Senior Systems Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
NVMe makes it very fast and the ease of use helps our ops group

What is our primary use case?

We use it for our management cluster. All of our network services are on this cluster, on vSAN. That way, it's off the production network, it's off by itself. We have four nodes in case there is an issue with it, it has the failover capabilities.

The performance is very good. We have NVMe performance in it so it's very fast.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are being able to keep it off by itself and the ease of use.

What needs improvement?

We have been talking to VMware about things we'd like to see and I think they have done them in their 6.6 release. I don't think we need any more enhancements at this time.

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.
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March 2024
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability is very good. We have some HCI solutions like this in our environment and this one is on par with those solutions.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The scalability is very good. If we know that we need more CPU, more memory, we can add more nodes to it. We don't need to do that today but we know, tomorrow, that we have that capability.

How are customer service and support?

We have a VMware TAM and they have helped us out with technical support. We haven't needed to call support. Things have been very smooth, no issues whatsoever.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We knew from doing the DR project and from having some issues with our production vSphere that we needed some type of solution to help us out, to keep it off the production network. But we did not have a product before this one. This is a new product for us.

For us, the most important criteria when selecting a new vendor are

  • ease of use, because we have an operations group that we need to worry about
  • cost is always up there
  • the future of it - making sure it has a future because we hate to get something and then, after a year or so, it goes out-of-support and no one is using it anymore and there are no upgrades.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was a little complex. We did it a couple of years ago and we've heard that it is so much easier now. I know that they are working on that capability right now.

What was our ROI?

I don't see this solution as an ROI type of thing. We tried to do it as a DR solution, or for making sure that it's a solution that is off by itself. At this point, cost was not a major factor for this.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We were using Dell and then we had a Dell EMC box, a hybrid. But it was a lot more money and it seemed we would always be a version behind. But with this one, the vSAN that we chose, we can upgrade it as needed. We can always be at the latest and greatest.

What other advice do I have?

Make sure you use a solution that is supported. There are a lot of companies out there that are new and sometimes they don't have a life. We have been in that situation before where we have bought something and then it has gone end-of-life or no more support. Make sure you get a solution that is going to be supported for five to seven years, such as vSAN.

I would rate it at nine out of 10. I know it's very young and that they're growing it or doing a lot of updates to it, so I'm thinking it will be a 10. It's just very new to us. To make it a 10 will take some time.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
IT Project Manager at a museum or institution with 11-50 employees
Real User
We use it for our whole infrastructure, and we find it very stable and easy to administer
Pros and Cons
  • "It is user-friendly, and its performance is good."
  • "It could be cheaper."

What is our primary use case?

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

We are using its latest version.

What is most valuable?

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

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

What needs improvement?

It could be cheaper.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using it for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

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.

What do I think about the scalability of 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.

How are customer service and support?

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.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used VMware but not vSAN.

What about the implementation team?

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.

What was our ROI?

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

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It could be cheaper.

What other advice do I have?

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.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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VMware vSAN
March 2024
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System Admin at Institute of Space Technology (IST)
Real User
Helpful support, stable, and scalable
Pros and Cons
  • "The technical support is good. We are always thankful for the technical support from VMware. They are very supportive when we have a technical problem."
  • "The interface is a little complicated, it could be simplified with more graphical gadgets. We have many servers, and the built-in functions, such as rate configuration, are a bit complex."

What is our primary use case?

We use VMware vSAN to manage our resources. It has secured our resources, such as power and server management. We needed one console that can manage all the servers.

What needs improvement?

The interface is a little complicated, it could be simplified with more graphical gadgets. We have many servers, and the built-in functions, such as rate configuration, are a bit complex.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using VMware vSAN for approximately 11 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

VMware vSAN is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I have found VMware vSAN to be scalable.

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

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good. We are always thankful for the technical support from VMware. They are very supportive when we have a technical problem.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is easy because our architecture is simple.

