VMware Software Defined Data Center Reviews

We are working for VMware Data Center, major NSX and Data Center only.

We use VMware Software Defined Data Center for internal applications where we have hosted many applications. It is basically a broker platform for trading. For application development, we need many servers, so we are hosting those servers on VMware Software Defined Data Center. Although it is software-defined, it is not fully managed by software. It is not fully orchestrated due to cost and skills limitations of the customer, though the entire data center is ready for orchestration.

If you put vRealize automation, then it will be a complete software-defined data center. The complete infrastructure is on virtualization, defined by software, and partially managed by VMware vCenter with basic automation such as HA automatically moving between machines. Because it is a broker platform, they don't want extensive automation. They want to maintain some control because they generally do DC drills, which is a time-taking process that needs to be scheduled. This is a limitation in the present scenario of automations because sometimes customers don't want full automation, they prefer semi-automated solutions.

VMware vSAN, HCI is the best feature along with the VMware core suite of VMware ESXi servers. It is basically a part of HCI. In the networking part, VDS is valuable because NSX and similar solutions are required where telecom or multi-tenancy environments exist.

Customers running single instances of networks with physical switches rely on actual throughput or load handling by physical switch buffer and memory chipsets. VMware Software Defined Data Center works but at a limited scale. We cannot completely grow or rely on VMware Software Defined Data Center. Though it is very helpful, we have removed entire server layers from the virtual server layer. The flexibility is excellent as we use storage policies, and whenever any VM or dynamic allocation is needed, it is automatically handled by VMware without physical intervention.

VMware has transformed IT significantly by initiating virtualization. However, the company has faced multiple ownership changes, from Dell to other OEMs, and now Broadcom has taken over VMware. Support and existing customers, who are their bread and butter, are not satisfied due to support issues.

They need to improve their support because of new management, policies, and pricing, and they are not offering discounts. Instead of developing regular new products with advanced features, they should focus on managing existing products, their management aspects, and customer satisfaction.

We have been working with this solution since 2020 or 2021, so almost five years.

We are a VMware solution provider and continue to use VMware. For stability, I would rate it eight out of ten. It is very stable, but I am deducting two points due to support issues. Since VMware created this software, when problems occur, we cannot handle them as we are not developers and need good support. With better support, it would rate ten.

In terms of scalability, I would rate it nine out of ten.

They must improve their support significantly. People are distributing their load across clouds. They are using VMware Software Defined Data Center for virtualization in some places. Everything they want to orchestrate is available on cloud, and they are connecting through direct connect or other connectivity between cloud and their premises infrastructure.

Positive

We provide solutions but have limited market exposure because it is advanced technology. Due to cloud adoption, many organizations opt for cloud-based network virtualization instead of building extensive on-premises infrastructure. There is also a skills limitation as administrators must manage multiple aspects of IT and cannot be completely proficient in VMware.

The setup of VMware Software Defined Data Center is not complex, but it requires extensive knowledge. A person without proper expertise cannot deploy it.

Nutanix offers their own HCI as a complete solution bundle. Unlike VMware, where servers are bought from other vendors, Nutanix provides a complete built-in solution. Their platform is very fast, and their market presence is increasing due to competitive pricing.

We are direct partners and not using any marketplace. We are working on software-defined SDDC but not using it 100% completely.

For disaster recovery, we use fault tolerance through VMware and manage DR sites through vRealize Operations and vRealize Automation. Backup solutions are primarily on Commvault and other platforms. For complete disaster recovery, we maintain local recovery, file motion, vMotion for local server transfer, and manage replicas using additional tools. It is not a complete VMware stack due to high costs.

The price is extremely high. According to my assessment, if they reduce prices and improve support, their infrastructure sales could increase by two or three times.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate VMware Software Defined Data Center an 8.

The VMware Software Defined Data Center Manager can be used to manage VMs across multiple platforms.

There's quite a lot of uncertainty at the moment regarding the solution following the Broadcom acquisition of VMware. After the Broadcom acquisition, they changed the licensing model, reduced their product's queues, removed all the perpetual licenses, and moved to subscription. We are unsure about the future growth and stability of our organization.

