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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    KVM

    Score9.5 out of 10
    N/AKernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a virtualization solution developed by small Israeli software company Qumranet and supported by Red Hat since that company's acquisition in 2008.N/A

    VMware vSAN

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AVMware vSAN is an enterprise-class storage virtualization software that provides a simple path to hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and multi cloud. VMware vSAN is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.N/A
    Pricing
    KVMVMware vSAN
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    KVMVMware vSAN
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    KVMVMware vSAN
    Considered Both Products
    Red Hat
    No answer on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    93%
    Delivers good value for the price
    13 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    14 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    12 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    83%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    Features
    KVMVMware vSAN
    Server Virtualization
    Comparison of Server Virtualization features of Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and VMware vSAN
    Feature
    Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
    9.2
    6 Ratings
    13% above category average
    VMware vSAN
    -
    Ratings
    Virtual machine automated provisioning7.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    Management console10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Live virtual machine backup10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Live virtual machine migration10.05 Ratings00 Ratings
    Hypervisor-level security9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    KVMVMware vSAN
    Small Businesses
    Proxmox VE
    Score9.2 out of 10
    StarWind HCA
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    VMware vSOM (discontinued)
    Score10 out of 10
    StarWind HCA
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM PowerVM
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    KVMVMware vSAN
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (6 ratings)
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.2
    (4 ratings)
    Support Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.5
    (5 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    KVMVMware vSAN
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Red Hat
    KVM is the best solution in the case you need to test and turn up any virtual environment with limited vCPU/RAM resources. The obvious area of its use is a network environment when we want to avoid being tied to one type of hardware/vendor and being able to swap from one instance to another with no downtimes. The use of a vSwitch (that supports VLAN tagging) is a significant bonus for network engineers that some other hypervisors do not provide.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    The product is a must for enterprise & SMB segments as this gives a good value for money and the licensing policy is very well defined and cost effective for the feature set it provides. This is very well suited for organization which have multiple brand storage systems and would like to consolidate them all together, thus providing a huge storage capacity for the organizations data growth. The product becomes less appropriate in organization where they have single storage platform as the service provider would have the ability to consilidate all the storage systems. Hence this products may be under utilized.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Red Hat
    • KVM is really good at providing fast and reliable virtualization for Linux guests
    • Since KVM is a kernel module, every VM is a Linux process which can be managed by Linux system tools
    • KVM integrates very well with the management framework libvirt, which is why KVM can be integrated in automation tools as well
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • VMware runs VSAN certification programs to make sure the OEM sells validated nodes. It helps customers to select appropriate certified ready nodes like Lenovo ThinkAgile VX which comes factory configured and easy to set up.
    • Hyperconverged solutions reduce real estate space and networking costs when compare with shared storage. The host overhead also less.
    • Supports All-Flash (SATA and NVMe SSDs) and Hybrid vSAN with HDD and SSD. So customers can choose cost-effective solutions appropriate to their workloads.
    • Supports different storage policies, RAID and duplication, and compression features and it makes a complete storage solution.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Red Hat
    • KVM itself doesn't ship with a management interface
    • KVM itself is a bit complicated to handle
    • KVM needs Qemu to virtualize Windows guests
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • We were a fairly early adopter of VMware vSAN and as such experienced several growing pains.
    • We experienced a few bugs that took a few software versions upgrades to go mostly away.
    • The biggest issue we had overall was with host drivers. Even with vSAN ready node compatible hosts, you have to be very careful that the drivers for NIC and RAID controllers are right.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Red Hat
    It does the job and stays out of the way. The specifics of usability relies on the implementation, but with things like Icarus and libvirt, things are standardizing nicely.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    Deploying and configuring VSAN is a relatively simple process for people that are already used to working in virtual environments, primarily for those that are familiar with vSphere. The compatibility of those two products is amazing. You shouldn't really encounter any issues and if you do, you surely did something wrong.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Red Hat
    No answers on this topic
    VMware by Broadcom
    Support is (as always forVMware) top notch and easy to work with. The majority of computer companies are outsourcing their tech staff, and it seems they do as well. But their guys know the product well and are quick to respond to your ticket (if the severity is right!).
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Red Hat
    It is a very reliable solution that can be used for x86 architecture virtualization with low overhead. It is a free and open source software. Easy to use withOpenStack.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    Our VMware solution is built in-house for the organization's private application, we don't want to put our data on cloud premises. Also, vSAN is a cost-effective solution for our environment. We have done the POC with both products to understand the Flexibility, Management, and cost. After the successful POC, we have chosen the VMware vSAN.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Red Hat
    • Fast provisioning of new servers.
    • Huge drop of the cost of servers compared to bare metal.
    • Easy upgrades of resources, sometimes now even requiring a server restart.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    VMware by Broadcom
    • we have realized savings in the licensing compared to traditional storage (over $500,000 over the last 5 years)
    • we have realized ROI through efficiencies in our staff of approx $1MM (over the last 5 years)
    • also, positive impact on the time to value/speed of implementation allowed us to realize business objectives (Over $1MM of ROI)
    Incentivized
    Read full review
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