VMware Software Defined Data Center Reviews

My company is an integrator and we provide solutions such as VMware Software Defined Data Center for our customers.

Our customers use this solution to implement their own data centers using virtualization. It can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud. They deploy their network virtualization, cloud management, and then the provisioning is done automatically.

The documentation is very good.

The interface should be improved because when there are many alarms, it is difficult to figure out what the error is.

I have had a lot of trouble implementing automation in cloud-based deployments. The problem lies in the third-party integration.

It would be very valuable if they offered shareable data center designs.

The technical support is very good. There are three levels of support and they have helped me with special cases or issues.

Setting up this solution requires running a script and it configures the hardware.

It takes approximately one month to deploy to a private cloud.

This is a good solution that can do many things.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We are a system integrator and this is one of the solutions that we provide to our customers.

I have experience with using this solution in both cloud-based and on-premises deployments.

The most valuable feature of this solution is vSphere.

This solution is easy to use.

The virtualization has room for improvement.

The Site Recorder Manager needs to be improved. We would like to have active-active replication. 

This solution is not efficient for small customers.

Technical support could use some improvement.

This is a very stable product. It's stable because it is a Linux community solution. In four years we have had no downtime.

This is a very scalable solution.

The technical support for this solution used to be very good, but I found that it has been weakening. They have given up the practice of giving out Action Plans, which were ways of explaining the problem and finding a solution. They don't seem to want to go the extra mile anymore.

The knowledge base for this solution is easily accessible and you can solve many problems using it. If you have been using VMware for a long time and you come across an error then you can go to the knowledge base to search for a resolution.

Most of the time, customers rely on people who have been using VMware for a long time, and who have experience with different kinds of issues, to help solve their problems.

I have used other solutions in my time as a Sun engineer and as a Solaris engineer. For example, I have used Microsoft Azure, but I am more of a VMware kind of person.

The initial setup of this solution is very straightforward. It is easy to install.

VMware is the king among these types of solutions.

This is a very nice solution.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We use this solution to host all of the programs that we need. We have about four hundred VMs that we use for our applications.

We have an on-premises deployment.

There are many features in this solution that are useful. It is difficult to point out any particular feature over another.

It would be an improvement to have more functionality with hardware products. For example, performing routine analytics on a hardware network would be useful because not many network switches can do it.

The stability of this solution is great.

The scalability is ok. I don't have any comment about this.

We rarely speak with technical support, but it is good. We have had no problems with them.

The initial setup of this solution is not complex. It is very simple.

Whether we require assistance for deployment depends on the product, as well as the time that we have. For example, in some cases, we have used vSAN, and we have somebody from IT to install it.

We have been using solutions from VMware for fifteen years.

This is a solution that I absolutely recommend for others.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We are using all of the virtualization technology.

Our primary use case is infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

For some clients, we provide backup as a service. In this case, we back up their on-premises data to the cloud.

We are using the cloud deployment model.

The major benefits of this solution are stability and performance.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the infrastructure as a service. Not all of our clients require the backup to the cloud, but the majority demand IaaS, or the migration from an on-premises solution to the cloud. For example, for replication purposes.

The next version of this solution should include more automation.

There should be more visibility in the performance and the configuration.

They are using vRealize Log Insight as the virtualized log platform, but this solution is not well developed and not yet ready to use for advanced optimization and troubleshooting.

This solution is very stable. In fact, stability is the major advantage of this solution. 

We have not yet tested scalability.

My experience with technical support has been varied. It depends on the kinds of hardware because some of them do not have precise knowledge. In general, it is good because they pick up the issue and give you the insight to deal with it.

I have also used Nutanix. There are some differences between VMware and Nutanix, where each has benefits and downsides. The advantage of this solution is stability.

The initial setup of this solution is complex.

We are not well experienced with this solution so we hired a consultant to assist us.

We are not using the latest version, and we plan on doing some upgrades.

This is a solution that I recommend. It is really stable and rewarding.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We started the project using this solution about three years ago, and we are now in production.

We primarily use this solution for automation.

We have an on-premises deployment.

The most valuable feature of this solution is integration because everything is available on a single pane of glass.

This is not yet a mature product. Initially, it is simple to use, but after some time in production, you've got problems. These are particularly related to the main design.

