I use VMware vSphere for its technical capabilities. It is a pioneer and a very good tool. However, there is an issue with the pricing as many customers claim that it is very expensive.
Technical Assistant at EOCD
Advanced resource management and user-friendly interface enhance infrastructure management efficiency
Pros and Cons
- "The user interface is very friendly, especially in version eight."
- "The pricing of VMware vSphere needs significant improvement. Although the product is very strong and includes all necessary features, the high pricing drives many customers to avoid using it."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
The essential, advanced, and enterprise versions of VMware vSphere have been very beneficial. We utilize features such as the motion and Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) for automatically managing resources. The user interface is very friendly, especially in version eight. It is a strong and high-quality solution.
What needs improvement?
The pricing of VMware vSphere needs significant improvement. Although the product is very strong and includes all necessary features, the high pricing drives many customers to avoid using it.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with VMware vSphere for more than ten years.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of VMware vSphere as eight out of ten. It is generally stable.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of VMware vSphere as nine out of ten. It is a highly scalable solution.
How are customer service and support?
Support is difficult to find, and I rate technical support around five out of ten. If we have issues, the support tends to be unreliable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is not complex. It is deployed on-premises.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
While VMware vSphere is a very strong and complex tool, the pricing should be more visible. Many customers are trying to avoid it due to its high cost.
What other advice do I have?
I recommend VMware vSphere technically, but not due to its pricing. I rate the overall solution as 10 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Manager of Systems at Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology
Good virtualization and high availability but has upgrade challenges
Pros and Cons
- "The high availability feature is significant."
- "The initial setup was easy, and we didn't experience any difficulties."
- "Sometimes, we need valid certificates for VMware, however, we are unable to add the certificates."
- "There are no scalability options available in VMware vSphere."
What is our primary use case?
We use VMware vSphere for virtualization purposes. We are telling our clients to use more options for virtualization.
What is most valuable?
The high availability feature is significant. For virtualization, we prefer to have options for reconfiguration and efficient use. However, the software requires shutting down for reconfiguration, and backup requires shutdown too, which is a limitation. The VMs work smoothly, which is beneficial.
What needs improvement?
Sometimes, we need valid certificates for VMware, however, we are unable to add the certificates. Another area is the stability during upgrades from older versions to newer versions, where we face issues.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with VMware vSphere for more than seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The VMs work smoothly with no issues, but there is a risk upgrading from older to newer versions, where we've faced some issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
There are no scalability options available in VMware vSphere.
How are customer service and support?
We do not have experience of directly contacting their technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was easy, and we didn't experience any difficulties. We set it up very easily.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have no experience with the pricing as we are using the free version.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We might suggest CrossPlox or HackerMesh solutions to others since they are Linux based.
What other advice do I have?
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate VMware vSphere six or seven. If I feel that the requirement is best fit with VMware vSphere, then I suggest it. If not, I suggest other solutions.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Implementer
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Owner at NetArt
Used for clusters with shared storage on-premises with stability
Pros and Cons
- "It offers a good return on investment because its maintenance and subscription costs are very durable."
- "It is pricey for small business."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for clusters with shared storage on-premises with recovery. We use Veeam to back up some replication of these installations.
What is most valuable?
It provides stability with performance and broad support for hardware solutions.
What needs improvement?
It is pricey for small business. There are bundles that make competitive for out-of-bundle solutions that smaller businesses can't afford. If they will be the end of the sale, a cost problem arises for them.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for over ten years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is recommended for small and medium-sized businesses.
How are customer service and support?
I have no directly needed VMware support. We always have resolved our troubles with documentation.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is straightforward because of good documentation. It depends on the installation. Optimizing deployment takes a few days for a cluster with shared storage. One person can deploy the smaller clusters. We are training the lab to deploy the different solutions.
What was our ROI?
It offers a good return on investment because its maintenance and subscription costs are very durable. So once you deploy the first installation, upgrading or the infrastructure is quite easy and straightforward in the future.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The small distribution price is very convenient because they are really affordable bundles for three or fewer nodes. For bigger installation, it starts to be pricey, but it's also scaled with the business side.
What other advice do I have?