Our architecture is very simple to understand a new version. We only need to document all the configurations of the servers with all the maps that are designed. Any new person can understand fully within a day. However, we need more simplified versions of VMware vSAN in the future.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

VMware vSAN is a little bit expensive and we pay annually. We have an educational institute where we receive discount prices from VMware. We do receive a reasonable discount but it's still expensive.

What other advice do I have?

I advise those people that have a large amount of data and they need very fast retrievals, they must use the scalable feature of VMware vSAN.

I am fully satisfied with VMware vSAN.

I rate VMware vSAN a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
R&D Architect at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Video Review
Vendor
If any additional capacity needs to be included, we just add to the host and configure the vSAN cluster
Pros and Cons
  • "vSAN provides default HA configurations, where if any host goes down, the VM moves around within the host. Even though the disks are local, the VMs moves around with the vSAN disk and vSAN provides a high availability on its own."
  • "vSAN is scalable for us. If any additional capacity needs to be included, we just add to the host and configure the vSAN cluster."
  • "There is a room for improvement on the latest version of compatibility with the VMware product, especially for vSAN and with other vendors on their motherboards and driver configurations."

What is our primary use case?

We are using vSAN as a product in vSphere. Recently, we signed up for the 6.7 version of vSAN. We use it on all-flash and VME. All the discs that we use are NVMe disks.

How has it helped my organization?

We provide and manufacture our own local storage. With our own storage, we can path that with the host. So, it's beneficial for us to have a local storage attached to a host which vSAN is awesome for that.

What is most valuable?

With vSAN coming in, we have stability within the cluster of resources which has been grouped together in a local storage. This is a wonderful feature in vSAN.

What needs improvement?

We are finding vSAN is going down the right path, but vSAN has specific profiles which supports vSAN disk. However, our company has our own storage. So, we have different profiles of configuration. Some of those profiles and motherboards, vSAN doesn't support. We have challenges and work with VMware to work with other providers to get into the VMware list and drivers. Since it's customizable, we are looking for drivers from other vendors as well from VMware for compatibility. There is a room for improvement on the latest version of compatibility with the VMware product, especially for vSAN and with other vendors, like Intel and AMD, on their motherboards and driver configurations.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is stable for me. We are getting good amount of IOS (the expected amount). The configuration of vSAN is pretty simple. It's just on a cluster level which is pretty simple.

The stability is very much required. vSAN provides default HA configurations, where if any host goes down, the VM moves around within the host. Even though the disks are local, the VMs moves around with the vSAN disk and vSAN provides a high availability on its own.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

vSAN is scalable for us. If any additional capacity needs to be included, we just add to the host and configure the vSAN cluster.

How are customer service and technical support?

Currently, we are working with one tech support as a partner with VMware. We are receiving a good amount of support with troubleshooting. It's on email, as well on tickets. However, it's going well.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We had out-of-the-box solutions. When vSAN came in, all the local storage became attached. The solution has improved a lot considering the local storage for vSAN configuration.

How was the initial setup?

We are involved in the beta phase of the vSphere product, as well vSAN and newer product versions of VMware.

One of the best features of the configuration is vSAN at the cluster level is pretty simple. People have a lot of issues in configuration of different storages, but vSAN brings in a flexibility. Where as a vSphere admin, people can go and just configure the storage. So, VI admins don't want to have a storage knowledge when they are working with a vSAN. It is simple for us to use.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

With vSAN, we didn't find the market that competitive. VMware is doing well with the local storage piling up in cluster configuration. vSAN is doing great with it.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

As a vSAN, we didn't find that competitive market. VMware is doing good with the local storage piling up with the cluster configuration. vSAN is doing great on that.

What other advice do I have?

