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it_user321261 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Server Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Oct 9, 2015
Its ability to perform consolidations has improved our company, though its stability on Dell servers needs work.

What is most valuable?

  • vMotion
  • DRS
  • HA

How has it helped my organization?

The ability to perform consolidation and it's portability, flexibility, and DR capability.

What needs improvement?

None that I can think of. It's a nicely-evolved product.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Overall, it’s very stable. I'm very impressed, except when running on Dell, but it works on Cisco blades.

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VMware vSphere
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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very scalable, and you can add more as needs dictate. It depends on the ratio and goals for consolidation, so you can scale as you need.

How are customer service and support?

The quality is not quite what it used to be since it was outsourced.

How was the initial setup?

It’s now very easy, was harder but now more deployment options, scripts, auto-deploy, can have full automation or manual, smaller footprint.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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it_user321261 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Server Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Oct 9, 2015
We can manage it from a single pane of glass, although the web client is disappointing.

Valuable Features

It enables vMotion, DRS, and HA.

Improvements to My Organization

The ability to consolidate and portability, flexibility, and DR. The management thereof is a single pane of glass.

Room for Improvement

The web client is botched.

Stability Issues

There's not many problems with it.

Scalability Issues

It's very scalable and increasingly so because of what they’re doing with applicances. There's no trade-off between maximums of Windows and appliances.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Since they outsourced it, response times are not what they used to be.

Initial Setup

It’s now very easy. It was harder, but now there are more deployment options, scripts, auto-deploy, and you can have full automation or manual, with a smaller footprint.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
VMware vSphere
January 2026
Learn what your peers think about VMware vSphere. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.
it_user321339 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Systems Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Oct 9, 2015
It simplifies the management of our 30 VMs and allows us to move our DR location from one state to another. The alerting function, however, is unclear both in emails and on the console.

Valuable Features

  • Unified management
  • UI

Improvements to My Organization

It simplifies the management of VMs of our 30 VMs. It's helped with disaster recovery, and we use EMC for disaster recovery, but it's managed with vCenter.

We moved the disaster recovery location from one state to another, and VMs helped us so that we didn’t have to move physical servers.

Room for Improvement

The alerting functions, right now based on performance, is not so clear now either by email or on the console.

Stability Issues

No issues, it's rock solid.

Scalability Issues

We add one or two VMs every six months, and the only issue was with Sharepoint 2013 that required dedicated memory.

Customer Service and Technical Support

It's good, no issues with response time or knowledge.

Other Advice

Make sure you get training on use, and deployment because you won’t know what you’re getting into.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user321339 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Systems Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Oct 9, 2015
The vMotion feature allows us to migrate VMs from one physical server to another with no downtime, though I'd suggest training prior to deployment.

Valuable Features

  • Ease of use
  • UI
  • vMotion, migrating VMs from one physical server to another with no downtime

Improvements to My Organization

It simplifies the management of VMs of our 30 VMs. It's helped with disaster recovery, and we use EMC for disaster recovery, but it's managed with vCenter.

We moved the disaster recovery location from one state to another, and VMs helped us so that we didn’t have to move physical servers,

Room for Improvement

I don't use it enough to suggest improvements.

Stability Issues

No issues, it's rock solid.

Scalability Issues

There's no issues with it.

Customer Service and Technical Support

We’ve had no need for tech support yet; my team have so far been able to solve any issues.

Other Advice

Make sure you get training on its use and deployment, because you won’t know what you’re getting into.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user300507 - PeerSpot reviewer
Systems Engineering Associate Manager with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Sep 1, 2015
It allows a more efficient way to increase/decrease the server inventory.

What is most valuable?

  • vCenter
  • ESXi Host
  • Configuring
  • Management
  • Patch
  • Maintenance

How has it helped my organization?

It has reduced the space, and power utilization, as well as allowing a much more efficient way to increase/decrease the server inventory.

What needs improvement?