Maintenance is required as long as any other products to check for troubles and some security patching.
The version enables automatic maintenance, easy maintenance, and performance performance. A good performance use of the hardware allows for quick infrastructure maintenance and a quick structure upgrade so you can change hardware servers quickly and cheaply.
It's useful for critical workloads. When there are inevitable failures, it can keep up the business.
The server was particularly limiting performance-wise, while Hyper V lacked stability and flexibility in the setups.
Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Manager of Computing and Storage at CBO
A virtualization and monitoring solution for running applications
Pros and Cons
- "The initial setup is very easy and takes half an hour to complete."
- "Customer support takes a long time to respond."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution in servers for digitalization. Our digital products, like mobile and internet banking, run on them.
How has it helped my organization?
We are running critical applications like mobile applications on vSphere.
What is most valuable?
The tool offers virtualization and monitoring.
What needs improvement?
Virtual machine snapshots and consolidation need to be improved. Also, there are licensing and subscription issues.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for 3 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the solution’s stability a 9 out of 10.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is scalable. 5 users are using this solution.
I rate the solution’s scalability an 8 out of 10.
How are customer service and support?
Customer support takes a long time to respond.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used Nutanix. We opted for VMware because the environment is good.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is very easy and takes half an hour to complete, but it is costly since it has training costs and tutorials. The 3 tutorials are included in this package. They somewhat automate, but it's not enough.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Earlier, the solution had a perpetual license, but now, it has a subscription. Also, they have increased the price. The certification is costly.
What other advice do I have?
vSphere has the DRS site. We got the recovery site feature, but we haven't used it. It's good to use the high availability to be more than AWS. We have many weekly metrics running on these.
Overall, I rate the solution an 8 out of 10.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
DevOps Engineer at Simple Logic IT Private Limited
Offers good performance and is useful for banking systems
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance."
- "The integration capabilities of the solution have certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
What is our primary use case?
Our company uses VMware vSphere Versions 6.5, 6.7 and 7.0. My company is trying to deploy all the VMs on VMware vSphere Version 8 since it has some new features. The old versions of the tool don't support some of the VMs, specifically in the area of vMotion.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of the solution is its performance. Nowadays, people are trying to move on Kubernetes. People prefer deploying services over the Kubernetes.
What needs improvement?
n areas like coding and microservices, users can find lots of features in Kubernetes. With Kubernetes, if one of your pods is down, then automatically, another pod will be up, so there are no manual tasks or opt for microservices since such a pod will run in the back end automatically.
The integration capabilities of the solution have certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution. It is only during the production phase involving Kubernetes that our company can determine whether VMware vSphere can remain stable or not.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution. Many people who use the product in our company work in the back end processes. Around 20 to 30 people in my company work with VMware vSphere and Kubernetes.
What other advice do I have?
Speaking about the application deployment process, I work at the L1 level in my company. In my company, the L3 is a different department that manages the application deployment process, and most of them go for tools apart from the ones under VMware to manage the VMs. I am only creating new VMs and assigning RAM space, and if something comes up, then I create new RHEL-based systems.
When it comes to the application deployment process, my company manually deploys the applications. For automation purposes, our company uses Jenkins to collect the logs and provide a GUI with the help of a username and password to the end user, after which they can collect the logs from Jenkins.
I work at an L1 level in my company. The integrations and infrastructure-related areas of the product are managed by another team in my company.
I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.
Nowadays, people don't prefer to go for cloud-based solutions. Most of the companies prefer VMware as they want some level of security in the environment. VMware allows users to have in-house products. Most companies or banks are not moving over to cloud-based tools. VMware is used in banking systems.
I rate the tool an eight out of ten.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
IT systems engineer at VeriFone
Allows for easy management of snapshots for virtual machines and good web console
Pros and Cons
- "The web console is the most valuable feature for me. Because no matter what happens with the server, I can still get to it with the web console."
- "There is room for improvement in Google Cloud. The reason thing there was, like, when I type something in the terminal and then immediately, I need to go to edit the certain like file for Node.js, for the server, or for Kubernetes. So I have to do it from the terminal to the editor."
What is our primary use case?
