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IT Administrator with 201-500 employees
Real User
Its self-service capabilities allow us to give resources to our customers. They can spin up as many or as few machines as they like.
Pros and Cons
  • "So far, we have had no problems at all, as it has been very stable. It is working well."
  • "vCloud Director works and makes my life easier. Its self-service capabilities allow us to give resources to our customers. They can spin up as many or as few machines as they like, and it works."
  • "There didn't seem to be any type of integrated path on how to do the initial setup. There seemed to be different bits of paperwork or instructions available from various places. We always had to go looking for what to do next."

What is our primary use case?

We use it and have several customers who use it. 

It has performed well. We don't have any real problems with it.

How has it helped my organization?

The product helped us get more customers, so that worked out quite well. It saves us a lot of time provisioning new clients.

What is most valuable?

vCloud Director works and makes my life easier. Its self-service capabilities allow us to give resources to our customers. They can spin up as many or as few machines as they like, and it works. We don't have to worry about it. We maintain the platform, and our customers take care of the rest.

I am happy with the data protection.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

So far, we have had no problems at all, as it has been very stable. It is working well.

I always worry about disaster recovery. I can't afford for it to break.

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable, which is one of the reasons that we use it. We have not had to increase the resources that we have thrown at it yet. However, when we do, the process should be straightforward.

How are customer service and support?

We have never really needed any technical support. 

When we were first creating the cloud, we asked for some input from some VMware specialists. Since then, we haven't had any issues.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We were using VMware already, then some of our customers asked if we could give them a cloud solution

How was the initial setup?

In the end, the initial setup was straightforward, but we had to try to do it a few times.

There seemed to be different bits of paperwork or instructions available from various places. We always had to go looking for what to do next. There didn't seem to be any type of integrated path on how to do the initial setup.

What about the implementation team?

We used a consultant for the deployment.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We had experience with VMware, so we stuck with VMware.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend VMware and vCloud Director, if they want to go cloud.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2320629 - PeerSpot reviewer
Support Engineer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Real User
Top 5
Simplifies operations and makes it easy to provide comprehensive cloud services
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of vCloud Director for me is its user-friendly UI, which is much easier compared to other platforms."
  • "It would be beneficial if some features were built into the platform rather than requiring integration with multiple products, reducing complexity and licensing concerns."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to deliver secure cloud environments to customers.

How has it helped my organization?

vCloud Director greatly improves our organization by seamlessly integrating with the entire VMware stack, simplifying operations, and making it easy to provide comprehensive cloud services.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of vCloud Director for me is its user-friendly UI, which is much easier compared to other platforms. It enables users to do more with their virtual machines and disks, making it a simpler and more versatile solution.

What needs improvement?

There is some room for improvement in vCloud Director, particularly with its integration with various VMware components for automation. It would be beneficial if some features were built into the platform rather than requiring integration with multiple products, reducing complexity and licensing concerns. Specifically, having native automation capabilities within vCloud Director would be a great enhancement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using vCloud Director for three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability of the solution as a nine out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would rate the scalability of the solution as a nine out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

I would rate the technical support as an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I previously used Morpheus, but I switched to vCloud Director due to integration issues after upgrading. Specifically, Morpheus had challenges integrating with another solution we were using, prompting the switch.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was quite simple.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I think vCloud Director is worth the price.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend vCloud Director as a solid solution for cloud providers. It offers comprehensive features and is easy to integrate with other VMware components, making it well-suited for diverse needs. Overall, I would rate it as a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
VMware Cloud Director
March 2025
Learn what your peers think about VMware Cloud Director. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2025.
851,823 professionals have used our research since 2012.
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Infrastructure Expert at Cloud Counselage Inc. (www.cloudcounselage.com)
Consultant
FT capacity issues are now resolved in vSphere 6.0.

What is most valuable?

vCloud Director: To name a few, ease of use, robust security and easy extensibility to VMware's Hybrid cloud platform; VMware vCloud Air and public cloud space.

vCAC (vCloud Automation Center): Now known as 'vRealize Automation' is the best in class, high profile automation for your cloud workflows. Vendor neutral; Apart from VMware Cloud suits, it can be used with other vendor cloud platforms like Amazon, OpenStack, Azure etc.

vROps (vCenter Operations Manager): Now known as 'vRealize Operations'; vROps is the best in class most granular, high penetration monitoring, investigative and troubleshooting tool for your Cloud, datacenter, VDI environments Used for Capacity planning, Performance monitoring and troubleshooting etc.

vSphere: vSphere being the foundation for vCloud, there are many takeaways; Long distance vMotion, HA, FT, DRS, Storage DRS, Storage profiles, dual heartbeat in cluster environments. 4X capacity increase in 6.0 compared to version 5. vCenter Server Appliance now has the same scalability numbers as the Windows installable vCenter Server: 1,000 hosts and 10,000 virtual machines. FT now supports 4 vCPUs VMs and 64GB memory with Storage redundancy.

