Likelihood to Recommend It is best suited when you want to have different operating systems on your laptop or desktop. You can easily switch between operating systems without the need to uninstall one. In another scenario, if you expect some application to damage your device, it would be best to run the application on the VM such that the damage can only be done to the virtual machine. It is less appropriate when time synchronization is very important. At times the VMs run their own times differently from the host time and this may cause some losses if what you doing is critical. Another important thing to take note of is the licensing of the application you want to run your VM. Some licenses do not allow the applications to be run on virtual servers so it is not appropriate to use the VM at this time.
Read full review I would recommend it to anyone who has three or more servers. We just received another quote as I am about to deploy Scale at City Hall as well. This will replace my 8-year-old VMware cluster that hosts 20 servers.
Read full review Pros It is simple to install - there is no advanced knowledge required to begin building virtual computers It is easy to use - adding new virtual machines is simple with wizard-based deployment It enables easy portability - moving virtual machines from one host to another is straight-forward and simple It is free Read full review Snapshots are lean and fast, so restore time is simply amazing. When you don't have time to wait after a crypto attack to restore, I have found nothing faster! Clients can never fully know their growth for years to come, and sometimes it is only a year after the original install. This is no problem we can build on to the system like Lego blocks. Just simply adding a node or two and there is no downtime! There are many functions that can be done while servers are running that help to maintain the most uptime, as an example disk size on the primary disk can be expanded without shutting down the server. Read full review Cons I have had issues in the past when it has come to resizing VM disk storage. The issue is entirely detailed here: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/9103 -- the problem was caused because of having existing snapshots (which error message output was not detailing). I haven't had to deal with the issue due to my dynamic disk sizes not being small from the start anymore (this is mostly an issue for my Windows VMs where the base disk may need significant size for the OS). It looks like, for a resize, that a merge of all snapshots has to occur first -- one user on that list details a workaround to maintain snapshots by cloning the VM. (Note: 5.2 was just released a few weeks ago, and looks like it should prevent the problem happening in the future by properly informing users that it isn't possible with snapshots). Certain scenarios, like resizing disks, required dropping into a terminal as there were no options to previously do so via the GUI. According to some recent posts, I've seen that v5.2 has added disk management stuff like that to the GUI (or will be adding it). I'm comfortable with dropping into the terminal, but in a teaching scenario or when evaluating the learnability of the tools, it complicates things. Read full review It exposes no backup API. You have to treat VMs as physical machines, with all the drawbacks. This is a huge problem, since the official partner Acronis can't deliver. If you ever worked with Veeam you want it back very very badly. Assigned RAM is used RAM. The hypervisor can't share memory or only allocate what is used etc. It's wasted RAM most of the time. No logging and auditing. (There is, but not visible to the customer). The GUI is quite bad. It looks like done by a designer instead of an IT expert. But it's improving constantly. The company relies heavily on KVM, but seems to have no developer in the open source community. This leads to answers like "we can't do anything about QEMU drivers". Yes, you can. Have delevopers working on it. You can't do basic things like list all of your VMs and see how much RAM/disk, etc. they are using (e.g. in a list view). No rules on which VMs start on which nodes, which VMs to prioritize, etc. Read full review Likelihood to Renew I give this rating because virtual box is inexpensive but there is another product such as vm ware that can also be used
Read full review Since I have had no issues with downtime; easier management of my cluster and the ability to lower the number of devices in my Infrastructure, I will gladly renew my support contract with Scale Computing HC3 and upgrade my equipment with them when it comes time for it.
Read full review Usability Easy and quick to use. Runs at sufficient speed even with 5/6 VMs running, and can handle a bridged network with ease. Easy to disassociate from the host to ensure the environment built within VB is quarantined should anything happen, meaning no risk to physical hardware. Quick to pick up. Quick to add new machines. Cloning feature very quick and comprehensive. I've never had a VM crash or freeze.
Read full review Everything you need to do is point-and-click easy. If you are the kind of admin who wants to edit every config file and endlessly customize your environment, then Scale may not be for you. On the other hand, if you just want it to work really well, and do what they told you it will do, then Scale is the ideal system.
Read full review Reliability and Availability Dependency on the Host OS means it is as reliable as it is possible to be. Application errors are beyond the purview of the application.
Read full review Never had an outage or an error. Once a hard drive failed, but Scale kept on working flawlessly without interruption.
Read full review Performance No issues, especially with the extensions addons.
Read full review Performance has been just as outstanding as reliability. I have never experienced delays in any aspect of usage.
Read full review Support Rating Oracle have a very fast response rate and a strong user community. One can geet help from many sources if they choose to research for themselves.
Read full review The support team deserves major props for how cordial and professional they were with our implementation. We were assigned a project manager and engineer. Everything was scheduled with our kick-off call, and our engineer got us up and running in no time.
Read full review In-Person Training I did not do in-person training.
Read full review Online Training Because Scale is so simple, the training is just as quick and easy.
Read full review Implementation Rating We really enjoy using virtual box. We do not require to buy expensive hardware but instead we can minimize costs and maximize profits.
Read full review The implementation was very easy. We had Scale support on standby and they were ready and eager to help if needed. The process went so fast the employees in the organization did not even know it was done.
Read full review Alternatives Considered VirutalBox is very similar to using Vmware with the slight difference in appearance and what might be considered a less polished look. However, what it lacks in polish and looks it makes up for in functionality, easy of use and the wide range of operating systems and features it supports without the need of buying the full professional edition
Read full review At the end of the day, and in the environment we are in, Scale just fits the bill, both price-wise and functionality-wise. Upgrading our VM environment was always a week-long process, now, it is a twenty-minute process, implementing, converting VMs, and rolling everything over to Scale was completed in less than a week's time, and that included training.
Read full review Scalability The only problem I have found is that the deployment is dependent and intrinsically linked to the Host OS. This is different from bare metal solutions which remove that dependency on a Host OS. The latter is more reliable and removes a layer of potential failure.
Read full review HC3 is one of the best products I have purchased for our district. It is unbelievably reliable to the point that they shoot themselves in the foot on support contracts.
Read full review Return on Investment For personal use, there is no monetary investment, I am running 5 CentOS servers flawlessly in my home lab. Saves a ton of money in an enterprise environment by not having to purchase physical test servers. (Cost of Enterprise product is way lower vs Cost of standing up physical servers and/or cloud servers) Makes virtualization very easy and friendly for everyone for test instances. Read full review 0% downtime or loss of revenue due to downtime. The simplicity of testing backups in a live environment in the event of a technical catastrophe. Ease of mind and a lot less stress worrying about a raid system within a standalone server dying in the middle of the night. Read full review ScreenShots Scale Computing Platform Screenshots