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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    IBM Power

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AThe IBM Power product line is a family of servers.N/A

    VMware vSphere

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AAn enterprise workload platform, vSphere is used to improve the performance for a data center. It is used to boost operational efficiency, supercharge workload performance, and accelerate innovation.

    $995

    per year

    Pricing
    IBM PowerVMware vSphere
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Standard
    $995.00
    per year
    Enterprise
    $3,995.00
    per year
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    IBM PowerVMware vSphere
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    IBM PowerVMware vSphere
    Considered Both Products
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    96%
    Would buy again
    165 Answers
    97%
    Would buy again
    30 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    98%
    Delivers good value for the price
    154 Answers
    97%
    Delivers good value for the price
    30 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    171 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    31 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    147 Answers
    96%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    25 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    160 Answers
    96%
    Implementation went as expected
    26 Answers
    Features
    IBM PowerVMware vSphere
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of IBM Power and VMware vSphere
    Feature
    IBM Power
    -
    Ratings
    VMware vSphere
    7.2
    67 Ratings
    11% below category average
    Virtual machine automated provisioning00 Ratings7.062 Ratings
    Management console00 Ratings7.067 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup00 Ratings6.060 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration00 Ratings8.065 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security00 Ratings8.062 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    IBM PowerVMware vSphere
    Small Businesses
    Dell PowerEdge
    Score7.6 out of 10
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Dell PowerEdge
    Score7.6 out of 10
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM Z
    Score9.4 out of 10
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.7 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    IBM PowerVMware vSphere
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.9
    (208 ratings)
    7.0
    (70 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    8.1
    (7 ratings)
    7.0
    (7 ratings)
    Usability
    9.5
    (4 ratings)
    8.0
    (11 ratings)
    Availability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.2
    (8 ratings)
    8.0
    (25 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.4
    (4 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.4
    (5 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.7
    (3 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    IBM PowerVMware vSphere
    Likelihood to Recommend
    IBM
    I'd strongly recommend IBM Power servers to anyone who has the budget for it. A Power Virtual Machine, what is generally called FlexTB VM, can support as many small VM of 256GB, and scale up to 32TB on the fly. If IBM recommended architecture is combined with your organizational reference architecture, then forget about running into unplanned downtimes.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    vSphere is well suited for multiple VMWare hosts and can be very useful in larger enterprises where vMotion is used to load balance and failover running virtual machines. In smaller businesses with one or two hosts then the features can be overkill. The addition of virtual TPM support is a very nice addition to provide vm security in a more Microsoft supported methodology.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    IBM
    • I love how it supports a mix of operating systems
    • protection of our sensitive energy data and ensuring compliance with industry regulations.
    • It provides a flexibility that ensures that we can accommodate increased workloads without a complete overhaul of our infrastructure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • vMotion that provides seamless movement of Virtual Machines between physical hosts and datastores.
    • Ease of Manage: vCenter provides very good management experience to the users.
    • It provides hassle free upgrade of versions, which requires good planning.
    • Easy to manage datastore, networks, CPU and memory resources.
    • It also allows to convert the physical machine and bring it to vSphere Environment with minimum effort.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    IBM
    • A solid IDE for editing programs. SEU was simple and solid. Then it became outdated and support for it ended as the language continued to evolve. That's fine. But RDi is expensive and shaky at best, and VS Code, while free, is severely lacking even the modicum of features RDi has.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • Allow enable EVC without requiring host shutdown
    • More detail in recent tasks. Instead of just showing a task called "Reconfigure virtual machine" also have a link to more detailed information as to what was reconfigured, changed or removed.
    • Allow searching tasks or events
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    IBM
    This is one of the best systems on the market. You can have Flash/Copy which created another LPAR to look like the system you are copying. This takes seconds and not minutes. Then you can use BRNS to do full system backups nightly with no downtime. I am ready for us to upgrade to a Power 10.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    We are constantly looking for change that will benefit our company. We are not ones to stick with a product simply because it is what we know, but rather looking for what fits us best. We can't imagine another product on the market today doing a better job of handling our infrastructure than vSphere.