I think VMware should make it easier to manage different components (ESXi Hosts, vCenter, etc.) through firewalls. Some organizations have to separate the components with firewalls for security purposes, and VMware does not act well when hosts are separated from vCenter by firewalls.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for two years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Absolutely, numerous issues in particular HP ESXi VMware images that we utilized created a number of deployment issues. ESXi Hosts would lock up, network configs would malfunction and plenty more. We had issues deploying vCenter on windows 2012, and Windows 2012 r2, such as being unable to successfully integrate vCenter with Active Directory and plenty more.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support was difficult to obtain at time because of the limited number of resources allocated to our program.

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

The previous solution were individual physical servers, which we replaced by utilizing VMware.

How was the initial setup?

It was straightforward, and physical servers used to host web applications.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it in-house.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No other options were looked at.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user300504 - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Vice President at a construction company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Sep 1, 2015
Before implementing, I suggest you set up a couple of machines in a practice lab.

What is most valuable?

The virtualization is the valuable feature.

How has it helped my organization?

It's much easier to manage than a pile of hardware.

We are also able to roll out new ideas to the users quicker.

What needs improvement?

The web-based access is flaky. It needs to have a built in backup ability, and the update manager needs to be its own appliance.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using it for four or five years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

It does not like working with the older Intel NICs nor the Realtek NICs, but I was able to work around that.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

The one customer service issue I have had is almost three months old and still unresolved (that sucks).

Technical Support:

I've never used tech support.

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

No previous solution used.

How was the initial setup?

It's straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We did it in-house, and I would suggest you set up a couple of machines in a practice lab first though.

What was our ROI?

We can't quantify the ROI.

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

The pricing is reliable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

No as we've been using before any other virtualization software was popular.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user300498 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior IT Engineer at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Sep 1, 2015
It now has an easier configuration so new server deployments don't take much time anymore.

Valuable Features

It's stable and has the ability to execute the features it promises.

Improvements to My Organization

We have managed to reduce the number of our physical servers dramatically.

It now has an easier configuration, so new server deployments don't take much time anymore.

Also, we're getting much less out-of-work-hour calls.

Room for Improvement

The web client has a lot of problems which hasn't been addressed properly.

The tools that VMware provides with vSphere need improvement, such as vSphere data protection.

Use of Solution

I've used vSphere for about eight or nine years, and this particular version for four to five months.

Deployment Issues

No issues encountered.

Stability Issues

Not at all, I'm quite happy with the stability.

Scalability Issues

This products works quite well with scaling.

Customer Service and Technical Support

Customer Service:

It has room for improvement, but the staff are usually very friendly and they know what they are doing.

Technical Support:

It has room for improvement, but the staff are usually very friendly and they know what they are doing.

Initial Setup

As system admins, difficulty isn't an issue as long it works after the deployment.

Implementation Team

It was done in-house.

ROI

It's saved electricity costs for us as well as costs on unnecessary equipment procurements.

Other Solutions Considered

We did a trial run of Hyper-V. We didn't switch, but Microsoft is very aggressive and tried to leverage the licenses that we had already bought. We also looked at Citrix.

Other Advice

Stick with vSphere as long as they don't screw up the product.

Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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PeerSpot user
Technical lead - Infrastructure Consulting / Transformation at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Consultant
Sep 1, 2015
This product has helped to reduce the number of physical x86 servers, reducing CAPEX cost.

What is most valuable?

  • DRS
  • HA
  • vMotion
  • vConverter
  • Distributed switch

How has it helped my organization?

This product has help to reduce the number of physical x86 servers from 500 to 150. This has saved server hardware costs, data center floor space, power, and cooling. This has significantly reduced the CAPEX cost.

What needs improvement?

It needs to be easier to integrate with open cloud.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've used it for nine years.

What was my experience with deployment of the solution?

Deploying the older v3 and v3.5 had lots of issues, but the morerecent v4, v5, and v5.5 version are much easier to deploy.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The product is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

No issues encountered.

How are customer service and technical support?

Customer Service:

VMware has good customer service.

Technical Support:

It's good.

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

I have not had to switch.

How was the initial setup?

It's straightforward.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free VMware vSphere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: January 2026
Buyer's Guide
Download our free VMware vSphere Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.