VMware vSphere Reviews and Pricing

Senior Manager of Infrastructure at a non-tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 14, 2013

vSphere Review

What is most valuable?

- Enterprise class solution - Live Migration (both server and storage) - High Availability and Load Balancing - Disaster Recovery - Lots of 3rd party vendor support - Excellent technical support

What needs improvement?

- Cost - Lack of support for virtualization (all hypervisors) - Licensing- Started with VMware ESX ver 2.1 in 2004. Currently using vSphere 4.1i and working on upgrade to 5.1 - Chose VMware for several reasons (1) Had experience with Desktop and GSX products (2) Ran on bare metal (3) No other real competitors at the time

What other advice do I have?

Advice: - VMware is not the only game in town anymore - Look at your requirements: - If you are a small to medium shop other server virtualization products may provide what you need - If you are a large shop I would recommendVMware

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user6186Independent Analyst and Advisory Consultant at Server StorageIO - www.storageio.com

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May 2, 2014

When you say a con is lack of virtualization (all hypervisors), can you elaborate?
I have multiple hypervisors running nested on my VMware vSphere environment (works better with 5.5).
Otoh, if you are referring to being able to manage other hypervisors with native vSphere (e.g. client), then fair point as you would have to add the multi hypervisor manager download part of vCenter to be able to do that.
However as you say, many options, Hyper-V is often overlooked or perceived to be expensive as from Microsoft which is not always the case. Likewise there is Xen and KVM among others. From a management perspective you can also do things such as layer OpenStack compute over different hypervisors (e.g. Hyper-V, vSphere/ESXi, KVM, etc). Hence explore your options.

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it_user3507

Senior Manager of Infrastructure with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 8, 2013

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Our current virtualization standar platform, but Hyper-V 2012 version functionality appears to gain on VMware vSphere

Valuable Features:

Key business drivers and benefits for us: • Co-location data centers environmental costs are greatly reduced (rack space, power, cooling). • Allows better utilization and flexibility to segment physical resources (vCPU & vMemory) • Consolidate / centralize management of all Windows and Linux infrastructure - Administer entire virtual environment via a single pane of glass (vCenter) - Provisioning of VMs is really simple and quick. Allows easy use of templates. - Utilize Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) & VMotion - Optimizes performance of VMs - Allows flexibility for patching cycles to minimize downtime. • VMware product has been very stable • Allows for easier compliance and consistency for meeting IT audit controls • Initial ROI analysis a few years ago did show significant savings over physical model. We are looking at updated ROI and show-back / charge-back models currently.

Room for Improvement:

VMware product challenges / Areas for improvement: • Advanced Capacity Management and Performance Management & Analysis, Disaster Recovery, and private cloud capabilities are lacking out of the box for enterprise-level deployments. - Ability to “right-size” resources on all VMs is needed at enterprise installations. - Add-on / 3rd party products like vCenter Operations / VMturbo, SRM, or vCloud may be needed. - These add-on products add management complexity. They also add licensing and maintenance costs for the overall solution in a tough budget climate. • Difficulty using VMotion with Microsoft Clusters. We utilize clusters for our large SQL Farm, but we are unable to use VMotion during patching efforts. We are now looking at Hyper-V or physical servers for this functionality to minimize downtime. • Granting administrative privileges / roles can be a bit more tedious than are initially apparent.• VMware vSphere 5 is current architectural standard for 2 data centers - VMware was the major virtualization solution provider when first implemented years ago - Microsoft 2012 Hyper-V “proof of concept” is currently in progress for US - Educational discounts from Microsoft are significant - Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 version functionality appears to gain on VMware vSphere • Also have a large Solaris UNIX environment utilizing Solaris Zones. • VMware (or Hyper-V) will enable us to drive a re-platforming effort for Solaris -> Linux

Other Advice:

Things to consider before purchasing VMware or Hyper-V: • Understand your virtualization objectives and requirements before purchase. Assess all requirements against VMware or Hyper-V licensing cost and edition functionality • Define a strategy for resource intensive applications (large CPU or memory requirements) and when to stay standalone vs. virtual • Implement processes to control “VM sprawl” as VM provisioning process is so simple. • Consider other process efficiencies that virtualization may drive (i.e. Service Catalog) • Ensure IT staff gets proper training. The learning curve can be steep initially at the enterprise level. • If possible , look at processes for show-back or charge-back model early on to assess costs and ROI.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

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ADM

Senior Techical Support Engineer at A Cloud Compute Company

Jan 4, 2013

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* User friendly and not complex. * Easy to...

