VMware vSphere Reviews

We have been virtualizing our on-premises data center. We relied heavily on VMware vSphere to manage our servers; all our virtual server loads are hosted on it.

The tool comes with scale-out capabilities. Deploying new infrastructure became much quicker, saving significant time previously spent sourcing hardware for each installation. It also has the ability to downscale on rack spaces, reducing the number of rack units needed to accommodate our servers.

Its most valuable feature is remote replication which comes with high availability. 

I would suggest that the tool reconsider its pricing strategy. The recent price hikes could potentially pose a problem for VMware in the future. The recent price increases, especially since Broadcom acquired them, seem excessive. There are reports of businesses experiencing massive price hikes, sometimes as much as 10-30 times higher. This is causing smaller businesses to consider exiting the space altogether.

Overall, it's a functional system that works well. However, I believe that systems like Nutanix offer better integration and functionality. While both are solid hypervisors at level one, VMware vSphere's management, especially through the web-based interface, could use improvement.

I have been working with the product for 15 to 16 years. 

I rate the tool's stability a nine out of ten. 

VMware vSphere is highly scalable, and I rate it a ten out of ten. My company has 400 users. 

I rate the tool's ease of deployment a six out of ten. It was quite complex due to various hardware restrictions and issues. We had to address several technical issues with VMware along the way.

I would rate the deployment process as typical regarding time and considerations. However, the migration from on-premises to the cloud was a bit cumbersome. It required a bit of work. 

The installation phase took about three months initially when we deployed on-premises. This duration was understandable as we had to virtualize numerous physical servers and handle various complexities. Transitioning to the cloud extended the project timeline to approximately six months.

I believe the biggest return on investment stemmed from significantly reduced deployment time frames. Commissioning and deploying systems and accommodating growth became much faster—measured in days rather than months. This efficiency and consolidation efforts resulted in a high long-term ROI.

I rate the solution's pricing a ten out of ten due to the recent price changes. 

My advice to those considering VMware vSphere would be to carefully assess your business's size and the product's value proposition. It may not be well-suited for smaller enterprises due to its prohibitive cost. It's important to consider alternative solutions. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten. 

We can maintain our own infrastructure according to our needs. We need to buy the solution only once, and we can do what we need to do. We can deploy several servers. We can also deploy other machines. We can create templates. OVF is the best feature. We can create an OVF, send it to the other node, and create similar VMs with the OVF.

We can deploy our own bare metal hypervisor over the hardware at the required capacity. We must know how to configure it. The product is not difficult to use. The users access their PCs using a remote desktop protocol. It is as simple as using our own laptops. The solution’s high availability is very good. The tool provides 99.99% uptime.

The hardware cost is high. We need to change the hardware after some time. It is a big headache for the organization. Private clouds are more secure than public clouds. However, public clouds offer services that we can never see in vSphere. VMware must improve its login page.

The UI must be improved. The solution must improve its log system. When a machine fails, it mentions the log but doesn't describe the infrastructure or how the code is designed. If I put one machine on migration and it fails, the log is generated as the user timed out and disconnected the host. Apart from this, there's nothing else mentioned in the log. It is difficult to identify the problem with the machine. The log system is very poor.

It is a challenge to increase the storage. If we have ten users when we start, but the load on the server increases to 20 or 30 after a month, there is a chance that the site will go down. We have to be proactive in implementing datastore. If we have ten users, we must plan to have hardware for 20 users. The cost will be high, but it will be more secure.

I have been using the solution for five years.

The on-premise version is stable.

We are a client-based organization. The number of users depends on the clients. There might be 5200 people using the product in our clients’ organizations.

We have deployed the solution on-premises. The solution has a private cloud, too. There are no hybrid connections available. The initial setup is not difficult, but it is not easy. A normal user cannot do it. We need the expertise to install bare metal. The installation is easy if we know the configuration criteria.

The tool is neither expensive nor cheap. The pricing depends on the users. Suppose we have 100 users, and the architectural team spends $10,000 on infrastructure to build the data center. After some years, we have to replace the systems and upgrade them.

Since I am an engineer, I troubleshoot the issues I face. I recommend people use a public cloud provider. If someone requires a separate data center, they can choose VMware. It is the best solution on-premises and as a private cloud. Overall, I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

I deal with the solution in my company to work in the area of data center virtualization.

The most valuable features of the solution are in areas like VMware vSphere vMotion and vSphere HA.

From what I know, the area revolving around the licensing part of the product is not quite friendly. The licenses for those who have a partnership with VMware are not a good thing because we have to use the tool for demos and simulate it in a customer environment. In our company's setup, considering that we have a partnership with VMware, it is very hard to have licenses, making it an area where improvements are required. VMware's NFR licenses were previously available for partners, and the tool used to provide demo centers within such licenses, but the aforementioned licensing structure for partners has been presently discontinued. The product should also provide the partners with the facility to provide the tool's demo in a test environment for customers.

