VMware vSphere Reviews

Unlike VMware workstation where we have to log in to desktop to run VM(s), with VMware Server we can run VM on the background. It also have a web based management interface so you don't have to install a software on your desktop to manage VMware server. It’s still quite useful virtualization software that you can use for free if you want to spend extra mile patching some files before you can compile support for your kernel.

VMware server already reaches its end of support on June 30, 2011. Since it’s not supported anymore, and new support for newer OS, if you use a new Linux distro, you have to patch some files before you can compile support for you running kernel.VMware itself suggest its users to move to VMware Player if you only need to run small number of VMs on your desktop, or VMware vSphere Hypervisor if you want to run on dedicated machine.

Not the best choice if you want to start learning virtualization. You better choose VMware Player, or VirtualBox if you want to run virtualization software on your desktop or VMware vSphere Hypervisor and XenServer Free edition if you want a free virtualization software on a dedicated machine.

We use VMware vSphere to deploy and manage VMs. 

The tool makes virtualization easy. It was free, and we could profit from its GUI. It helps to manage VMs easily. 

The solution needs to improve its stability. 

I have been using the solution for six to seven years. 

VMware vSphere is stable. I rate it seven out of ten. 

Technical support is not available in the free version. However, you can get support from the community. 

VMware vSphere's deployment is easy. It doesn't take more than 20 minutes. You can download it from the official website and install it. 

We are using the tool's free version. 

VMware vSphere's community is good. I recommend using the product if you are in the initial career phase and need to deploy a few virtual machines for testing purposes. For more extensive virtualization needs in a production environment, especially when dealing with many VMs, opting for VMware ESXi, its upgraded version, would be a prudent choice. I rate it eight out of ten. 

On-premises

The solution is primarily used to house VMs, virtual machines.

Virtualization changes radically the IT landscape. Rare are our customers who have not implemented it. vSphere is #1 in hypervisors and offers the flexibility and the fastness our customers need.

VM models is a great feature. It allows to create VMs very fast and already patched with the different configurations that the are needed.

The ease to move a VM from a host to another or even to another storage/DC is very convenient. That all this can be done while users work on the VMs is awsome.

The graphical vSphere vCenter interface is now in HTML. I'm not very found of it. Sometimes you can't find items and you need to log in to the different hosts.

Some work has to be done with this admin console.

I have many years (lost the count...) of experience with this solution, beginning with version 4.0, then 5.0, 5.5, 6.7 and finally 7.0 and use it daily.

The stability has been very, very good. I didn't have any crashes. There aren't bugs or glitches. I find it to be a very, very strong architecture.

In terms of scalability, I haven't really had the opportunity to address this as my customers are not very big companies and we have relatively small data centers.

I've never had to call VMware. You basically can find everything on the web. VMware's  website is very good and there is a lot of information everywhere about vSphere on the web with real experts of the product.

No

The setup is straightforward, only a few questions to answer, and you have your hypervisor ready !

Always in house.

The cost of the solution is relatively low. VMware proposes the Essentials kits which are very affordable for SMB companies.

I didn't really evaluate any other solutions. I haven't even really looked at Hyper-V, although my clients sometimes ask about it.

We are implementors and our customers don't sometime have any dedicated IT guy.  But, as vSphere works well once implemented, there's relativally less to do.

On-premises

I have used VMware products at five different software companies, and it was mainly used for the following functions: development environments, QA systems, internal infrastructures like wikis or ticketing. 

It was brilliant to consolidate systems, and it provided the best way of doing it at the time, as far as I was aware.

Snapshot and clone: make VM backups for fast recovery options, build systems and reduced setup times.

When I needed to equip a new startup, I was unable to get the budget for vSphere past finance, so I ended up adopting a cheaper alternative even though it meant more work.

One to three years.

It's very stable

Depends on your budget

Good

I also used Citrix Xen which was really great, but ended up mainly using Qemu and Libvirt with KVM because of costs.

Simple

In house

Great flexible infrastructure 

Depends on your budget and skill set.