We give it nine out of ten. They are going down the right path. When they started, we saw a lot of improvements with a lot of focus on the product, even in VM World. There were announcements in the features for improvement with vSAN. We continue to see VMware keeping up-to-date with vSAN, not putting the product aside.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Systems Administrator at a educational organization with 201-500 employees
Video Review
Real User
You get the benefit of local storage, but you have the protection of shared storage
Pros and Cons
  • "By eliminating dependency on that back-end storage, we now depend on everything that's in the VMkernel with vSAN. We eliminate the middleman."
  • "You get the benefit of local storage, but you have the protection of shared storage."
  • "I see room for improvement with vSAN in particularly in the reporting realm. Now, with vSAN 6.7, they're starting to include vRealize Operations components in the vSphere Client, even if you're not a vRealize Operations customer. So, that's really good. It exposes some really low-level reporting. I would like to see more of that. However, you have to be a vRealize Operations customer to obtain that. I would like to see more include of this included in the vSAN licensing."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for vSAN is server virtualization. We've used it to virtualize close to 500 servers which would normally have been on physical hardware. We have virtualized and consolidated it down to run on nine nodes of vSAN. That workload primarily consist of web servers running Linux or Windows Servers to support the Windows Active Directory that we have for the environment onsite.

How has it helped my organization?

It's improved the organization overall primarily because the storage is local on the boxes. Before we were with vSAN, we were with another iSCSI product which was a clustered product that went across the network. We had multiple instances where we would have either a network hiccup (caused by us) or a network hiccup (caused by the device). This took a whole bunch of VMs down with a lot of repercussions. It took a long time to recover. By eliminating dependency on that back-end storage, we now depend on everything that's in the VMkernel with vSAN. So, we eliminate the middleman.

What is most valuable?

We like that it is a hyperconverged solution. Everything is in a box. You got the compute, memory, and storage. So, we can scale out by adding nodes as we go and eliminate the back-end storage, whether that's a NAS or iSCSI device. 

You get the benefit of local storage, but you have the protection of shared storage.

What needs improvement?

I see room for improvement with vSAN in particularly in the reporting realm. Now, with vSAN 6.7, they're starting to include vRealize Operations components in the vSphere Client, even if you're not a vRealize Operations customer. So, that's really good. It exposes some really low-level reporting. I would like to see more of that. However, you have to be a vRealize Operations customer to obtain that. I would like to see more include of this included in the vSAN licensing.

The vSAN licensing is not an inexpensive product. It does cost more than hypervisor. I would like to see more basic reporting, or even expert reporting. I think with our licensing that we've paid our dues, and we should get the information.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is working very well. vSAN is very dependent upon your network. If your network is stable, vSAN will most likely be stable. 

Our network is very stable. Therefore, we have not had issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We started with a three-node cluster. We are now at a nine-node cluster. We can just add nodes piecemeal as needed to add capacity. It's been very transparent. Users have never noticed when we've had to do that. So, scalability has worked real well for us.

How is customer service and technical support?

We've been with vSAN since the early days of ESX 5.5, when it first went general availability. In those early days, we used support quite a bit. They were very good. The vSAN team that VMware has are top-notch. I think they pick the best of their support people and make them vSAN representatives. In the early days, I used them a lot. Not so much lately, because the product has gotten so much better. 

How was the initial setup?

I was involved with the initial deployment of vSAN at our site. The most complex thing is you have to live and die by the vSAN HCL list. You can't put a product or a component into a vSAN node that is not on the host compatibility list, particularly the SSDs and their firmware which is specified on the HCL. You have to match that explicitly to receive good results.

What was our ROI?

I see ROI on vSAN because we have gotten out of the business of depending on the back-end NAS device or the back-end iSCSI device. We get the return on investment by decreased administrators' time, decrease exposure to network issues and stuff that would take a lot of VMs down. That's where we see our ROI.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Nutanix before we went with vSAN. For budgeting reasons, we weren't able to pursue Nutanix after a pilot.

What other advice do I have?

The product is at least an eight to eight and a half out of ten. Because the feature growth that I've seen them put into the product since we've been with them since 5.5, they are innovating with each release. They're adding more features and all that adds up to a better ROI on our investment.

As we were consolidating so many servers, we had a really high consolidation ratio. We wanted to have something that was close to being local disk. However, we also needed to have redundancy so we could take a node down for maintenance or if a node would crash. All the same standard reasons of why you would want high availability.

