VMware vSAN Reviews

I am a system integrator, and this is one of the products that we implement for our customers.

VMware vSAN is used in the deployment of OpenShift Containers.

It is simple to manage without the need for configuration which is the feature that I like the most. The simplicity, as well as the integration with virtualization.

On the troubleshooting front, it was occasionally difficult for me to perform some troubleshooting. We are currently working in a demo environment, so we are not encountering many issues. However, when you reach production with a heavy load, troubleshooting the vSAN may become difficult. 

Troubleshooting with vSAN is an area that needs improvement.

Based on my testing, I would like to expand deduplication to include hybrid deployments and not just for all-flash deployments.

I have been working with VMware vSAN for four years.

I use version 6.7 ESXi with vSAN

So far the stability has been good. We have not had any problems with the stability of VMware vSAN.

The scalability appears to be good. I have not tested it that much, but it seems fine similar to clusters in VMware. 

At the moment, we have approximately 300 users who use this solution.

In reality, we haven't used technical support yet. I don't have an opinion on the support at this time.

I have experience with Cisco HyperFlex solutions.

The initial setup was straightforward. We did not have any problems with it at all.

The deployment did not take more than two or three days. It was very fast.

We have two people to deploy this solution.

We completed the deployment ourselves.

As an architect, I am not involved in the negotiating process and don't have many details about the cost and licensing.

I would rate VMware vSAN an eight out of ten.

All of our customers are either doing virtual storage on the cloud, or they're trying to extend their on-prem storage solution into the cloud. Our typical use case is providing features in the cloud that are typically on-premise, and that includes storage as well. For example, we might have vSAN on-prem storage that the workloads are accessing, and we want to extend it to the cloud to start spanning workloads out there. 

Most customers have a hybrid setup, with some of their infrastructure on-prem and some on the cloud. Other customers are getting out of the data center business altogether and moving everything into the cloud.

There is a lot that VMware could improve from a marketing perspective. The cloud is still new for many people, so extending storage should be effortless. It shouldn't be so complicated to extend the storage so workloads can access it no matter where they go. 

When you're moving a workload, you don't want to worry about whether the storage will be there or not. Ideally, that should be easily replicated and extended to a cloud environment. We have a lot of vendors trying to extend their on-prem infrastructure seamlessly. That could be workloads. It could be extending the virtual hardware to on-prem storage or the physical storage to virtual storage in the cloud. Everything should be easy for customers to consume and configure, but some of this stuff is still pretty complex because it's so new.

I've been using vSAN for about five years.

I think vSAN's stability is good. It's an underlying solution for both on-prem and in the cloud, especially the VMC on AWS stuff too. VMware has been around for a long time, so it's pretty stable.

All the vendors are working on making the setup more straightforward. Things are becoming a little more scripted. More automation and installations where you don't have to check every box are always good.

I rate VMware vSAN nine out of 10. 

VMware vSAN is easy to implement in a VMware environment and it is not expensive.

The architecture of vSAN is not good. vSAN works with objects, such as disks, and it causes problems with availability. When we send users caches we lose the total cache disk of the group. It's really a red line for using vSAN. We don't lose all the data because it is replicated in other groups, but when the object is lost in one group, we only have one remaining and this creates a higher risk of losing data.

Another is the restrictions of using deduplication and compression, it requires all-flash for it meaning that deduplication is on for all clusters and you can't control it for specific ones. I would like VMware vSAN to give hybrid configurations more caches and to add deduplication and compression for hybrid configurations.

I have been using VMware vSAN for a year.

The architecture of VMware vSAN is a major issue with stability. 

There have been no problems with scalability of this solution.

The initial set up of VMware vSAN is easy. The implementation requires just one click and VMware will take care of the rest.

VMware vSAN is not expensive. We compare it with Nutanix and the discounts from VMware are really good for vSAN.

If you want vSAN it is important that you understand all sides of the solution and have the right hardware solution. For example, you should consider if you need reliable disks for cache and split it into more clusters or groups.

I would give this solution a five 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 are using VMware vSAN for the transformation from the physical server to the virtual environment.

By using VMware vSAN we have limited the need to maintain multiple physical servers. Additionally, we have been able to reduce the entire cost of the IT operation and management because of the reduction of physical servers. There are fewer electricity and cooling systems needed.

The most valuable feature for our customers is vMotion. It allows them to shut down virtual machines and migrate them to others servers.

I have been using VMware vSAN for approximately six years.

The stability of the solution is very good. From customer feedback, VMware is much more stable compared to Hyper-V.

The scalability of VMware vSAN is good.

We currently have approximately 80 customers using this solution.

We plan to increase usage. Our sales team prefers this solution over other solutions.

We use online documentation and videos for support, such as YouTube. If there is a problem we cannot solve then we email the support of VMware.

We deploy many other solutions for our customers, such as Hyper-V, which some of them prefer.

The initial setup is quite simple according to our customer feedback. The time it takes for the deployment depends on many factors, such as use case and environment size.

We have a six-person technical team for maintenance.

We have received a return on investment. Our customers are happy, we do not need to employ a technician after deployment which is good. There is a decent return on investment but it also depends on the customers' use case.

The cost of the solution is high and if it could be reduced the customers would be very happy.

We have used VMware for different kinds of customers. Our target customers are SMB or SME, they normally choose VMware and their first package. We do have customers who use our own data center services, in this case, we use the VMware manage service license.