    Read full review
    Usability
    IBM
    They are very easy to set up and use once you re knowledgeable enough to deal with it. They are continuously enhance the user experience on the HMC and operations on the systems. Once setup it's like a beast, going on and on. I have experience with servers that are not being rebooted for more than 1000 days
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    Very useful for environments where space and energy consumption are issues and management is not very keen on upfront spending on hardware every time whenever requirement comes from any dept for provisioning a machine for their occasional use, easily can be done in case of VMware vSphere in few clicks. Backup, security, monitoring and management everything is covered but at additional cost.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    IBM
    In all of the years I have used various Power System, I have never had any problems at all. Even when hackers were attacking our email servers and many users PCs, the IBM Power System came out completely unscathed. I haven't even had any application errors that were able to take the system down. Nor have I ever experienced an unplanned outage
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    IBM
    The IBM Power System is built for integration. It supports multiple operating systems and you can run multiple OS's on the same box with no problems at all. It also supports a number of open source languages such as PHP, Java, Python, and Perl which helps you continue to grow and integrate with lots of other systems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    IBM
    On large-scale systems, the rating would have been 10. However, I have seen some cases in more rural areas where the IBM onsite support is not as available or of the highest quality as in the past. For software support, there are sometimes instances of language barriers.
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    I rarely ever have to contact support and when I do need to resolve an issue, there is always an abundance of kb articles and research information available that can help quickly resolve the issue. Depending on the type of support contract you have, you may get support from some offshore group in another country and this could be a little challenging because of the language barrier.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    IBM
    Systems are robust and you need to know exactly what your are going to do with them. There are multiple configurations possible and you need to gather your requirements first, before going on with the implementation. Tuning is a must before migrating production systems
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    Just make sure that when you implement, that the person implementing truly knows what they are doing and has a plan of action coming in. Since our initial implementation using a consulting service, I have implemented a few vSphere just from what I learned at the initial implementation and use over time, and the person implementing really needs to know what they are doing or you will miss out on features that may help you down the line
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    IBM
    Power server do not need a stack of software for viruses, spam and others... Power server do not need to have release often power server are much more strong then other manufacturer Power server do not need to restart offen
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    vSphere has a lot more feature sets than Hyper-V but at a much higher cost of entry versus MS Hyper-V. I have not been able to play with Hyper-V as much as I would have liked, but the setup and ongoing maintenance seems to be easier in vSphere than with Hyper-V
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    The contract terms are very clear and can be updated as per the project requirement. Customer support is also included in the contract which help us to troubleshoot critical issues very easily. Training included in contract will really help the client team to empower and hands-on on the latest updates and enhancements
    Read full review
    Scalability
    IBM
    This system can work in a small factory with a few users and easily scale out to thousands of users. It is truly amazing on how much you can throw at this box and it will just keep humming. It is great for use across multiple departments and even across multiple corporations. I worked at one company where we were hosting multiple corporations on just one large Power System and had ZERO problems.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answers on this topic
    Professional Services
    IBM
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    As I said earlier, they're always ready to understand our issues and propose the best and most appropriate solution for issues all the time. The security patches solution is accordingly to the business needs. Another scenario is their Knowledge Base where
    they're many articles that help you in order to solve something which
    is wrong.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    IBM
    • In the event of a crash, IBM Power servers offer a variety of simple options to recover the operating system.
    • With the flexibility offered by IBM Power servers, the production business can be improved by making the most of its physical servers.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • Having vSphere helped my business quickly recover from a ransomware attack which would have crippled us for weeks if we were not virtualized. I think the ROI on something like that is immeasurable.
    • vSphere has allowed my company to purchase bigger server hardware to host 3 or 4 virtual servers, which was at a cost much lower than buying 3 or 4 server hardware boxes, saving us thousands each time we need to upgrade hardware.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    IBM Power Screenshots

    Screenshot of IBM Power E1180Screenshot of IBM Power E1150Screenshot of IBM Power S1124Screenshot of IBM Power S1122