Valuable Features:

* User friendly and not complex. * Easy to deploy, manage and troubleshoot. * Scalability and stability. * Highly recommended for mission critical applications and databases. * Aggressive in educating their clients.* User friendly and not complex. * Easy to deploy, manage and troubleshoot. * Scalability and stability. * Highly recommended for mission critical applications and databases. * Aggressive in educating their clients.

Room for Improvement:

VMware should compete against their competitors in terms of Pricing. Hopefully, they can value add some features without any additional cost.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user1068Tech Support Staff at a tech company with 51-200 employees

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Oct 6, 2013

vSphere is indeed the best in the market as a result of its web interface and compatibility with different OS (among other excellent features). Web based programs and applications are the in thing in the modern market of this kind.

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it_user1020

Head of Data Center at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Jan 3, 2013

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An excellent product with proven track record. Plan properly the deployment and use as this products is expensive.

Valuable Features:

VMware vSphere is a proven product with an established track record. We bought it as part of our server system upgrade project to accommodate our new student management system from Oracle. At first, we had a taste of vSphere as part of a demonstration system. We got to play around with it and really liked its features and the capabilities that it can bring to our organization.VMware is also a Cisco partner, and as such Cisco has a validated design for using vSphere together with their blade servers for Oracle PeopleSoft. This was critical in selecting vSphere as our virtualization platform foundation, as the application which we envisioned to run on the servers is fully tested and verified by Cisco and Oracle to work with vSphere.

Room for Improvement:

With all the desirable features of vSphere and its proven track record, its no wonder that it's also the most expensive virtualization platform out there. This is the first major disadvantage when using VMware. Other vendors have competing products with similar capabilities. However, these products are not proven and tested.Another thing to watch out for when using vSphere is that you really need to plan your deployment and use thoroughly. With the high cost associated with this product, proper diligence must be taken in the planning on how to use this product to achieve the desired results.Lastly, make sure the hardware that you run vSphere on is fully supported. Hardware compatibility issues can limit the functionality of vSphere or worse render the hardware useless.Despite the inherent high cost associated with using this product, I will still highly recommend this for use in production environments. The benefits that will be enjoyed far outweighs the consequences as long as proper planning is done.

Other Advice:

It is also recommend to get a reliable partner for integrating the software with the hardware system. As vSphere has numerous features, an inexperienced integrator or un-trained in-house administrator might not be able to configure fully all features necessary to maximize the product.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user3405

Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Dec 31, 2012

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Ease of use, functionality, established product, works very...

Valuable Features:

Disclosure: My company is a VMware reseller. Ease of use, functionality, established product, works very will with almost any prime time OS, very thought-out application, works with the developer community to improve, has deep pocket organization like EMC to help propel them into the future

Room for Improvement:

Moved away from local/domain end-user authentication to a single-sign on authentication mechanism, introduced a single-point of failure, added additional complexity that came be overcome with proper training

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user4524Founder & Principal Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Oct 21, 2013

I keep up with VMware certifications. The entry point on their certifications, the VCA, does not require an official VMware class as a pre-req before you take the exam. The VCP, however, does require an official VMware class before you can take the exam. They are trying to keep the quality of the certification recipients at a premium.

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it_user3402

Head of Infrastructure at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees

Dec 31, 2012

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The best product for critical server virtual infrastructure.

Valuable Features:

Great product for critical production server virtual infrastructure. No any "gamers" in this area. Latest product can help more than previous. VMware Replication, vSphere Data Protection based on AVAMAR technology, new vCPU architecture and more new features says us that it is the one biggest product.

Room for Improvement:

Costs is very expensive. But some cutting features like Vcenter Operations Manager Fundamentls are available in starting versions of vCenter. It is good way for the best marketing from VMware. But Enterprise or higher versions are very expensive.