Virtualbox, Xen Server and KVM

Linode, AWS and Digital Ocean now use KVM

• DRS
• Distributed virtual switches
• vMotion
• HA
• Extensibility - you can ring in many ecosystems

• Agility and availability
• Near-zero downtime
• Incredibly easy to use - good on one hand, but on the other, it means that when you get outside use cases, they usually target for vSphere, and you can set yourself on fire. For basic install on autopilot, it does what it does, but if you want to do something inherently complex, move out of the realm of easiness.

I’d like to be able to expand the capability of SMP fault tolerant VMs. That’s a game-changer when talking about business-critical applications (i.e. Oracle). If we had this, we’d no longer need an Oracle rack (will have better solution with this improvement).

It's extremely stable, and solid. No problems with respect to the hypervisor itself.

As a consultant, most horror stories come from people doing things they shouldn’t do. It becomes so easy, people take certain things for granted. e.g. a VM snapshot file showed that a user had let something run for three years.

That’s the kind of stuff that makes it unstable.

It's got excellent scalability. There are no applications that can’t be virtualized now.

VMware have one of the most consistent tech supports out there.

It was very easy.

This is where it loses points on sometimes perceived costs; the competition has done a good job of promoting the notion of a “VMware tax”, but the benefit is there with their licensing scheme.

Buy it, and you will be hard pressed to find a better combination, but you need to understand it, and have a plan. As simple as it is, don’t just go out and buy.

The features we most value are:

• High availability (in ESXi)
• Disaster recovery (via SRM)
• Self-service portal via vRealize automation

The solution has helped us to achieve the following:

• Faster time to market our services
• Lower overall TCO

Commercially, the stock keeping units have changed with the latest iteration of the product.

We have been using the solution for five years.

We had some stability issues but VMware support has made the experience manageable.

We did not have any scalability issues.

I would rate the technical support as 8/10 mainly due to the speed in delivering resolutions to concerns encountered.

We did have a previous solution but it lacked the functionalities.

The setup was straightforward and vendor support is available from planning, to setup, to maintenance.

The cost might be higher than other products offered by the competition but, if implemented correctly, it is worth the investment.

We evaluated the Oracle VM solution.

This software is just another tool to get things done. Ensure that you have laid out your requirements and have carefully evaluated your priorities before acquiring a cloud solution.

• HA
• DRS
• Snapshot
• FT
• vMotion
• SvMotion

It gives us the ability to be running over 250+ VMs on five physical hosts and in various flavours of guest OSs. Previously, we did not have this option.

The only improvement that is needed that come to mind are improvements in the vRealize Automation and vRealize Operations management simplicity.

I've used it for six years.

We have not had any issues with deployment.

We have not had any issues with stability over the six years we have been using the solution.

The solution has scaled well.

I would give the technical support 7-8/10.

In terms of the setup, it was generally straightforward overall. However, it was relatively complex to set-up vRealize Automation 6.

Implementation was done in-house.

We made an ROI after three years of using the solution.

My advice when it comes to pricing is that pricing is a bummer, especially when it comes to SnS coverage. From the feedback I have received from other users, that’s a concern for most of the customers.

The products we looked at prior to this one were Hyper-V and RHEV.

Overall, I strongly recommend this product.

• It provides the option to view performance with advanced real-time monitoring.
• With it, it's very easy to create new virtual machines.
• It also helps you upgrade your machines by making hot templates of them.

We have migrated several databases based on the Oracle VM solution to VMWare as we've seen a great difference between these two products.

The setup is complex even for experienced IT administrators who have worked with hypervisors, and it should be made a little easier.

We've used it for one year.

It's a little complex, but we were able to do it. Other than that, we had no issues with deployment.

We had no issues with the stability.

We had no issues scaling it for our needs.

We previously used OVM but chose VMware to consolidate our architecture.

Our initial setup was quite complex because several machines where physical machines, others were OVM virtual machines, and others were VMware machines.

We implemented it through an in-house team.

I would have preferred to implement vSphere straight away instead of OVM and then switching.