How has it helped my organization?

vSphere: vMotion (ease of migrating VMs from one host to another), DRS (ease of migrating VMs from one host to another automatically to balance out workloads in cluster environments), Storage DRS (ease of migrating VMs from one Datastore to another automatically to balance out workloads in storage cluster environments, HA (High availability is ensured by the newly developed FDM construct. FT (Ensuring 100% up-times reliably), Storage profiles (to bifurcate storage tiers accoring to the SLAs etc., dual heartbeat in cluster environments for confirmed Host isolation avoiding false alarms/isolation responses; key to maintain SLAs.

What needs improvement?

FT capacity issues are resolved now in vSphere 6.0. Cheers!!

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using vSphere, vCloud Director, vCOPs suits and vCAC for almost 4 years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

None.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

None.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

FT capacity issues are resolved now in vSphere 6.0. Cheers!

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

Excellent.

Technical Support:

Excellent.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Yes; Microsoft's Azure for cloud and Hyper-V for virtualization. The reason for switching was indeed the efficiency crisis with Hyper-V resulting in subsequent service issues ->service tickets-> increased number of troubleshooting tasks -> increased number of breaches in the SLAs

How was the initial setup?

Straightforward, as it's designed at a more abstract level.

What about the implementation team?

Vendor as-well-as in-house. I give them a 5-star rating.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Depends on the licences purchased per ESXi, vCenter for vSphere and licences purchased for vCloud Director, vCOPs suites.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Yes; Microsoft's Azure for cloud and Hyper-V for virtualization.

What other advice do I have?

Go for it. Follow the bottom-up approach; VMware's Implementation Guide for each product and you will sail through.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Cloud Counselage Inc. (www.cloudcounselage.com) is an official 'Solution Provider' Partner with VMware Inc. 1. Our website link for events: https://www.cloudcounselage.com/events.html 2. Our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/cloudcounselage 3. Our LinkedIn page: www.linkedin.com/company/cloud-counselage 4. Our Twitter page (still new): www.twitter.com/CloudCounselage
PeerSpot user
it_user8685 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user8685Infrastructure Expert at Cloud Counselage Inc. (www.cloudcounselage.com)
Consultant

Hi Kapil,
Latest 5.5 version of vSphere has maximum capacity of 512 VMs per Host. This number can vary depending on the size of each individual VMs. For a FC storage, a maximum of 64TB LUN can be attached to a host and a maximum of 256 LUNs can be attached. This number again depends on the size of each individual LUN that is to be attached. Number of volumes and its individual size follows the same maximum conventions that of LUNs.

See all 7 comments
Søren O. Bendtsen - PeerSpot reviewer
Team Manager - Private Cloud Platform & Storage at ITM8
Real User
Top 10
Helps to connect different clouds
Pros and Cons
  • "We use the solution to connect clouds to different clouds."
  • "It would be great if Microsoft and VMware come together and become a common tool."

What is our primary use case?

We use the solution to connect clouds to different clouds. 

What needs improvement?

It would be great if Microsoft and VMware come together and become a common tool. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with the product for ten years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

The solution's support depends on the partnership. We do not attend to level 1 and level 2 support cases but level 3 support cases. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The solution's price is the market standard and depends on usage. 

What other advice do I have?

I would rate the product a nine out of ten. The tool is simple and easy to use. The solution provides API and GUI interfaces. 

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
VarunSidana - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Team Lead at Golf Business Machine
Real User
Allows multi-tenancy, but has a complicated installation process, and needs more integration with other network devices
Pros and Cons
  • "What I found most valuable in vCloud Director is the multi-tenancy."
  • "What could be improved in vCloud Director, particularly from the networking side, is its integration with other network devices. It also needs a more simplified installation because the process is a little bit complicated."

What is most valuable?

What I found most valuable in vCloud Director is the multi-tenancy.

What needs improvement?

What could be improved in vCloud Director, particularly from the networking side, is its integration with other network devices. Currently, it is not connected with the core network devices, for example, Palo Alto or any firewall used in the company. Though there is good integration with NSX, some of the customers don't use NSX. There should be a good amount of integration between vCloud Director and the other network providers, because if there's search integration, then things will become more automated and it'll be more tightly integrated with everything.

What vCloud Director needs is a more simplified installation, because the process is a little bit complicated, compared to installing vRealize Automation or the set of vRealize solutions. They're much easier to deploy than vCloud Director.

Making the installation automated is an additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of the solution. Now that VMware VCF is there, they have the automation layer ready. If any company or organization is planning to deploy vCloud Director, they will start from scratch. They will start from the hardware level itself. If they a tie-up with Dell or HP and from the server level itself, if they can start deploying with vCloud Director by following the best practices and verified architecture, then it makes sense.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used version 10.2 of vCloud Director for the past twelve months, and the total number of years I used it was from four to five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

vCloud Director is quite stable. It has good stability.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

vCloud Director, in terms of scalability, can be improved.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup for vCloud Director was simple when we started, but then it became complex, particularly when we started growing. When we had multiple tenants, and a unique set of tenant organizations within vCloud Director, setting it up started to get complex.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a team leader of a set of consultants in one company in UAE, so I downloaded reports, for example, about vCloud Director for reference. It helped me in designing a solution. I used to work for VMware as a post-sale consultant based in India, but then I quit and joined a different company. I have a personal experience with the vCloud Director.