Other Advice:

Now I lead the Upgrade to vSphere 5.1 project in my Company. SSO installation are strange... need to involve DBA in this process. Scripts are not good... This installation must be re-produced. But new features are very great and interesting.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user2652Project Manager at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees

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Sep 29, 2013

Just a quick question...........I have a number of guests on vcenter. My management wants a list of all VM servers. Is there a way I can extract csv file containing names of all guests......

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it_user3405

Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Dec 26, 2012

Comparison of VMware, Citrix and MS Hyper-V

Disclosure: My company is a VMware reseller.
What I have found is as follows:
VMware:
- Easier to setup, established product, works with most OSs
- Is owned by EMC (1 storage vendor) and has plenty of development resources
- Constantly improves, has an established upgrade process
- Just works, seems to be very flexible and is ready for production environment
- Has relationships with many organizations where they continue to improve (features and benefits) especially when it comes to networking (virtual networking - able to control the packets ability to traverse the network using an application)
- Storage virtualization has improved along with giving vendors the ability to develop API's to work with their solution
- Has integrated with Powershell to allow for automated VM management
- Does not work with Nvidia GPUs, but they are in the works
- Faster ESXi server setup, integrated LDAP (AD) tools, VC management interface, very easy to install

Citrix:
- Easy to setup, continues to establish capabilities, works with most OSs
- Found that it is easy to setup an ISO file from a CIFS share, no need to upload into datastore (like that of Vmware)
- Has an established upgrade policy
- Complex powershell automation configuration
- Faster VDI implementation, but for large organizations, costs seem to be the an issue because of the much needed hardware
- Works with Nvidia GPUs
- Easier Network bonding and implementation
- Status view of the XenServer gives real-time stats, none really found on Vmware ESXi server (they have the capability found on VMware Operations Manager but not on the ESXi server itself)

Hyper-V
- Easy to install and configure
- Not really an established technology, found some glitches with Windows 2008 but they have worked out a lot of the problems with 2012
- Does not work with all OS, had problems with Linux and Unix (Mint, Solaris, Xubuntu, etc)
- Cluster configuration, complex
- Network configuration needs more development work, they need to work at bonding the NICs
- Cluster configuration only works with ISCSI protocols

Just some things I have found.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user3405Partner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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Aug 15, 2016

Hello, I have not been on the site in a while but I would like to start with my findings using VMware 6.0 (U 2), it seems that VMware has made numerous changes to the compatibility matrix as it relates to hardware. One of the changes we have found is the onboard NIC cards are not supported any longer by a number of vendors. We have found a workaround from online groups that has helped us to address the issue - www.v-front.de For the most part, this is a good write up. We were able to enable the onboard network cards that are Broadcom and/or intel based.

Also, vSAN is a wonderful tool that gives us the ability to create a pool of disks from various VMware ESXi servers, we have reduced the amount of storage by using external SAN/Storage Array devices. Hyper-V gives the user the same ability where the user creates pools of disk volumes.

Also, as far as security goes, there are some nice features that have always been part of VMware, if the user goes into the configuration tab of the ESXi server, they can add IP address ranges to lock down the VMware Infrastructure, they have been doing this for a while but worth mentioning (ACLs at the ESXi Host layer).

Also, there are a number of remote monitoring tools that are in the cloud (CloudPhysics.com, OpsView.com, LogicMonitor.com).

Have a great day.

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it_user3264

IT Administrator at a media company with 51-200 employees

Dec 22, 2012

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Used to be a very good product but now is being replaced by some other of its types.

Valuable Features:

Easy to use and provides centralized management. With that, it is free and provides a very simple and easy web and also remote interface to interact with the product.

Room for Improvement:

The only problem with it is that it is now in the category of obsolete products. Though its still very good, but its support and updates won't be available.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user7665Network Engineer at a tech company with 51-200 employees

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Jul 11, 2013

I've been managing various virtual machines based off of Oracle Virtualbox and I found it to be much better performing and better supported. VMWare products are not at par with Virtualbox applications which are also open source.