The solution's technical team is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required.

I have been using VMware vSphere for five years. My company has a partnership with VMware.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight to nine out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Our company's main customers who work with the solution use it in sectors like banking, finance, and government.

My company deals with small, medium, and enterprise-sized customers who use the tool.

I rate the technical support a seven out of ten.

The solution's technical team offers fairly good support in some cases, and in a few other cases, they need to offer more help, which is quite difficult to get, and it also depends on the support engineer our company gets.

Neutral

I rate the initial setup phase an eight on a scale of one to ten, where ten means that the setup was a very easy process.

The solution is deployed on the public cloud and hybrid cloud.

The tool's deployment phase takes time, as it is not a quick process. The tool's deployment phase takes a few days to be completed.

The tool is a bit expensive.

With VMware vSphere, it is easy to manage the scaling of our company's virtual infrastructure.

VMware vSphere helps our company's customers in the area of virtualization since it provides good scalability features. In the government sector, people need to engage in a lot of documentation work when purchasing new hardware, and it can be helpful to use the product in such a scenario. In any environment, the product is easy to scale for general usage.

VMware vSphere's high availability or FT feature is used by our company's customers in their clusters to keep their servers available as much as they can. The use of the product ensures minimum downtime, and its users prefer to use the high availability feature of the tool.

The performance and efficiency of the use of the solution have improved our company's customers' organizations. From the use of VMware vSphere, the performance and efficiency of your customers have increased by 30 to 40 percent.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

We use the product for server virtualization.

VMware vSphere has a user-friendly GUI. It is easy to deploy and find troubleshooting articles as well.

There could be an inbuilt dashboard for reporting purposes. At present, we have to use another paid solution for the same.

We have been using VMware vSphere for the last ten years.

I rate the product's stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the product's scalability a ten out of ten. We have a huge environment with VMware infrastructure for multiple users.

We encountered some delays with the responses from the technical support team. The resolutions could be more informative.

Neutral

We used Citrix before. It could be more stable. Comparing both the solutions, VMware is better than Citrix.

The initial setup process is straightforward. It takes around four to five hours for end-to-end configuration. We have 60 to 70 engineers to manage the deployment. 

The product helps us save around 20% to 30% of costs.

The product is expensive. I rate the pricing a three out of ten. They have multiple products with extra services. It increases the cost.

I recommend VMware vSphere and rate it an eight out of ten.

VMware vSphere is the virtual platform for our company, where we host all the virtual machines.

We use the solution's vMotion feature to migrate VMs from one host to another across different environments and data centers.

It is not easy to upgrade VMware vSphere from an old version to a new version. We have to work with the support to upgrade the solution.

I rate the solution an eight out of ten for stability.

I rate the solution a seven out of ten for scalability.

The initial setup of the solution is not easy, but it's also not very complex. If you don't have experience working with VMware vSphere, it's pretty hard for you.

VMware vSphere is a more mature and stable virtualization tool than Microsoft Hyper-V.

VMware vSphere saved us a lot of costs and easily deployed the server from templates. We use the solution to make capacity changes, increase the memory, and increase the CPU. The reason we use VMware vSphere is its high availability feature.

VMware vSphere integrates well with our existing IT security measures. We have all the agents on the VM and a central console for the security, patching for the security, and monitoring. My team has less than 1,000 VMs, and we have three resources working to support their virtualization.

I would recommend VMware vSphere to other users because it is the best virtualization solution in the market. From what I know, most companies use VMware vSphere.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use it exclusively for internal purposes within our company, managing our office infrastructure as a private cloud solution.

It stands out as a comprehensive and advantageous solution, providing a full package that effectively caters to our needs for managing our private cloud.

The most significant aspects for us are the invaluable features of High Availability and vMotion in VMware. Additionally, the seamless sharing of resources and numerous other robust features make it highly commendable. Specifically, the capability to implement a load balancer between hosted environments without any downtime is particularly appreciated, underscoring the platform's reliability and advanced functionality.

The current concern revolves around the pricing as it might be less affordable for certain regions. In countries like Tunisia and many others in Africa, there seems to be a challenge regarding the cost of licensing.

I have been working with it for ten years.

It is robust and stable, rating it a perfect score of ten out of ten.

It offers good scalability. I would rate it eight out of ten. It's a small organization, with one hundred users.

It boasts robust support. I've collaborated with local partners in Tunisia, and their operations, coupled with same-day support, have proven highly responsive. I would rate the support experience a solid ten out of ten.

Positive

I have experience working with Hyper-V, and when comparing stability, VMware surpasses it across various generations. While Hyper-V has shown improvement in newer versions, it hasn't reached the level of stability that VMware consistently delivers.

The initial setup is relatively straightforward. I would rate it eight out of ten.

For deployment, it typically takes around two to three days with minimal configuration. One person is often sufficient for handling such setups. It's worth noting that if we opt for solutions like Analytics or other complex configurations, the need for additional personnel may arise, but for straightforward deployments, a single person can effectively manage the process.