The design phase is not easy. All of the stuff available on the website is not very carefully designed. We suffered for four months before obtaining the bug fix.

I would like to see the process of building and setting up homogeneous classes made easier.

We have some Intel machines and some AMD machines, are we cannot mix these within the same cluster. It is a big mess for us. As we want to scale, we do not always want to use the same kind of machine.

This solution is stable, but problems can be difficult to solve when something goes wrong.

I am very confident about the scalability. Compared to an ESXi environment, I'm not convinced that the same applies to NSX.

We have about ten people in our team who use this solution. We are working towards increasing the number of users. However, there are things that have to be fixed in production first. After that, we can scale more.

I cannot say very much about the post-sale support team because they normally speak with the customers directly, and we are not advised of the problem.

For the software-defined storage it is very easy because there is not very much to do. The product is quite automated.

For the NSM design, it takes a lot of time because you have to configure the integration for third-party products like Cisco ACI. 

During the design phase, we had VMware at our site. They carefully considered the aspects of our design.

You have to learn a lot before using this product, but once you learn it, there are a lot of advantages.

The main problem is design, not implementation.

When it comes to this type of solution, there are not very many people who are skilled in managing it. For example, I could say that in Italy we have four or five.

I definitely recommend this product for others but, again, in some cases, there is a lot of work to do.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We primarily used the solution at first for business applications, then it as the port operator. We use it for the management of shipping containers, so we have a primary data center and secondary data center. 

The ease of deploying virtual machines is the solution's most valuable feature. Moving virtual machines from one post to another is easy. Within minutes you can easily deploy your virtual machines and deploy your applications as well.

The automation of the solution needs improvement. We should be able to automate some processes.

The solution is very, very stable. The only issue is related to VMware. It's an application issue and something specific to that particular application. For some VMs you have two subnets.

The solution is extremely scalable. Initially, we were using HPE MSA as a storage system. Last year we installed HPE 3PAR and we were able to integrate the two. We can use it to move VMs in between 3PAR and MSA easily. Right now, we have just over 100 users.

We've been in touch with technical support on a couple of occasions. It was excellent. They were able to provide solutions to every issue we had.

The initial setup was straightforward.

Initially, we used a consultant for the deployment when we installed version 5.0. This year, we upgraded to 6.0 of BIT3. We did that implementation by ourselves.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

I would recommend the solution. It is one of the best in the market. It's very easy. They also offer knowledge right on their website, which is very helpful. If anyone has issues they can refer to the knowledge base for recommendations. 

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

We are a system integration company and this is one of the solutions that we provide to our clients.

One of our clients in the Health Care field is in the process of modernizing their data center using this solution. It will be replacing a lot of different products from different vendors that all have different levels of support. Currently, a large team is required to maintain the data center because it contains legacy technology, and the management of everything is very tough.

This solution helps customers to utilize existing hardware and perform this type of migration in steps, replacing hardware devices one by one. It helps us to scale up and scale-out. We can decommission an old server and add a new one, but we don't have to decommission everything all at once. With some customization, we can utilize the existing resources.

There are different deployment models, including both public cloud and private cloud.

The most valuable feature of this solution is the SDDC Manager. It is the big difference between this product and its competitors.

the VMware SDDC solution gives the IT admin fully control on the level of HW and SW, you could manage, upgrade and update the VMware infrastructure and you could utilize vRealize suite for operation and automation of your project.

so, the most valuable thing in the SDDC solution are two products which make it different from the competitors:

1- VMware NSX for networking and security virtualization

2- VMware SDDC Manager 

The main problem that we are facing with this solution is vSAN stability. Sometimes, the storage becomes unstable. It is not an issue with integration; rather, it seems to be within vSAN. It could be the hardware that we are working with. VMware has confirmed the bugs, but have not told us to upgrade the hardware. It is compatible and everything is ok, so I don't know. VMware has done some upgrading and patching.

Not all of the storage systems from other vendors can be integrated into this solution.

The licensing for this solution should be improved. For example, you should be able to expand the SDDC with a compute-only node, rather than a hyper-converged node. Otherwise, you are buying a vSAN license for nothing. Their competitors, like Cisco, do not have this problem.

