We are using VMware vSphere to manage the virtual environment. We use it for visibility and for managing the host.
IT Support Officer at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Secure and stable platform for managing virtual environments; has a support team that provides diligent assistance
Pros and Cons
- "Stable and secure management console for virtual environments, with a diligent technical support team."
- "The VMware vSphere app is faster, compared to its web-based client. The web-based client is very slow, freezes, and is challenging to use."
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
What I want to see, I can get easily from VMware vSphere, because I know how to navigate it, as I've been using it for years. I also don't have issues with its operation, stability, and security. I also find the VMware support team diligent when they assisted me with the issues I raised.
What needs improvement?
Before the latest versions of this software, we used to work with versions 5.5 and below. We used VMware vSphere as a client, as an application, e.g. it was not web-based. Now that has changed, because they've moved it from the application to the web-based version. It's the only change I've seen which I found very difficult because it was challenging to connect to the web, particularly because it can be very slow. It freezes, unlike the app version which was absolutely perfect.
The performance was better with VMware vSphere as an app, but not with the web-based client. The web-based client could be improved, in terms of its speed. It could be faster, but I also just learned that since everything is moving to cloud, there's a reason why there's a web-based client now.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for almost 10 years.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I don't have any problems with the stability and security of VMware vSphere.
How are customer service and support?
I had to engage with the VMware technical support team once or twice last year because we had a disaster, and they were able to assist me diligently.
How was the initial setup?
The installation for VMware vSphere was a one-time installation. You do it once, and that's it.
What about the implementation team?
I had a consultant do the VMware vSphere installation for me.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We pay for the license of VMware vSphere yearly.
What other advice do I have?
We are using VMware solutions. We are running the VMware standard edition. We also have VMware vSphere and VMware ESXi.
We are running the latest version of VMware vSphere: 7.0. We started with version four of this software.
I wouldn't say that there are features that I like the most about VMware vSphere, because it's just a normal management console. It's a default client management software for the virtual environment. It's just a console that we use.
We have been using the software since we enrolled into the virtual CRR, so we are used to it. I can't say whether it's easy to use or not, because I've been using it forever. I can't do any comparison. To say it's easy to use or it's not easy to use would not suffice, because I've been using it for years, so I know how to navigate the platform. What I want to see, I can get easily from VMware vSphere.
I don't recall the last time we installed the software, and even if it was a difficult process, I wouldn't know, because that would best be answered by the technical team, who keeps installing it for different lines. For me it was something that was done once.
We only have one engineer who takes care of the deployment and maintenance of VMware vSphere. The software is only used by fewer than five people, e.g. just the administrators. We're not increasing the number of users, because there are only just a few people needed to man the environment.
I would recommend VMware vSphere to others, particularly because when I contacted them about some issues, they assisted me diligently.
From one to ten, I'm rating VMware vSphere an eight.
When you talk about performance improvement of VMware vSphere, you have to look at other factors. You look at the whole infrastructure. You can't look at the software alone, because when it comes to performance, you also have to look at your hardware. You have to look at your storage. It isn't just the software, e.g. VMware vSphere, that you are using. For example, the last time we had an issue, it wasn't only because of the VMware side. It was also because of our storage, e.g. Our storage capacity was full, so we had to engage VMware. To improve performance, the VMware infrastructure as a whole should be improved, which means changing the storage, storage accessories, etc. VMware vSphere is only connected, and it's only a software that is running on the hardware, so to improve performance, we also need to talk about and look into the hardware aspects of the solution.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

Network and Security Engineer at a logistics company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Lets us publish our internal server virtually and with a high degree of stability
Pros and Cons
- "In terms of overall features, vSphere's stability stands out on top. Not only is it highly stable, but we're also able to have a quick backup server on standby."
- "Without a lot of physical RAM on the hardware, it's not very effective. The stability could be improved in cases like this."
What is our primary use case?
We use vSphere for virtualization in the IT center. It's the solution we use for publishing our server which supports up to 1,000 users currently. With vSphere, stability comes easily; it's nothing like physical hardware.
What is most valuable?