This solution has a very comfortable interface for snapshots for my virtual machines. That's very comfortable.
For example, if I want to make templates to create a certain type of virtual machine, I have it in vSphere. Moreover, it includes things like deployment, implementation of different templates, snapshot deleting snapshot, restoring a machine to snapshot or administrative administration things.
What is most valuable?
The web console is the most valuable feature for me. Because no matter what happens with the server, I can still get to it with the web console.
What needs improvement?
There is room for improvement in Google Cloud. The reason thing there was, like, when I type something in the terminal and then immediately, I need to go to edit the certain like file for Node.js, for the server, or for Kubernetes. So I have to do it from the terminal to the editor.
And for some reason, each time I had to switch, I had to literally switch between the terminal and the editor. I wish I could have it on one screen to have the terminal and on the other to have the editor. This would greatly improve my experience with this solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using it for a couple of years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability a nine out of ten. It is very stable, and I have never had any major problems with it.
There are over a few hundred users using this solution in our organization.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability a solid eight out of ten. It is scalable enough for my needs, but there is always room for improvement.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup was very easy and intuitive.
If I didn't understand something, this solution provides tons of information,e explanations, courses, and instructions on their website. We also live in a reality of chatbots and AI, so everything is very easy to set up.
What other advice do I have?
I would advise you to check out the VMware website and watch some of the initial and fundamental courses. The web console is very intuitive, but it can be helpful to see how it works before you start using it.
Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Owner at Arsium
Stable solution and easy to setup
Pros and Cons
- "I like stability and the organization of the different functions into the I#M feature which is also quite useful, quite stable."
- "In future releases, I would like to see less pricing. The license can be improved."
What is our primary use case?
Our primary use case is virtualization. All the clients who want to virtualize can use vSphere to do it.
What is most valuable?
I like stability and the organization of the different functions into the I#M feature which is also quite useful, quite stable. I would prefer the old solution because before, you had to install software on your client's desktop to administrate the environment. Since five or seven years, it's not needed. You can do everything through your web interface. And I prefer when it was more reactive, so when you have a client instead of using your desktop. But it's a good solution, quite stable and quite efficient.
What needs improvement?
In future releases, I would like to see less pricing. The license can be improved.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have used this solution for over 15 years. So it's one of the first products we've used with a client.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is a scalable solution. Around 20 to 30 customers are using this solution.
How are customer service and support?
The customer service and support are good. However, it could be faster and more qualified.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup is easy. It is intuitive-- Next. Next. Next. Next. Finish. Easy. Great.
What about the implementation team?
For the deployment process involves materials, equipment, licenses, and the availability of the client team.
It took about one or two hours for one server; it's okay. The deployment was super quick.
A team of engineers and admins is required to deploy and maintain the solution. We have a team of ten people.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing model is yearly-based. It is quite expensive. Moreover, there are extra costs to the standard licensing fees.
What other advice do I have?
I would definitely recommend using the solution. I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.
I would advise to be sure that the functionality brought by VMware aligns with the good functionality because there are other products in the market like ISPs, KV M, Oracle, Microsoft, and some other stuff. And VMware is a well-known product. But to be sure that the functionality provided by VMware is needed.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Managing Director at Prianto Ltd
Useful for virtual machine virtualization and works as a hypervisor
Pros and Cons
- "The tool's most valuable features are CPU virtualization and RAM allocation, which are better than those of other hypervisors."
- "VMware vSphere requires a lot of paid add-ons that need to be integrated into it."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for virtual machine virtualization and as a hypervisor.
What is most valuable?
The tool's most valuable features are CPU virtualization and RAM allocation, which are better than those of other hypervisors.
What needs improvement?
VMware vSphere requires a lot of paid add-ons that need to be integrated into it.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is highly stable. It is stable as long as there are no hardware and software issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
My company has hundreds of customers who use the product.
How are customer service and support?
I am very satisfied with the tool's technical support.
How was the initial setup?
The tool's deployment is straightforward. To implement it, you need to plan, deploy, and migrate the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution's licensing is costlier than other hypervisors.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. It doesn't have any significant security features, and you can only get it through add-ons.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Reseller
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