We typically propose VMware to our customers. We advise the customer to switch to virtualization. The main point is the customer would like to recover their data. If they'll use the physical server they cannot meet the requirement of fast recovery of the data. That's why we ask customers to do the server control check into the virtualization. You can save a lot of time managing the physical server and have a lower cost for the backup option. You can have a better recovery solution is the main point our customer use VMware.

I rate VMware vSAN an eight out of ten.

our primary use case is storage; hyper-converged solutions for our customers. We develop and design higher availability infrastructure for customers with the vSAN as its base. I'm a consultant and an architect for solutions with the software. My company is a partner with VMware.

High availability is a valuable aspect of this solution.

An integrated backup solution within the vSAN platform would improve the product. Competitors like SimpliVity, UCS, and Cisco Hyperconverged all have a backup feature in their hyper converged infrastructure, it's something that a lot of people use now.

I've been using this solution for four years. 

This solution is super stable. 

This solution is very scalable. However, we've seen some limits within the platform although I believe the latest version may have solved those problems. 

The initial setup is very simple and straightforward. If the setup also involves hardware deployment, the process can take a day or so, but if it's just the vSAN deployment, it can be done in several minutes. I generally carry out the implementation. 

It's important to use someone who is familiar with the solution to carry out the implementation. It's fairly straightforward but if you set it up incorrectly then you'll have issues with your underlying storage. It's worth having a professional service to manage things. 

I rate this solution 10 out of 10. 

The main use case for VMware vSAN is auxiliary services, such as Windows, Linux, and not a specific server, but mixed loads.

We were able to replace lots of negative servers and replace them with VMware.

VMware vSAN is compatible with the legacy hypervisor solutions and most of the features are good.

I have been using VMware vSAN for approximately five years.

The solution is stable.

The scalability of the solution is good. The node cluster they are using has been enough for them.

we have approximately 1,000 users using this solution.

The technical support, it's not satisfactory. Whenever we raise a ticket it takes a lot of time to have an engineer get involved sometimes, or we receive a less experienced engineer. We then have to repeat the situation to the next engineer which all takes time.

The setup is not complicated. The deployment of VMware vSAN with VxRail can be completed in three to four hours, for one cluster out of the physical setup. The physical setup could take approximately one day. After that, deployment is very easy to complete.

We have four people that do the deployment and physical setup of the solution.

The price of the solution package depends on the nodes and other factors. The cost some of our customers paid was $500,000. The licensing cost for the components is very good.

My customers were comfortable with VMware and then they decided to use VMware instead of another solution.

My advice is if someone is interested in VMware vSAN it is a good solution. It is stable, supportive, and compatible with many solutions. VMware vSAN is the best.

Customers have to consider when choosing VMware to receive a lot of features, such as replication backup, and if they went with another solution it would be more expensive.

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. 

The valuable feature of the solution is the total hyperconverged facility. And that either it's hyperconverged, or it's standalone with storage arrays.

From the implementer side, the solution is very comparable to Nutanix. The only difference is that VMware requires more initial nodes.

I've been working with VMware for fifteen years.

Regarding the scalability of the solution, you've got 64 nodes into a stretched cluster for VMware. Nutanix goes a little bit above. The only problem is that due to licensing things, such as when you have Oracle and other things, what you tend to do is multiple clusters in order to avoid licensing costs.

The biggest network I have implemented was 16 nodes.

My advice to others looking into implementing VMware vSAN is to stick to the rules. That's where the problem is. If you don't stick to the rules and prerequisites, you end up having a nightmare.

People have a tendency to take hyper-converged solutions for granted. They function as the marketing says, as long as you follow certain rules. If those rules are not followed, you end up with a slower infrastructure than you ever had before.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten because it lacks flexibility. Those rules I'm talking to you about, how you have to follow the prerequisites, that is well hidden, is that you can't do what you want. You don't have total freedom. You have to respect the rules and that's why respecting the rules sometimes is a burden.

They always recommend that nodes are the same type, have the same disk structure, and if you change some disk structures, you have to change them on all the nodes. Although somewhere it's understandable, it's a burden. It should not happen.

While we have some applications running on VMware, mostly we are providing and proposing these solutions to our clients.

I have one client, for example, that is running the CRM and accounts and manufacturing applications on VMware and they're using HP infrastructure for them. They have some SQL databases they're running on that and some back-office applications, and also an Extend Server as well.

The migration capabilities are a very useful aspect of the solution. 

The way it handles failovers is very good. 

The imaging is helpful.

Right now, VMware is number one in the virtual space.

The initial setup is very easy.

The management is very straightforward. It's an extremely user-friendly product.

It integrates very well with other products. 

The scalability is very good and the solution is stable and reliable.

So far, everything is okay.

Currently, there aren't any shortcomings to discuss or missing features that we worry about. 

This product is very expensive. 

I've used the solution for a long time. I'd used VMware since it come out in the '90s. It's been decades. 

I have found the stability to be great. There aren't bugs. It doesn't glitch. There aren't issues around it crashing or freezing. It's reliable. 

The scalability has been great. If you need to expand it, you can do so. 

Technical support has been great. They are helpful and responsive. I've been happy with their level of service when we've needed them. We are satisfied. 

The initial setup is very straightforward and simple. There shouldn't be an issue if a company wants to set it up. 

If you have, for example, 100 VMs, you only need one person to manage it. It requires very little maintenance or overhead in terms of staff. 

The solution can be expensive. However, if you are a big company, such as a telco, likely you can get a good deal on pricing. That said, being so big, likely the cost won't be a deterrent. 

We are partners and also a solution provider.

The solution is great. I'd rate it at a nine out of ten. I'd advise other people to give it a try.