In terms of overall features, vSphere's stability stands out on top. Not only is it highly stable, but we're also able to have a quick backup server on standby.
What needs improvement?
Without a lot of physical RAM on the hardware, it's not very effective. The stability could be improved in cases like this. In addition, I would like to see easier and more widely available integration options.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using VMware vSphere for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It's a stable product and we have a backup server in case anything goes wrong with the virtual server we have running.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For our business case, the scalability is good enough.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is all right.
How was the initial setup?
Installation is very easy when it comes to virtualization of machines by the hypervisor. It only takes about 20 minutes.
What about the implementation team?
We have three members that handle deployment and ongoing maintenance. These are two administrators plus a senior staff member.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
In order to maintain stability, you should ensure that your physical machine is equipped with enough RAM, else it becomes ineffective.
What other advice do I have?
I can recommend vSphere without hesitation. I would rate it an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
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Infrastructure Senior Specialist at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
Helps to create infrastructure
Pros and Cons
- "VMware vSphere has helped us create our infrastructures and provide services for our customers."
- "The UI of VMware could use some improvements, especially in dark mode."
What is our primary use case?
I use VMware solutions every day. We use VMware 6.7. We are unable to update because of hardware compatibility concerns.
Our day-to-day operation is building virtual machine applications.
How has it helped my organization?
We are a small company. We are moving to the private cloud along with the VMware solution, starting with building computers, then storage virtualization, and then network virtualization. VMware vSphere has helped us create our infrastructures and provide services for our customers.
What needs improvement?
The UI could use some improvements, especially in dark mode. There are some features not enabled or do not function as expected.
I would like to see VMware try a new service like Blockchain.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere since 2009.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
VMware has been stable. The performance is good.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
All the features of VMware vSphere fit our organization and are compatible.
How are customer service and support?
We had a problem one month ago. Technical support was really able to help us.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of VMware was easy. I did not experience any problems or have any difficulty. It took two days to deploy.
What about the implementation team?
We used a local partner to implement the solution.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The solution has standard licensing fees. Support is the only additional cost.
What other advice do I have?
VMware vSphere are leaders in virtualization. The capital investment is high, but it is efficient.
I would rate it a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Global IT Infrastructure Architect at a wholesaler/distributor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Provides infrastructure resiliency, good documentation, and easily grows with our requirements
Pros and Cons
- "The fact that we have the ability to easily scale out, and the ability to do maintenance on the underlying hardware without impacting our business applications, are important aspects."
- "The challenge that we have is keeping the system up to date, as well as having the internal resources to maintain that platform. We're not an IT company, so it's challenging for us to keep the IT resources in-house."
What is our primary use case?
We use vSphere to host all of our business applications, as well as our in-house developed applications. We also use it for the software components that support our IT team.
What is most valuable?
The core components are the most valuable aspect of this solution. The fact that we have the ability to easily scale out, and the ability to do maintenance on the underlying hardware without impacting our business applications, are important aspects. In general, we have better control over what kind of systems are impacted when we make changes.
What needs improvement?
The challenge that we have is keeping the system up to date, as well as having the internal resources to maintain that platform. We're not an IT company, so it's challenging for us to keep the IT resources in-house. It is for this reason that we are now investigating public cloud offerings.
We would like to see VMware move in the direction of having a working model on the application level. The next level of virtualization, most likely container solutions, is what we're interested in. That would avoid us having to support the operating system and tooling. Overall, it would make it easier for us from a customer perspective to use it.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
This is a fairly stable product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Absolutely, vSphere is scalable. We have approximately 4,500 users connecting to this system and we increase our usage by approximately 10% per year.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support is a combination of VMware and our integrator.
If we have major issues or we are making major changes, we typically go through the integrator. They have a partnership with VMware.
We typically deal with the less severe or impacting changes and issues. In general, that goes pretty well. The software is pretty well documented, so usually, we have a quick fix if we run into problems.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We did not work with another similar solution prior to this one.
How was the initial setup?
Our deployment was a project that took a couple of weeks. It was not major. The last upgrade went smoothly, as well. In general, the time that it took to put things in place was acceptable.