What I look to see in a vendor is good customer support. I want to talk technical with someone. I don't want a lot of marketing PowerPoint stuff. I want to talk to people that know the product very well. Because if I start using the product, I will need that support on the back-end. I don't want to be flailing by myself in the wind. I want to have good expertise that I can call on to help.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
IT Manager at VelocityEHS
Video Review
Vendor
Helped us consolidate workloads from different silos to manage everything in one place
Pros and Cons
  • "The valuable features of vSAN are that you can get it up and running quickly, you get redundancy built-in, and it's pretty much the perfect solution for a cluster."
  • "The product can be improved in a couple of ways. One of those would be that they have a lot of hidden features, that are through the CLI, that would be great to have in the GUI, or just be more open about those features. It's something called RVC. It's a tool in the back end. It's a really great tool, but I had to find it through Reddit. So more information on stuff like that would be great. Also, in the user interface, giving us more features and more reporting that we can do from vSphere itself would be helpful."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case for vSAN is for our corporate cluster, and we have many different use cases using vSAN. It was a perfect solution for us. We were there for the beginning of vSAN. We created our own vSAN environment with their early installers and now we have a professional one. It's a great solution.

How has it helped my organization?

vSAN improved our organization by taking a whole bunch of servers that we had that were depreciated and letting us remove all of those workloads and put them on one, centralized solution, and have great storage in the back end. It's really helped us consolidate a lot of workloads that were in different silos, and now we're back to managing everything from one place.

What is most valuable?

The valuable features of vSAN are that

  • you can get it up and running quickly
  • you get redundancy built-in
  • it's pretty much the perfect solution for a cluster.

What needs improvement?

The product can be improved in a couple of ways. One of those would be that they have a lot of hidden features, that are through the CLI, that would be great to have in the GUI, or just be more open about those features. It's something called RVC. It's a tool in the back end. It's a really great tool, but I had to find it through Reddit. So more information on stuff like that would be great. 

Also, in the user interface, giving us more features and more reporting that we can do from vSphere itself would be helpful.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Now it's great. The stability of vSAN is getting better every day. We had some hiccups in the past, but we worked through it with some great techs. They were there with us the whole way, and we got through most of our hiccups. 

There are definitely some things you need to know about vSAN going into it, like don't over-commit your storage, that we didn't know. We hit every problem you can probably hit with vSAN, but we're good. We're still up and running.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We started with three nodes, added a fourth. It was easy to do, gave us more storage, very scalable. You can just keep on growing and growing.

How was the initial setup?

I was involved with the initial setup. It was fairly easy to get up and running, at first. We had some networking hiccups here and there but, overall, it took about a day to get us ready to go.

What was our ROI?

The ROI data on vSAN: I would definitely say it's my staff cutting their time by something like 90 percent. They're only dealing with one stack of servers right now. All of them are able to perform the storage tasks needed. Everyone can manage it. We don't have to wait for that one guy to come in and do what he has to do. My entire staff is trained on vSAN. We usually spend no time in it. Before, we were dealing with a lot of different solutions that took up a lot of our time, so time saved is a good reason for our ROI.

What other advice do I have?

If I had a colleague in the field, what I would tell him is that vSAN is great. I would do four nodes instead of three. Make sure that you're safe. Four or five will get you right where you need to be. You won't have any problems. That would be a tip I would give: Go for four nodes. vSAN is definitely worth the money.

I would say it's a nine out of ten. It's not perfect, but it's almost there, and it's great.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Team Lead System Integration at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Video Review
Real User
We can easily expand horizontally or vertically, as more users and VDI workstations come on
Pros and Cons
  • "Flexibility, growth, and expansion are probably the more important features for us. As our environment grows, the more users come on, the more VDI workstations that we need, we can easily expand either horizontally or vertically with the environment"

    What is our primary use case?

    We're primarily using it in a VDI environment, a four-node VDI environment. Performance is very good. We're very happy with it. Networking setup was a little bit of a challenge, but we got around that.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Reduced complexity. We don't have to worry about the physical SAN anymore. That makes it easier. The learning curve as well, when people learn vSAN, they find it very easy to manage compared to a physical SAN.