They have to add the fibre channel storage so that it can be integrated with the SDDC nodes. That was the customer can utilize their storage for file-sharing, which most of the customers have. EMC Unity and HP3PAR connect using FC connectivity, but for this solution, we have to change everything in order to mount this storage to the SDDC node.

Adding endpoint security to this solution would be a good improvement.

This is a stable solution, but the stability is not as good as some other products such as VxRail and Nutanix. While more recent releases may be more stable, I have had some issues in the past. VMware did solve a couple of bugs for us.

This solution is very scalable.

The technical support for this solution is perfect. They are very co-operative.

Prior to this solution, we worked manually. We would supply a hyper-converged infrastructure to our customers and then install a software-defined network. It is an SDDC, but there is no single management portal. This means that it is not fully integrated.

The initial setup of this solution is easy. All of the customers can go to VMware Hands-on Labs online and test this solution before buying it.

The time required for deployment depends on many things. It depends on whether they are migrating data, or if they are a disaster recovery site, and how many nodes there are. It also depends on the integration.

If we exclude the racking and stacking, physical network connectivity, and hardware configuration, and are only setting up SDDC for say ten nodes, then it can be done in three to five hours. It's up and running, albeit empty, without virtual machines or anything else.

All of the customers can go to VMware Hands-on Labs online and test this solution before buying it.

If you add virtualization to and HCI solution then VxRail is more stable than this solution. However, VxRail is more difficult to upgrade and patch because it is more complicated.

When you install a Nutanix system then you never have to touch it.

This solution is being sold more often than competing solutions by Dell and HP.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use this solution to help centralize our office.

We have two Data Centers. One of them is for our DR and the other is for production. This is an on-premises deployment.

We have a lot of VMware hosts and this solution is needed for them. If you have more than two VMware hosts then you definitely need this solution to connect and manage them.

Using this solution will provide you with a lot of features for working with multiple VMware hosts.

The most recent web-based interface has given us some problems. For example, if you delete a virtual machine or you delete storage then it takes a long time to refill it. In prior versions that were a client installed directly on the PC, the interface was more responsive. Things happened on time. I had a problem last week where one of my VMs was deleted, and it took perhaps thirty minutes to repair it.

This product is one hundred percent stable.

After we installed it, we have not had any issues with the core product.

Scalability depends on the hardware. If you have a server with low performance when you will have problems. On the other hand, if you use high-performance servers then you will have no trouble with scalability.

We have not needed to contact technical support regarding this solution.

We used another virtual environment prior to this solution, but it was not as stable. Stability is important because if you need to restart the server then it will restart all of the virtual machines inside it.

The initial setup of this solution is not a problem.

We handled the implementation and we do the support for this product ourselves.

It is hard to find things that this product needs. Whatever we have needed, we found it.

We are completely satisfied with this product.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

We use this solution for public-private partnership healthcare projects (hospitals).

Our environment includes Dell PowerEdge Servers, Arista Networks Data Center Ethernet Switches, Coraid SRX Block Storage SAN, GeNUA Security Appliances, Xirrus Wi-Fi Arrays, Mushroom Networks BBNA SD-WAN, and MobileNets.

This solution has improved our organization in several ways, including:

• Convergence and Consolidation of Server Hardware
• Data Center Ethernet Switching
• Bare Metal Ethernet SAN "dramatically improved" performance, stability, and reliability of the VMware Healthcare Solution Architecture.

The most valuable feature is the ability to "leverage third-party vendors" disaster recovery/business continuity applications supporting complex VMware SDS deployments, namely Zerto.

The solution needs performance optimization of the VMware IO technology.

I use this in an enterprise and as a service provider for the banking industry in Paraguay.

The most valuable feature is the strong support. Also, the H-Appliance feature that supports MPLS is very important to us.

The storage utilization needs to be improved. It is not a perfect product. It needs to be more secure and it needs more aesthetics. 

It is very scalable. 

The tech support team has a lot of practical experience. 

We looked at other solutions, but we found this to be the strongest solution. The other products in the same category include Amazon, Azure, and Google, but they do not have the same features and the same "open solution" policy.

The setup was complex. You need to be knowledgeable in using a physical data center in order to implement this solution.