Our only complaint about the implementation is about having the resources with the requisite knowledge. That's our biggest challenge.
What about the implementation team?
We use an integrator to do the initial implementation. In case we have major changes to make, we will again hire the integrator to do that work.
What was our ROI?
With respect to our return on investment, this product is definitely worth it. It is not cheap and there is a cost associated with additional licenses, but there are not very many options.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The cost of the licenses is acceptable and we haven't seen any major increases from the vendor in the time we've been using it. This is not a cheap product but it's an investment.
There is a cost associated whenever we need to add licenses.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We reviewed a couple of options and at that point in time, VMware was one of the strongest players. This was especially true because they had a lot of partners and integrators in the region, which quickly led us to choose them. Selecting another solution would be more challenging for us, especially in getting the required support.
I don't think that we're going to expand further or improve upon our current solution. We are now investigating to what extent the public cloud offerings are a better match or solution for our use cases.
What other advice do I have?
In summary, this is a very stable solution and it has been that way for years. So far, it's been a very good fit. The only question is today, is it still worthwhile investing in on-premise solutions, or are cloud solutions at a level where we can move production nodes to it? That's basically our question and I'm guessing a question that a lot of other companies are asking themselves.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Information Technology Security Specialist at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Easy to set up with good reliability and a great user interface
Pros and Cons
- "There are no issues with the level of scalability you can achieve."
- "There should be a bit more flexibility in terms of the hardware we can use with the product."
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for the analytics we can get.
What is most valuable?
It works well with other VMware solutions.
The user interface is great.
There are no issues with the level of scalability you can achieve.
The stability is good.
The initial setup is straightforward.
What needs improvement?
There should be a bit more flexibility in terms of the hardware we can use with the product. There needs to be better compatibility.
For how long have I used the solution?
We've used the solution for a long time. We've used the solution for more than a decade.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution offers good reliability and performance. The stability is good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
You can easily scale the solution as needed. It's great in the sense. There are no issues around scaling.
We have about 35 users at this time.
The solution doesn't use up a lot of space, however, I can't say if we plan to increase usage or not just yet.
How are customer service and support?
We've never contacted technical support in the past. I can't speak to how they are in terms of the level of service they provide.
How was the initial setup?
The solution is easy to set up. It's not a complex or difficult process at all.
The deployment doesn't take too long. It took us about ten days or so.
We have four engineers that can handle deployment and maintenance tasks.
What about the implementation team?
We handled the implementation ourselves. We did not use an integrator or consultant for the deployment.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We have an on-premises setup. There aren't any extra costs involved.
What other advice do I have?
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten. We've been satisfied with its general capabilities so far.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Database Administrator at a government with 1-10 employees
Setup is simple; offers stability and scalability
Pros and Cons
- "This solution is very stable. It's scalable and simple to set up."
- "Archiving, exporting, and backing up need to be improved for this solution, because they're slower than expected."
What is our primary use case?
We're using VMware vSphere for our server services. We're using it primarily for hosting services. As an example, our mail server: Zimbra Mail is hosted on that virtual environment. Our web server, our DNS server, and all our public servers are also hosted in that environment.
What needs improvement?
An area for improvement for VMware vSphere is the archiving tool, because sometimes we are using the VMware OVF Tool for backups, but archiving is not very fast when we are backing up the virtual machines. It needs improvement.
What we'd like to see in the next release is for the exporting process to be improved, because what we've observed is that when exporting VMware graphically, sometimes the process stops. We have to use the command-line utility: OVF Tool which is more reliable, so we'd like VMware vSphere to have a better and faster exporting process.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using VMware vSphere for five years now.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
VMware vSphere is a very stable solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
VMware vSphere is scalable.
How are customer service and support?
We have not contacted the technical support of VMware, because whenever we found difficulties, we either Google or check forums for solutions.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup for this solution is simple.
What about the implementation team?
I deployed this solution myself.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Pricing can still be improved for this product.
What other advice do I have?
I've been using the VMware Workstation for eight years, while the VMware vSphere, I've been using for five years.
This solution is deployed on-premises on a physical server for hosting services. Our public server is on a virtual environment.
