Eco4Cloud Workload Consolidation vs. vRealize Operations (discontinued)

Eco4Cloud is well suited in VMware farms that have standard VM deployments, especially with small VMs, with nothing blocking vMotion and hardware fully compatible with IPMI 2.0 (minimum). It doesn't work well if many VMs are nodes in a Microsoft cluster because they would be unmovable and therefore their host would never be put in stand-by mode. If every host in the cluster has at least one guest VM that is a node of a Microsoft cluster, no host in the cluster will ever be put in stand-by mode.

With the introduction of API-based event alerts, there is no need for a proxy, which is a good option. Its ability to manage infra on a real-time basis is a good option that helps monitor, administer and troubleshoot virtual machines.

Incentivized

• It consolidates workloads in VMware clusters using an algorithm that seems to work better than VMware DRS. It keeps headroom for workload peaks and to withstand the number of host failures set for the cluster in vCenter.
• If the workload is very variable, Eco4Cloud will not continuously turn a host on and off but it will settle to keep the host running. It sort of "rightsizes" the cluster keeping only the right number of hosts running. This is another main difference when comparing Eco4Cloud with VMware DRS/DPM which strictly follows the workload and sometimes isn't fast enough in turning on the hosts when the workload is ramping-up.
• To do a good job Eco4Cloud needs to analyze the hosts and the VMs. Therefore, the troubleshooting component of Eco4Cloud can figure out if there are problems in the configuration of the hosts (e.g. vMotion settings). It can also determine if a VM is stuck and can't vMotion (e.g. using the physical CD-ROM) or if it's oversized or undersized.
• Something Eco4Cloud has and others don't is a technology named Smart Ballooning. With Smart Ballooning Eco4Cloud recovers unused RAM from the VMs and gives it back to the host way before the host goes over the 94% RAM threshold. This allows us to reach higher levels of overbooking.

• Shows us where we can save on cost of keeping machines running, or boosting resources on VM's
• the ability to plan deployments with scenario plans that can be customized over a specific timeline
• reports that can be sent and shared with different teams or departments

Incentivized

• It would be useful to have a version that works with OpenStack.
• It should be made compatible with VMware VSAN.
• It would be useful to have a version that works with hybrid clouds using the new "vMotion anywhere" or share nothing vMotion feature.

• There are less space for customization.
• Cannot use for OS monitoring.
• Some option are very complex like getting an ideal VM report.

Incentivized

It has a good GUI to monitor real-time logs for cloud applications. This is quite a useful tool and preferred over most of the competitive applications in the market.

Incentivized

The support is pretty good however some of the KB articles still reference different versions of the product so it can be hard to find answers to common questions

Incentivized

We compared the consolidation feature and we obtained exactly the same amount of servers in stand-by. The main difference was that Eco4Cloud turned off the unneeded hosts in 2 days while VMTurbo Operations Manager required one day per host. This behavior is caused by the different algorithms implemented by these two products. Compared to Eco4Cloud, VMware DRS/DPM was very aggressive (we tried it in vSphere 5.0). We haven't tested it with vSphere 6 yet.

SCOM was quite overwhelming when we first set up a POC for it. There was just too much for one person to handle. With vROPs I can manage the product and provide the support needed for my environment. We also have a Solarwinds environment that provides us with a level of detail and alerting we have come to rely upon. vROPS takes it to another level because it links directly into vCenter to provide you with a complete picture of your virtual environment.

Incentivized

Not involved in purchasing.

Incentivized

• Eco4Cloud causes a reduction in power consumption both on old VMware clusters and especially on new ones.
• It also causes a delay in CapEx investments because you buy more hosts only when really needed.

• We believe that the ability to preplan deployments with vRealize has proven its return on investments.
• Our troubleshooting time has been reduced with vrealize because its constantly collecting performance data. typically vrealize will tell us cause of fault before we can determine it ourselves.

Incentivized