In terms of maintaining vCloud Director, if you have a good amount of footprint of VMware staff, it would still depend on the number of objects you are controlling through the solution. If you have just one or two organizations created, it's fine, meaning one person can do the maintenance. In my scenario, however, I was supporting a customer who is one of the largest clients in VMware, who is using vCloud Director, so it was almost a team of six to seven people who were involved in maintaining the solution.

My advice to people looking into implementing vCloud Director would depend on their use case. vCloud Director has a very limited use case because most needs can be taken care of by vRealize Automation. If you're not a VCPP (VMware certified partner) and providing the VMware services to the external organization, you don't need the vCloud Director. You can have your private cloud based on open shift, open stack, vRealize, and a bunch of other solutions. vCloud Director is predominantly only for the VCPPs who are authorized to sell the VMware cloud to external customers, which they manage on behalf of VMware.

I'm rating vCloud Director seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Mohamed-Lotfy - PeerSpot reviewer
L2 Cloud Ops Engineer at Orange
Real User
Top 10
Reliable with a user-friendly interface
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution is reliable and performs well."
  • "There are too many errors, it could be more stable."

What is our primary use case?

Yes, we are using this solution to provide cloud services to our customers. I'm an L2 Cloud Ops Engineer.

What is most valuable?

The solution has a user friendly interface. It's easy for us to provide services to customers and our customers find the UI easy too. The solution is reliable and performs well. 

What needs improvement?

We get too many errors, whether it's the URL not working or errors in some of the UI features. I think it needs to be more stable.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for two years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability could be improved.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have around 50 users for now and we're able to scale up at any time. The solution is used on a daily basis and we have one person who deals with maintenance. 

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is good. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty easy.

What other advice do I have?

I would advise anyone wanting to use the solution to get training from VMware. 

I rate the solution eight out of 10. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1382925 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Professional Services Consultant at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Leaderboard
Easy to setup and manage, reliable, with a good interface and accessibility
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features are the UI, the interface, and accessibility."
  • "In the next release, we would like to see improvements with the pricing. It could be reduced."

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are the UI, the interface, and accessibility.

It's easy to manage, it's stable, there are fewer bugs, and the version is upgradable.

We are using 8.0 which is going out of support and will need to upgrade to 10, which would not take much time to upgrade.

What needs improvement?

There is no support for versions below 10.x. Support for previous versions would be nice, but it's the end of support which is the company policy. We cannot debate it and they provide us with extended support as well, for a year.

This is is more than enough time for an organization to upgrade to the latest version to be secure and protected.

There is always room for improvement.

In the next release, we would like to see improvements with the pricing. It could be reduced.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

vCloud Director is scalable.

We have over 1000 people in our organization who are using this solution.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support is good for version 10.x. There is support through the vendor but not for the previous versions. 

For versions 9.0 and above, there is support available.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward.

The time it takes to deploy depends on the number of cells. For example, if you have two cells it will take 40 to 45 minutes. Not more than that.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

This is an expensive solution.

What other advice do I have?

We will upgrade and continue our usage of this solution.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using this solution. It's a very good product.

I would rate vCloud Director a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user669336 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at a tech services company
Consultant
With the resource pool payment model, you pay for resources instead of paying for hourly use. As pure IaaS software, it includes no additional services.
Pros and Cons
  • "Remote console (ability to control booting and OS installation process)."
  • "Lacking additional services reduces the level of cloud integration companies just love with Amazon and Azure."

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features are:

  • Remote console (ability to control booting and OS installation process).
  • Support for Windows desktop OS's (mostly used as test machines for software development companies).
  • Resource pool payment model (pay for resources instead of paying for hourly use).

How has it helped my organization?

We were able to test Windows desktop OS's (XP, 7, 8, 8.1, 10).

What needs improvement?

This is pure IaaS cloud backend software with absolutely no additional services which are offered by Amazon and Microsoft today. Lacking additional services reduces the level of cloud integration companies just love with Amazon and Azure.

To go into more detail:

vCloud Director is the alternative to Amazon EC2 and that's it. However,
Amazon AWS offers approx. 50 other services such as S3, Glacier, RDS,
Lambda, Workspaces, Elastic Beanstalk, RedShift, X-Ray, etc. Compare it to VMware Cloud Platform and you will quickly see how many services VMware doesn't offer today.

Customers require tight integration of different platforms provided by a single vendor in order to increase performance of their environment and drive down TCO. VMware still doesn't have cloud offering that compares to Amazon AWS or Microsoft Azure.


For how long have I used the solution?

I have used VCloud Director for over five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

No stability issues.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The resource pool payment model is very limited when it comes to scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

I rate technical support 6/10.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used rented servers running VMware ESX/vSphere on SoftLayer and decided to switch to VCloud Director because we got tired of the hardware issues we had with those servers (RAID controller failures, HDD failures).

How was the initial setup?

Initial setup was straightforward.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We tried Terremark, which was also based on VMware (don't know if they used VCloud Director).

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free VMware Cloud Director Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.