I find it highly expensive. I would rate it ten out of ten. It would be highly beneficial for VMware to collaborate with local hosts and partners in countries like those in Africa to establish specific pricing that would align with the economic conditions of countries in Africa, ensuring suitability and compatibility with our consumption capabilities.

In instances where organizations operate on robust infrastructures and budget constraints are not a significant concern, my usual recommendation is VMware. This is especially true for financial companies that prioritize investing in and managing critical software solutions without financial constraints. Overall, I would rate it eight out of ten.

The focus is more on simulating various PM (Performance Management) products. This involves tasks like identifying bugs or testing new updates.

As for the workflow, it primarily revolves around working remotely due to the pandemic. Unlike having a physical lab where reconfiguration is feasible, I have taken advantage of VMware solutions, including VMware vSphere and related products. I have adapted them to match the specific configurations.

The emphasis isn't specifically on a particular feature, but rather on the ease of use. For instance, when building a test lab or setting up an entire environment from scratch, VMware products are notably more user-friendly compared to alternatives like Nutanix. I've had prior experience with Nutanix.

From my personal perspective, I found it easier to adapt to using VMware than when I started using Dynamics. This ease of use is a strong point. It's largely about how straightforward it is to navigate through VMware's user interface. In contrast, with Nutanix, there's a need to delve into smaller configurations and navigate vendor-specific settings. VMware, on the other hand, offers a more accessible management page. This difference primarily centres around usability and the overall user-friendliness of the interface.

Given that I've been using version seven, it seems that some of the bugs I faced during that version have already been addressed in subsequent updates. Although I haven't personally tested them yet, it appears that these issues have been resolved. In version seven, there was a problem with the network interface not responding due to certain configurations not being properly filtered. However, in version eight, this requirement has been minimized, so the mentioned bug is less likely to occur. Instead of solely addressing these fixes in newer versions, it might be beneficial for them to consider applying these improvements to the older versions as well. This approach could prevent users from feeling compelled to upgrade to version eight solely to avoid encountering the issue, and instead provide updates for version seven users.

I have been using VMware vSphere for sometime.

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten.

The case of scalability of this solution is easy in a hybrid setup so I would rate it nine out of ten. 

I lack substantial experience with technical support, as my past interactions mainly pertained to license-related matters. When it comes to addressing actual technical issues, I haven't had the opportunity to gain significant experience yet.

Positive

I would rate the initial setup eight or nine out of ten because of its easy navigation and setup.The deployment takes almost half an hour. Essentially, having the network configuration prepared is crucial, as it often represents the most time-consuming aspect when setting up an environment, whether it's on-premises, in the cloud, or anywhere else. Once the network configuration is in place, the process becomes smoother and more straightforward.

It's a common trend as many progressive IT firms are transitioning towards cloud or virtual environments due to factors like pricing, SMAX, and VMatter. In this regard, I would rate VMware as moderately satisfactory. I would rate it seven out of ten.

VMware vSphere is a very stable solution that can be used to host your virtual services. If you want to host a virtual machine, VMware vSphere is the best tool available on the market.

The most valuable features of the solution are the overall virtualization technology and the new features that allow you to move servers from one system to another. The solution's newer technologies allow you to do network-level isolation.

It would be good if the licensing cost of the solution could be cheaper.

I have been using VMware vSphere for five to ten years.

I rate the solution a nine out of ten for stability.

The solution's scalability is also good because you can scale using your required hardware. At the same time, the VMware vSphere and VMware vCenter combination can allow you to scale up to a decent level. Around 100 users were using the solution in our organization.

The solution's technical support was good and fast enough. The technical support team was able to help us with most of the problems we experienced.

The installation and initial setup of the solution were simple because we had a team of people already familiar with VMware. Learning a newer version was never difficult for them. They could easily streamline into the newer versions and use them effectively. So, the learning curve was not that high for the team.

The biggest benefit we had with VMware vSphere is that we could provide effective service to our end customers. I was able to support multiple operating systems on VMware, which was the biggest value of the product.

VMware vSphere on-premises is still cheaper than the cloud. It's the kind of technology you can always count on.

VMware vSphere has helped us provide better services to our customers because we were able to provide them with stable service. The availability of our systems increased by using VMware products. The solution's security was adequate, but we were not using it extensively.

The solution's High Availability is definitely the factor that comes into the picture because you cannot have downtime in today's IT world. VMware becomes a core strength of the product. It gives you the required availability, scalability, and stability for the environment.

I have always been looking for a seamless cloud migration strategy, which has already been implemented. Now, you can easily migrate systems from on-premises to AWS or Azure cloud. It is easy to integrate VMware vSphere with other products.

Many people using the infrastructure on-premise sometimes want to use the additional capacity in the cloud for additional functionality. The version I used earlier did not have the functionality to move the server from on-premises to the cloud seamlessly. In the newer version, they already have established that part.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.