having local storage in every one of the branches.

Our plan is to purchase three physical hosts and deploy them with VMware, using vSAN to create virtual storage using each physical host's internal storage. 

The backup features and monitoring features are good.

We would like to see additional backup and recovery options added. In particular, integration with popular applications like databases.

We evaluated and deployed VMware vSAN but have not yet deployed it for production. We will be doing so within the next six months.

This is a stable product. We have been testing it extensively.

Scalability is based on your hardware. We can scale the hardware and then it only requires extending the license.

At this point, we have not had a very heavy workload. We plan to increase our usage once it goes into production.

There is approximately 50 IT staff that have access to it. Our users will include between 30,000 and 35,000 students, and approximately 3,000 staff made up of instructors and doctors. 

The technical support is good. The Ministry of Education has established contracts with all of our vendors including VMware, Microsoft, Oracle, and others. They provide us with 24/7 premium support.

We expect to rely on support for our migration to production. As part of our implementation, we have to redesign the centralized servers for a distributed environment. This includes Active Directory, Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager, and others. We don't have experience in this area. We can handle the daily operations but we lack design experience.

We implemented a PoC for Nutanix but did not test it in a production environment. I have done a little bit of work with Hyper-V but otherwise, I have only worked on traditional architectures.

There is not a lot of maintenance required.

We pay a yearly licensing fee. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees because they are standardized and negotiated by the Ministry of Education.

We provided the sizing and after that, the Ministry arranged for the correct licensing.

We evaluated Nutanix and other hyper-converged solutions, but we choose VMware vSAN.

This is a product that I recommend. My advice for anybody who is implementing it is to use a hybrid or private cloud. It's scalable, robust, and secure. Do not go back to the old technologies. Instead, focus on security and a good design. Having a good design will save in terms of cost.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

VMware vSAN is our hypervisor and we are using it for all our applications.

We are facing some problems with updates with the VMware vSAN. When we upgraded from version 6.5 to 7, we have been faced with many problems. They have been deploying many hotfixes for this version, and they need to continue to improve this version.

I have been using VMware vSAN for approximately three years.

VMware vSAN is a stable solution.

The solution is scalable.

We have approximately 1,000 users using this solution.

VMware is the host of all of our servers. We have many kinds of servers, such as application, service, call manager, and mail servers. Many users use these servers from all the titles in the company. We use this solution every day in our company.

When we faced some problems, we opened support tickets with VMware, and their support was very fast. They were able to fix the problems we had.

We were previously using Microsoft Hyper-V.

VMware vSAN is more professional than Microsoft Hyper-V for this kind of application. The scalability for VMware is better than  Microsoft. There are limitations in Microsoft Hyper-V. and many applications support VMware vSAN, such as Oracle, Cisco, and Linux.

The implementation is simple, it was very straightforward. It took us approximately three weeks because it was installed in four locations.

We used a consultants company called Adaptive here in Cairo, Egypt for the installation.

The consultant was very good, and their information was perfect. They were very helpful to us.

We have a two-person technical team that supports this solution.

There is a license to use this solution and we pay approximately $30,000 annually. There were not any additional fees required other than the license. The solution is expensive.

I can recommend VMware vSAN if there are problems that they face, such as limitations for their applications. It would be good to use VMware vSAN. If they have not found limitations in their operating system while working with Windows, they can use Microsoft Hyper-V instead.

I rate VMware vSAN an eight out of ten.

VMware vSAN is a global solution, so we can manage all the storage solutions in one place. It's embedded in VCI solutions. 

When you upgrade the vSAN, there are some issues like lost data and problems with the log. The log disappears. When you upgrade the solution, you must have several logs, so if you have some problems, you can check the log server to find them. But this solution has some improvements, like its snapshot feature. When you have to upgrade the version, vSAN makes a snapshot, and if there is a problem, you can revert to the old version.

The company has been using vSAN for about 18 or 19 months. 

vSAN isn't very stable. 

It's easy to manage and scale vSAN. We can increase the volume as necessary for the VM or the user. We have around 2,000 users. Right now, we're not planning to increase usage yet, but maybe we will take another look in six months to see if we need to scale the solution or not.

I'm satisfied with VMware support. 

If you have some networking skills, it's straightforward to install, deploy, and manage vSAN. 
We have three engineers maintaining all the VSI and vSAN solutions as well as all the features and management components.

We're looking for another solution like Nutanix to use concurrently with vSAN. Nutanix is more efficient but also more expensive. Nutanix is a little more stable, efficient, and simple to manage. However, I expect VMware and EMC will improve soon. I think in the next year, VMware's solution will become more stable and easier to manage.