The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for improvement in simplifying and reducing the licensing cost.
VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution. We do a three-year license for the solution, then renew it after every three years. I rate VMware Software Defined Storage a seven out of ten for pricing.
I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting. If it's very complex or quantitatively heavy with a large infrastructure, then you might need to add more licensing costs, but for us, the standard one does the job.
Country Head SSID & GM South at a import and exporter with 51-200 employees
Reseller
2020-01-22T12:44:00Z
Jan 22, 2020
Setup cost is based on the software price and licenses on sockets. A single socket costs you around US $6,000 with three years services. At a minimum, you have a three node cluster for a small or medium-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other site to achieve business continuity. It comes to around $30,000. If you compare it with the Microsoft solution, Linux solutions, this is more expensive. When you deploy any of the software-defined data solutions you need hardware. Hardware vendors have their own appliances ready to sell. The main catch is if a customer is proposing a software-defined solution for one of their production systems, they may purchase software and hardware from different suppliers. There could be a conflict while troubleshooting a problem between the hardware and the software vendors. In the case of VMware or any of the brands, it's best for the customer to have a ready appliance, which comes from the hardware vendor with a software-defined data central software already installed. It would mean only one service provider for both hardware and software and hence no conflict. All hardware vendors are currently offering the Software Defined Ready nodes. If we compare VSAN Ready nodes from hardware vender and customer solution based on compatible VSAN hardware and VSAN software, the overall price of VSAN ready node prices will be slightly on higher side possibly around US$5K - 10K per node. And that's the catch if the customer wants one windows services they have a pay higher cost. If you have enough expertise buying separate will save cost else go with the VSAN ready node solution.
Data Center Technical Support Team Lead at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
2019-12-15T05:58:00Z
Dec 15, 2019
This is one of the more expensive products for this type of solution on the market. The VMware line, in general, is expensive products. The high cost is why some people are running away to use different, less expensive solutions even if that means having fewer features. For some companies, it is more important just to save some money and have basic functionality.
Learn what your peers think about VMware Software Defined Storage. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2025.
VMware software-defined storage is a simple, yet intelligent, storage data center architecture that aligns with business and application demands—eliminating static, purpose-built and inefficient hardware with dynamic, agile and automated solutions.
The price of VMware Software Defined Storage is on the pricey side, rated four out of five in cost. There is room for improvement in simplifying and reducing the licensing cost.
The solution is very expensive. We can buy a full hardware solution with the money we spend on the software.
VMware Software Defined Storage is a slightly expensive solution. We do a three-year license for the solution, then renew it after every three years. I rate VMware Software Defined Storage a seven out of ten for pricing.
I believe there is a yearly licensing fee of around $2000 - $5000. I don't think there are additional costs above that but it depends on the type of infrastructure you're booting. If it's very complex or quantitatively heavy with a large infrastructure, then you might need to add more licensing costs, but for us, the standard one does the job.
Setup cost is based on the software price and licenses on sockets. A single socket costs you around US $6,000 with three years services. At a minimum, you have a three node cluster for a small or medium-scale company. It can get quite expensive because you're likely to need four to six sockets on the other site to achieve business continuity. It comes to around $30,000. If you compare it with the Microsoft solution, Linux solutions, this is more expensive. When you deploy any of the software-defined data solutions you need hardware. Hardware vendors have their own appliances ready to sell. The main catch is if a customer is proposing a software-defined solution for one of their production systems, they may purchase software and hardware from different suppliers. There could be a conflict while troubleshooting a problem between the hardware and the software vendors. In the case of VMware or any of the brands, it's best for the customer to have a ready appliance, which comes from the hardware vendor with a software-defined data central software already installed. It would mean only one service provider for both hardware and software and hence no conflict. All hardware vendors are currently offering the Software Defined Ready nodes. If we compare VSAN Ready nodes from hardware vender and customer solution based on compatible VSAN hardware and VSAN software, the overall price of VSAN ready node prices will be slightly on higher side possibly around US$5K - 10K per node. And that's the catch if the customer wants one windows services they have a pay higher cost. If you have enough expertise buying separate will save cost else go with the VSAN ready node solution.
This is one of the more expensive products for this type of solution on the market. The VMware line, in general, is expensive products. The high cost is why some people are running away to use different, less expensive solutions even if that means having fewer features. For some companies, it is more important just to save some money and have basic functionality.