    What is most valuable?

    Flexibility, growth, and expansion are probably the more important features for us.

    As our environment grows, the more users come on, the more VDI workstations that we need, we can easily expand either horizontally or vertically with the environment. We're very happy with that.

    What needs improvement?

    A bit more information on the upgrade path, upgrade availability, how to upgrade, that would be very useful.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We find the stability very good. It really reduces our overall operations.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We find the scalability very good. We've been able to upgrade very easily as users come on, as we need to create more VDI workstations. Adding the extra drives gives us the capacity we need.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    We haven't needed to use technical support so far; nothing at all.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Up until about a year-and-a-half ago, we were using physical SANs. Space is a problem in our environments that we deploy, so we knew we had to get rid of the physical SAN and go toward the more virtual environment. The number of nodes we deploy, we need them. By integrating the vSAN, we're able to get the space requirements we need.

    How was the initial setup?

    I was involved in the initial setup. In fact, I was involved with the selection of vSAN compared to other products, as well as physical SANs, and I was involved in some of the design and configuration.

    It was fairly straightforward, actually. After we got around the networking issues, we found that the vSAN setup was very good.

    What was our ROI?

    In terms of return on investment, we don't have any kind of requirement there.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We considered EMC as well. We considered HPE LeftHand, which we had used in the past, so we were familiar with the virtualized SAN. We like the vSAN a lot.

    What other advice do I have?

    The advice I would give is to properly analyze your host infrastructure. Make sure that your network cards are sufficient for the environment you're trying to deploy in, whether it be all-flash. There are already some Ready Nodes available. Go with the Ready Nodes when it comes to vSAN. Don't try and buy your own parts - something we looked at originally that we scrapped. That would be my main advice. Go with Ready Nodes when it comes to virtual SAN.

    In terms of improving the product, we're very familiar with the new features in 6.7, which we're going to be upgrading to. Data encryption, we would like to deploy, as well as compression and deduplication. Those features are already available in the new version. We just have to take the time to deploy them.

    Out of ten, I'd give it an eight. We're very happy with the product. To bring it to a ten we'd rather not upgrade as often. Right now, we're at 6.2 and that wasn't long ago. They're already going to 6.8 now. We'd like to have a little bit of a normalization period before we get to the next product. I understand it's a focus for VMware. We're very happy they're focusing on it.

    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Product Manager at Micron Technology, Inc.
    Real User
    Performance, simplicity, and synchronicity with vSphere help us do PoCs for clients
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable features are its performance, simplicity, and synchronicity with vSphere."
    • "I would love to see vSAN integrate Persistent Memory and NVDIMMs. I know they're supposed to be working on an elastic tier so that we don't have the issues with destaging from the cache to the capacity. Those are the things that I'm interested in."

    What is our primary use case?

    We do reference architectures using our SSDs so we're all about All-Flash vSAN. It's part of our portfolio.

    What is most valuable?

    • Performance
    • Simplicity
    • Synchronicity with vSphere

    What needs improvement?

    I would love to see vSAN integrate Persistent Memory and NVDIMMs. I know they're supposed to be working on an elastic tier so that we don't have the issues with destaging from the cache to the capacity. Those are the things that I'm interested in.

    I'm not an end-user, I'm a partner, we put together proofs of concept for end-users. So my biggest desire is for the VMware/vSAN team to perfect the single tier or what they're calling the elastic tier so that you can pool SSDs as well as NVDIMMs.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability is fine, it's as stable as the vSphere, and vSphere has been around for a long time.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We've documented that it scales out per node. The more disk groups, the more nodes, the better the performance.

    How is customer service and technical support?

    We have a team of engineers who do the performance evaluation so we don't normally use technical support. We only occasionally use it.

    How was the initial setup?

    We published the first All-Flash vSAN in 2015. It wasn't straightforward but we got it done.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
    PeerSpot user
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