VMware vCenter vs. VMware vSAN

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
VMware vCenter
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
VMware vCenter is an advanced server management software that provides a centralized platform for controlling vSphere environments for visibility across hybrid clouds. VMware vCenter is no longer sold as a standalone product and is now available as a part of VMware Cloud Foundation.
$6,044
per year
VMware vSAN
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
VMware 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
VMware vCenterVMware vSAN
Editions & Modules
Basic
6,044
per year
Production
6,244
per year
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
VMware vCenterVMware 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
VMware vCenterVMware vSAN
Considered Both Products
VMware vCenter

No answer on this topic

VMware vSAN
Chose VMware vSAN
Nutanix was the first hyper-converged solution, but it requires its own hardware. hyperflex looks promising, but it's also only working on cisco hardware. in both cases the costs are much higher, compared to building a custom vSAN solution on certified hardware, leveraging …
Chose VMware vSAN
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 …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
VMware vCenterVMware vSAN
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.7 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.2 out of 10
StarWind HCA
StarWind HCA
Score 9.7 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Nutanix Cloud Infrastructure
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
VMware vCenterVMware vSAN
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(54 ratings)
9.7
(17 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.8
(6 ratings)
9.2
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(5 ratings)
7.5
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
VMware vCenterVMware vSAN
Likelihood to Recommend
VMware by Broadcom
The VMware vCenter server is very useful in maintaining the CPU/RAM/datastore resources are balanced when there are multiple ESX/ESXi host servers. It is clear what resources are being used, and it is easy to migrate VMs to different ESX/ESXi hosts. Being able to remotely connect to the VM servers in vCenter when you cannot have other remote connections helps in maintenance and troubleshooting.
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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.
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Pros
VMware by Broadcom
  • VSAN storage management and redundancy - high performance IO with built in fault tolerance across the cluster, not reliant on a single hardware item
  • VM fault tolerance. The ability to relocate a running VM and restart VMs from failed or isolated nodes
  • Resource management and alerting. Tracking load across physical systems and allowing us to rebalance for better utilisation
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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.
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Cons
VMware by Broadcom
  • Currently, the HTML 5-based vSphere Client lets you manage the essential functions of vSphere from any browser, however, it would be nice if they would port all management functions over to the HTML 5-based Client.
  • Performing updates and upgrades to the infrastructure is a bit challenging for someone that may not be as intimate with vSphere. I think the updates/upgrades should be more integrated into the UI and provide the ability to push to the hosts, etc...
  • It would also be nice to have a more robust snapshot management tool to prevent snapshot overgrowth. It would be nice to be able to set a lifespan for the snapshot(s)
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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.
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Likelihood to Renew
VMware by Broadcom
We are very dependent on this software, it has become a much needed tool to perform the daily tasks that are required to maintain the virtual server environment. VMware has become very pricey over the years, so we are looking for alternatives for cost savings strategy, but nothing has been found to be on par to what we are currently using
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VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Usability
VMware by Broadcom
I work with vCenter for 10+ years and i love it. I can find my way around and can help building and expanding the platform. It is easy to use and there are a lot good communities for the extra support when needed. Even the Homelab community is of great value.
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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.
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Support Rating
VMware by Broadcom
VMware support has always been fantastic and they have been invaluable in solving tougher issues that have been run into. Most of the time, any oddities encountered are fixed by available updates. This can be deduced by support quickly with logs within vCenter. We have not run into something yet that support was unable to help with. They either have a solution already, or they are able to find one quickly.
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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!).
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Implementation Rating
VMware by Broadcom
Since moving away from the Windows Server hosting the vCenter application and instead using a virtual appliance, it has become much easier to implement and deploy the new versions. We can easily create a snapshot or clone of the vCenter vApp to ensure any problems encountered during the upgrade can be mitigated with a fall back to the old version to prevent unscheduled downtime.
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VMware by Broadcom
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
VMware by Broadcom
Citrix Xen Server.... Great Hypervisor but very limited in terms of functionality
MS Hyper-V... [VMware vCenter Server] is better for almost everything and appliance form makes a clear winner for security and ease of deployment
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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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
VMware by Broadcom
  • The positive impact of vcenter is definitely felt in larger organisations in terms of being able to manage multiple servers all in one environment
  • It will decrease the amount of time your server engineers will have to spend in the server room or datacenter.
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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)
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ScreenShots