I have been using VMware Software Defined Data Center for a few months.

The solution is scalable because it is only at the hypervisor layer.

The solution’s technical support is good, given that we are paying for the additional VMware technical account manager.

Positive

Currently, VMware is better than Azure Stack in terms of software, stability, capability, and known functions. I would like to see Microsoft match or even go further than VMware in 12 months to provide some alternative and competitive environment.

The solution has a medium ease of deployment because it's an enterprise-wide deployment with a highly critical environment.

The solution's deployment was an eight-month project.

VMware Software Defined Data Center is a very expensive solution.

The solution allows a lot of automation and easy migration between on-premises and the cloud. At the moment, we're still exploring the solution's future use cases. Predominantly, it is used for conducting maintenance on the on-premise data center. It allows us to quickly migrate the instances into the cloud as temporary hosting, do the maintenance on-premises, and then shift back from the cloud to the on-premises instance.

The solution has supported our organization's transition to a hybrid or multi-cloud environment, as expected, based on the very high price point of the product and services. The VMware Software Defined Data Center Manager can be used to manage VMs across multiple platforms.

The solution's network visualization capability has positively impacted our data center's efficiency. Our data center has always been set up with virtualization in mind. It has been architectured to use virtualization. We can host up to 5,000 to 6,000 users and a lot of applications.

The solution has a medium ease of deployment because it's an enterprise-wide deployment with a highly critical environment. There's a lot more access to resources with VMware capability compared to other visualization platforms. It is easy to maintain VMware Software Defined Data Center.

The solution reduces time when replicating similar VDIs or VMs for a set of repetitive environments or requests. For example, we can easily automate the creation of VDI environments for a set of users that fall under the same group. The automation is pretty easy to stand up compared to the manual labor-intensive task of creating a VM one by one.

Users should look at what they actually need for their organization. VMware Software Defined Data Center might be the best product out there, but it might not be the right fit for your organization. Before choosing the solution, do your homework and understand your requirements because there are alternatives.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We use VMware Software Defined Data Center to compute virtual private cloud storage environments.

The product gives us a follow-up on the infrastructure environment. We can get insights into the storage, including activities of the recovery sites and virtual machine requirements.

There could be more insights for hyper-cloud solutions in terms of enhanced configuration.

We have been using VMware Software Defined Data Center for more than eight years. At present, we are using the latest version.

I rate the product’s stability a nine out of ten.

We have 20-30 operations executives using VMware Software Defined Data Center. Its scalability is an eight or a nine out of ten.

The technical support team takes a long time to resolve some cases.

Neutral

I use Nutanix and Azure.

The product’s initial setup process is straightforward. We contact their technical team in case of any issues, as we have premium support for the software. The deployment time depends on application requirements. It takes approximately a few hours or a day.

We take help from a third-party vendor for deployment.

There are extra costs involved for the product for storage and expansion.

I recommend VMware Software Defined Data Center to others and rate it a nine out of ten.

We connect the solution to Windows Server or a Linux server for backup.

The solution does not occupy much space. It is easy to track and control.

The solution must provide more features.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

I rate the tool’s stability a ten out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten. We have about 300 users.

The deployment is easy. The deployment takes one day. The integration with third-party tools is easy.

We use the educational license. It is cheap. The normal license is not very cheap.

I will recommend the product to others. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

We rely on VMware's Software Defined Data Center as the core of our regional server setup, managing computing, storage, and networking centrally.

The most valuable feature of VMware Software Defined Data Center is its central management system. It lets us easily set up and control configurations on any device whenever we need to. It is not only reliable, handling complex tasks smoothly, but it is also budget-friendly.

One area where VMware Software Defined Data Center could improve is in the user interface. While the backend scripting and automation are robust, having more features accessible through a CLI mode would be beneficial.

I have been working with VMware Software Defined Data Center for over ten years.

The stability of the solution has been generally good, but there have been occasional performance issues, especially when updates, upgrades, and hotfixes are introduced. I would give it a seven out of ten for stability.

VMware Software Defined Data Center is scalable and suitable for both small and large companies. The scalability is linked to stability levels, and the licensing process can be intricate.

