HVE-VDI Appliance vs. VMware Workstation Player

HVE-VDI is well suited in just about any environment were desktops and servers need to be managed. Schools, Government institutions, Banks, Churches etc. If you are needing to run virtual desktops and just not sure on how to do so. HVE inc is for sure the company that you need.

Incentivized

VMware will work great for the following test scenarios:

• Testing windows updates on a system
• Testing a new software or a new software version
• Creating a sandbox to test options/features of an OS
• Creating different VM to test a software on different OS without the need to have physical machines for all of them

You can also use it as a "player" only where you have that static VM that you run from time to time as with my use for SAS University. Whenever you need to use the software, you simply start that VM.

Incentivized

• Customer service is through the roof. 5-Star all the way!
• They keep it affordable without slacking on speed and functionality.
• Super fast installs and response time to your issues. Always on top of things, even sometimes before you even know you have an issue.

Incentivized

• VMware Player is easy to use.
• VMware Player supports a wide variety operating systems.
• Unity mode makes it easy for the end user to utilize needed legacy applications while maintaining their familiar Host OS desktop. It's seamless to the point where the end user doesn't know they're running applications from a VM.

Incentivized

• Maybe price. They do a really good job in their pricing... But sometimes it is still little about the price range for some small schools.
• Choosing vendors. In my area, they have partnered with a small tech company that does not have a great track record. To be able to choose who I can purchase from would be great. But, they have worked with me to help with this.
• Maybe easier to get onsite support. Most of the time a remote connection is how support works. To get on site is a little tough. But again, HVE has always come through. I'm just having to be very picky.

Incentivized

• Would be nice to use more VMs at once, but this is basically trial software, so it's hard to fault them.

Incentivized

I give a rating of 8 because VMware Player has its use cases, for example it requires the host OS to be logged in, and the VMware Player application to be opened and the Guest VM started. Only one VM can run at a time. I'd give a 9/10 to VMware Workstation because you can run shared VMs at startup without logging in or starting the workstation application. and i'd give ESX a 10/10 because ESX is the leader in enterprise visualization.

Incentivized

Great product. Its user-friendly GUI and overall performance are really the biggest strength of this tool. The reason why I don't give a higher note is because of the price. Although it's decent (starting at around $200 for a license), there is a good free alternative in VirtualBox. Not everyone values friendly GUI as something worth paying for. For people that are more tech-savvy, I would recommend looking into VirtualBox as they might actually like the model better (with downloadable add-ons and packages).

Incentivized

Integration isn't really relevant here but I see this question more as an OS compatibility for the VM. They state that they support over 200 different OS versions. I honestly have never tried anything else other than Ubuntu and Windows myself but nonetheless, this is impressive. I have not hit any limitation in my use of this software in terms of limitation or conflicts with other software.

Incentivized

VMware support is very knowledgeable on their products, eveything from AirWatch to ESX clusters. VMware is easy to contact, they stay in touch and see the issue through to the end and a final resolution. They keep you up to date on your issue status and don't leave you waiting for answers.

Incentivized

Installing the application was easily completed on the twenty computers that needed VMware Player. Once those 20 users were configured we copied our virtual machine template to the 20 users and turned on their newly provisioned virtual machines. We then configured unity mode so the user could easily work from within the virtual machine from their host desktop.

Incentivized

Both free, VMware supports USB 3.0 while VirtualBox does not. VMware supports nested hardware-assisted virtualization while VirtualBox does not.

Incentivized

• They have made us one of the leading schools in our area for sure.
• We were able to role out Texas Online State Testing with little to no problems. THIS IS HUGE!!
• Less downtime... Their server solutions are one of the most stable in the business. I rarely ever have server issues. When you do, you can be back up and be going in Minutes.

Incentivized

• A positive impact is that it require little to no funding to use.
• Negative impact is that because it is free it can be hard to get support.