Azure Virtual Machines vs. VMware Workstation Pro

If you want to host a dedicated Windows server on the cloud, and especially if you want to integrate it with your on premises Active Directory, Azure Virtual Machines should be your first choice. Obviously running Linux on Azure works very well too, but given Azure's pricing is not the cheapest, there are other providers out there that have a better cost-benefit ratio for Linux. That said, hosting Windows on Azure can be affordable (especially when compared to other providers) if you plan your licensing, topology, and application architecture correctly.

Incentivized

I would not recommend using a VM as a complete replacement for your everyday driver, but I would recommend
it for testing. One way that I use Workstation Pro is with testing GPO's. I can
make a change to a user or computer GPO, take a snapshot, reboot the computer
to pull the GPO, see if it worked. If it didn't, I revert to the last snapshot before the GPO was pulled, make some changes to the GPO again, and test on the test VM. The same style
of testing can be used with creating and changing scripts for computer changes.
We have a whole computer setup script that installs software and changes a ton
of settings. On a VM you can test over and over to make sure the script runs
how you want it to and revert if you didn't like the script outcome. Especially
handy with software installs, so you don't have to wait for a program to
uninstall and then edit the script and run the script again. Using snapshots save me so much time in testing!

Incentivized

• When demand is high, we scale the service out, eg During a Football Match.
• When a football match is over and the throughput of data from OPTA drops we save by the service scaling back in.
• Our App Service Plans along with the Clean C# code are lightening fast giving a good customer experience.
• When producing the TV Guide information and a program overruns its scheduled time, a client can instantly be updated to the new programming schedule as our change is instant and its in the right place for all the clients to download and adjust their television guides appropriately to send out to the public giving a 24x7 uptime service that is precise and accurate and resilient to outages due to failover zones around the world.

Incentivized

• It provides a great remote access tool for accessing and managing servers in virtual environment. With the security risks surround remote desktop this provides a good alternative to do the same functions.
• The app itself is very lightweight and easy to install/maintain.
• Sandbox testing can be a time consuming thing to setup and do. Workstation makes this easy to create, use, and put away. This make you more willing to put new things in the sandbox and test them before production usage.
• The cost of workstation is very affordable for the functionality that you get and you can try it for free before you buy it.
• We use it to run apps that can be difficult to setup or conflict with other apps. We just spin this app VM up run it, and then shut it back down. The startup and shutdown is very quick.

Incentivized

• Pricing can be a concern if you are truly agnostic to which cloud you are building your particular solution in.
• The UI, as is the case with any cloud provider, is crowded.
• As with any cloud provider, it can be difficult to tune in exactly the right amount of servers for your needs...you might find yourself under/overprovisioning.

Incentivized

• At the moment, it's incompatible with Microsoft's HyperVM, which is used in Docker and the Linux Subsystem on Windows 2 (WSL 2).
• VMware shared files sometimes stop working and need to be reset.
• 3D support is limited to Windows and only certain scenarios.

Incentivized

It's a solid product, and if they make it compatible with HyperVM (WSL, Docker, etc.) it would be great

Incentivized

It is well documented since it is a long actor in the virtualization scene. Easy to use for most user cases. Pretty much not maintenance on the software besides the occasional software updates and/or compatibility issues from time to time.

Incentivized

I give the overall support for Azure Virtual Machines a 7 because I think while the overall support do a great job there are still areas that it could improve on such as efficiency and speed. So while I only give it a 7 and it has some issues it is still better than the overall support at Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling.

Incentivized

I haven't had to call VMware Workstation support. The majority of the time, whenever I have a problem, I can perform an online search and find the answers I need. Online forums and users with similar situations are generally sufficient to answer any questions I have had, though, from previous experience at another company, their support is outstanding and responsive to circumstances. However, that is generally for a paid support contract and should be expected when you are paying for that support.

Incentivized

Azure Virtual Machines offer unparalleled flexibility in provisioning, managing and upgrading the VM instances, both manually and programmatically. AVM offer very granular billing options and enables high costs optimisations (while still being costly). The other competitors I mentioned are very good at offering dead-cheap VMs. But if you need anything beyond that, especially for big computing, you need Azure Virtual Machines.

Incentivized

VMware ESXi is more enterprise based whereas VMware Workstation offers capabilities at a lower cost and smaller scale. VMware Workstation Pro is also user friendly and easy to install. It can be utilized on a regular desktop system as the name implies. It helps with also demonstrations when needed to clients without having bulky hardware every time.

Incentivized

• It's so easy to spin up new instances, that it becomes also to easy to have to many of them to manage. Many teams end up with a couple of hundreds of VMs after a short while, making the whole thing very hard to maneuver
• Azure VMs are the next step for us to rely on Onprem servers, and leaving the management of the infrastructure to the professionals
• The ease of use, is also important when our main focus is to deliver new applications and integrations fast, and not having to worry about infrastructure. We sell bottles, not CPUs

Incentivized

• When updating multiple VM's, this is a much quicker option vs trying to either RDP to them or console using Vcenter
• We are required to run a VM locally for certain tasks, and this has been the most effective way to use it
• The ability to manage a VM without having to worry about the console freezing up helps with management

Incentivized