We contact technical support whenever we have an issue. They are helpful, but it is a bit of a process. First, you explain the problem to a level one engineer, and if is complex, they might need to pass it up the chain. This can take a few days, which can be a bit slow in urgent situations. I would rate their support as a seven out of ten. It is good but could be faster.

Neutral

We used Microsoft Hyper-V before switching to VMware for the Software-Defined Data Center. The decision to switch was mainly driven by the simplicity of licensing with VMware compared to Microsoft Hyper-V. In my experience, users typically find Microsoft Hyper-V easier to work with, and it is more user-friendly for non-technical individuals. On the other hand, VMware stands out with its highly flexible network deployment capabilities. The choice often boils down to user preference and the specific needs of the deployment, with Microsoft Hyper-V offering simplicity and VMware providing robust network flexibility.

Setting up VMware was not overly complicated, but it had its challenges. The process is generally straightforward, except for dealing with patches. When you download the app store package, it might not have all the patches, so you need to do a separate upgrade to the latest build. That part can be a bit tricky. On a scale of one to ten, I would give the easiness of the initial setup a seven. For smaller deployments, the deployment time typically takes around two to three days.

The return on investment with this solution has been notable, especially in terms of security and performance. The software's development ensures client data safety, and updating packages is a breeze, saving us from starting everything over. This is a huge relief, especially with thousands of servers. However, dealing with licensing and support SLAs can be a bit tricky. Despite that, the gains in security and performance make it worthwhile.

It can be costly and, in my opinion, it is a bit overpriced. This stands out as the most challenging part of the overall solution. I would give it an eight out of ten in terms of costliness.

Overall, I would rate VMware Software Defined Data Center as five out of ten.

Our primary use case is we deploy on a traditional physical server. We completely move our workload to the virtual machine and then we have physical servers. We move some of our physical workloads to virtual machines. And with the help of vSphere and NSX-T, we create VMware Software-Defined Data Centers.

We can create one server for one application and then hardware on the system. By moving to virtualization with the help of a virtual machine, we can run the virtual server in just a couple of minutes with the help of templates. And we can move the virtual machines from one server to another server. We can do vMotion, fault tolerance, and high availability. All these features are available in VMware Software-Defined Data Center, including the NSX feature for network security.

The most valuable features are server virtualization and network virtualization, which NSX-T has. The capabilities of providing all kinds of network security solutions from L two to L seven.

When they release the next version, we need some new features in vCenter eight, like DPU, and data packet processing. When it comes to research and development of the product in class, we would like to receive the next version in the best possible way.  I would recommend bundling so the end customer can utilize all the automation and orchestration features with SDC. Currently, they are provided as separate offerings. I think it should be included as one so we can evaluate and optimize our cloud resources.

I have been working with VMware Software Defined Data Center for the past six years.

There is excellent stability.

The scalability is perfect with over one thousand users and two hundred servers.

Technical support is very good.

Positive

Previously, we used the Windows Hyper-V solution. We switched because of all the server automation capabilities like vMotion, HA, DRS, and fault tolerance. VMware Software Defined Data Center provides resilient IT infrastructure and software-defined.

The initial setup is complex and it requires a tenure base and a lot of planning and implementation phases. 

We used a third party in the deployment process. We had two to three engineers working on the deployment of the solution.

We have a return on investment by virtualizing all our workloads and we can replace all the physical hardware also with the help of virtualization. It optimizes our server utilization on the same physical server. So we just require less physical server on-premises and we can run more instances on the particular server. So it saves the cost on hardware costs.

VMware Software Defined Data Center is expensive.

I would highly recommend it because it reduces your footprints in terms of hardware utilization and you can efficiently utilize your resources. And with the minimum, you can do the maximum including the network virtualization, service virtualization, and network layers. I would rate VMware Software Defined Data Center a ten out of ten.

We are using the solution to manage the OEMs and credit profiles and utilize different features from ESX, such as VMotion and vSphere.

We decided to move to a different version of VM to create different solutions.

The higher availability, the DRS, and its connection with NetApp are the most valuable features.

Perhaps integration with Azure would be beneficial. It would be great to have compatibility with vendors like UCS, considering I use different hardware such as HP or UCS. 