I'm very satisfied with VMware vSphere.
Deployment of this solution took one day for the supervisor cluster and the virtual machine.
I can't say exactly how many users are using VMware vSphere in our organization, but it's more than 1,000. We have a virtual mail server with 1,000 accounts. We have a website with approximately 200 to 300 visits per day. We also have an internet proxy used regularly by all the internal users to access the internet. We have not measured usage for the DNS server. We have no statistics for it.
We have plans to use other tools from VMware like the vCenter. We have not yet explored it sufficiently, so we use it more. We have plans to use the vMotion to move virtual machines.
My advice to people who plan to use VMware vSphere is to first pay more attention to the materials, e.g. the physical server, because all the virtualization performance resides and depends on that physical server. This means it has to have a good dimension, a good amount of memory and disk space, and a good network controller card. You have to choose a server which is physically robust, strong, and powerful, so you can deploy with the best performance in your virtual environment.
I'm rating VMware vSphere a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Deputy director at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
User-friendly, easy to implement and offers excellent technical support
Pros and Cons
- "It's easy to use and very user-friendly."
- "The solution could be cheaper and less expensive."
What is our primary use case?
The solution is server virtualization software. VMware is totally for virtualization.
What is most valuable?
We only use it for a few of its features, such as DRS, vMotion, and fault tolerance. We aren't using the NSX, cloud-based, or any other features.
The solution is 100% stable.
The scalability is very good.
We find the user interface to be very nice.
The initial implementation process is simple.
It's easy to use and very user-friendly.
Technical support has been very good. They are helpful and responsive.
What needs improvement?
The solution could be cheaper and less expensive.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've been using the solution for five to seven years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have found the solution to be extremely stable. The performance and reliability are great. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The solution is thoroughly a scalable solution. It's easy to expand it if you need to.
There isn't a specific number of users. We are using it for hosting services.
How are customer service and support?
Technical support is excellent. We have no complaints at all.
How was the initial setup?
The installation process is quite simple, quite straightforward. It's not overly complex or difficult. I'm certified and find the process very easy.
What about the implementation team?
We did not need the assistance of outside help. I can easily handle the implementation myself.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
You do have to purchase a license in order to use the solution.
The solution should base its prices on what the market can handle. Right now, it's a bit expensive.
The price is a little bit higher when you go for the enterprise edition. The Standard edition is quite low and the enterprise edition is quite high.
What other advice do I have?
I have two clusters, version 7 and version 6.7. Both are there.
I'm not using the cloud-based version and other stuff, so I couldn't comment on it. On the on-premises version, however, it's a very good solution. It has a nice interface and nice everything and is a very stable product. We have never faced any issues yet.
I'd recommend the solution to others 100%.
I would rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
IT Manager at KIRLOSKAR PNEUMATIC CO. LTD.
Built-in backup, effective backup and recovery features
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features of VMware vSphere are backup and recovery."
- "The setup is easy. However, the configuration expansion can be difficult. The full implementation took three to four days. This included the move from physical servers to virtual ones."
What is our primary use case?
VMware vSphere is used for server virtualization. We are using Microsoft Active Directory, file, and Linux servers
How has it helped my organization?
The built-in backup and hyper-converged systems have helped our organization.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of VMware vSphere are backup and recovery.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using VMware vSphere for approximately 10 years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
The solution is stable. However, sometimes it goes down, which can be time-consuming because it requires some complex scripts only the support team know.
I am the only person doing the maintenance of this solution.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
VMware vSphere is scalable.
We have approximately 500 users using the solution.
How are customer service and support?
The support has been good.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have used Microsoft previously and we have found VMware to be more mature.
How was the initial setup?
The setup is easy. However, the configuration expansion can be difficult. The full implementation took three to four days. This included the move from physical servers to virtual ones.
What about the implementation team?
We used a reseller for the implementation and had a good experience.
What was our ROI?
When you spend on this solution you will get it back.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We pay for the solution on an annual basis. There are no additional fees other than the standard license.
What other advice do I have?
It's quite stable, has good support available, and is a mature product.
I rate VMware vSphere a nine out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
On-premises
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

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