Additionally, a direct connection to monitoring tools would be valuable.

I have been using the solution for the last 12 years.

It is a stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. I have plans to utilize ESX and other features for the neighboring infrastructure and other features of VMware ESXi.

I like their technical support because they met my expectations when I was in B1 or B2.

Positive

The initial setup is simple because they have a lot of knowledge, and it's intuitive when you're configuring the solution for VMware.

I see a Return on Investment as it is a very useful solution.

The solution is expensive.

I recommend the solution. I rate it nine out of ten.

Our clients are using this solution for different types of workloads, VDI, DevOps, containers, etc. They are using its latest version.

The feature set and the maturity of the product are most valuable.

Its pricing could be better, and there could be more integration.

I have been working with this solution for five to six years.

It is stable.

It is scalable.

Their support is good. I would rate them a four out of five.

It really depends on the size of the project, but it is of moderate complexity. It is not that easy, and it is not that difficult.

The number of people needed for its implementation depends on the size of the project. Usually, very few people are needed. You just need one or two people.

Its pricing could be better.

I would advise others to do proper network designing and sizing prior to the deployment.

I would rate it a nine out of ten.

We are using it to install several versions of virtual machines so that we can fit the needs of any user internally.

The most valuable feature is that you can share all your resources with all your users and put the vSAN software and virtual machines on each one. Moreover, it has good performance and flexibility. 

Even though it is very powerful software, it is complex. The way the software is driven should stay the same. My main problem is that they are changing the interfaces frequently, and each interface is incompatible with the last one. So you have to be in constant learning.

But the main problem here in a country like Mexico is that the software cost is exceptionally high compared to other states. One of the ways to adopt this platform is that it would not be as expensive as it is. For example, this version of the storage utilization is costly, and most of the other features, the most valuable ones, are extremely expensive.

I have been using the solution for four years.

It is a very stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. I rate it ten out of ten. I plan to expand the usage in the future.

The technical support team is good. We contacted the support and paid for the service, and they were very quick in their response.

Positive

The initial setup was complex. The complexity needs some understanding.

I have seen an ROI, and it's very good.

You can make better use of all your resources, reduce the cost of energy use, and complete balance between all your needs and all your resources through Defined Data Centre.

I rate it a ten out of ten.

Server virtualization is the primary use case.

There were a few reasons we went with VMware virtualization:

• There were exponential demands from the business for servers, databases, applications, and quick availability. 
• Lack of data center facilities. 
• Time to setup, configure, and install the servers. 
  

There have been many improvements in our virtualization strategy and roadmap. We started small and were able to satisfy our developers with quick infrastructure provisioning. It has allowed us to maintain uptime and availability. 

Motioning is also very easy. We used vROps to create alerts that notify us whenever there are virtual machines powered on or off.

VMware has many features: 

• It is easy to set up and configure. 
• Installing the virtual environment takes little effort. 
• Some of the great features that we found with VMware were availability, stability, uptime, and easy management. 
• With the CPU and Hot-Add RAM features, it was very easy to upgrade the system resources without any downtime. 
• Performance monitoring is easy. It is easy to troubleshoot and do a quick recovery of systems. 
• vMotion from one host to another is a great feature. 
• Converting physical servers to virtual servers is useful.
  

We would like to see more analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning capabilities in their products. 

Another good feature would be to have predictive analytics and remote monitoring to monitor the virtual infrastructure with integrations to social media apps, like WhatsApp and others.

10 years.

It is very easy to do technology refreshments, patching, and upgrades with almost zero downtime. Its easy to bring servers online within few minutes.

We started by virtualizing about 10 servers, and now, have more than 500 servers.

We started with version 3.x , then moved on from that older version to newer versions as per VMware recommendations and the hardware performance guide. Now, we are mostly running the latest version (6.5).

It took less time to understand the architecture.

Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix.

We tried Microsoft Hyper-V as a proof of concept. We found VMware to be more stable and adopted in the industry.

It is great product. In the end, we are happy to have a stable infrastructure for our team and DevOps.

I recommend going with VMware for all of your critical applications.