VMware ESXi

Manages and balances loads between hosts

Provides real time data and monitoring of resource usage

Allows for easy access and administration of virtualization

Alerting can be confusing due to jargon

Support can be complicated and lengthy to troubleshoot with

Integration with storage can be tricky in some cases

Consolidation

Redundancy

Stability

Improve simplicity.

Improve documentation.

Improve updates.

Network virtualize

Storage Virtualize

CPU virtualize

Memory virualize

Data Storage handling

Network handling

Available with respect to internet

We can not access Vsphere anytime anywhere

VMware ESXi is a very stable and reliable OS. We have had longer uptime on the server by using this OS.

Using VMware ESXi allows for Windows servers to reboot faster as they don't need to go through BIOS. The VMware ESXi OS itself boots quickly too when we do need to reboot the host.

By using VMware ESXi, our organization has gained flexibility we have not had with smaller sites that only had a few servers. This allows us to split applications to their own servers and keep them running while maintaining different applications and not taking down everything at once.

Easier patching of single hosts has become a problem. We are finding it more difficult to schedule maintenance as there are more and more patches needing to be applied, and vCenter cannot update itself. For larger multi-host deployments this is not an issue.

Some newer updates include more features in the GUI, but at the same time make things feel buried. It is not as intuitive as it was, but with time it is not terrible to adjust.

Adding more CPUs without adding sockets is not as easy as it used to be. Too many servers have been created by techs that are not correct and lead to slow servers.

Resource scalability

Operate much faster

Easy to take VMs backup and restore

Easily we can migrate the VMs between the physical servers.

Reliability and flexibility

Remove the API Limitation in free version

Hardware monitoring

Ease of management.

Installation is very straightforward.

Support is great as well as online documentation.

Cluster Failover

VMs Migration online

Resource allocation like Disk, CPU & Memory

Does not support for all Unix system like AIX

Better and more descriptive error logging in Vcenter

Reliability - very well suited for production environments

Easy to setup, use, and maintain

ESXi supports a vast majority of operating systems

Flexible - it can be configured to suit particular needs

It can get expensive

Operate faster.

Scalable.

Smallest hypervisors.

Installation process quick.

Don't know.

Resource management. The automatic load balancing works very well to ensure no host is taxed disproportionately compared to the others.

Templates and cloning. It is very easy to set up a template and spin up new servers based on a specific setup. This makes server management very streamlined.

VM management. The vSphere interface is very easy to use and navigate. Everything is responsive and it works when you need it to. The options are also robust while also being arranged in a straightforward manner.

We are not on the latest version yet (pre-7.0), so this might be related to our current version. Sometimes when VMs are rebooted, the virtual NIC will be in a bad state and will have no network connectivity. Disconnecting and reconnecting the vNIC will fix this quickly. It's easy to fix, but definitely an annoyance. We'll be upgrading in the near future, so we are optimistic this will be fixed.

Due to the complexity of the environment, it can be difficult to figure out when some odd issues are related to storage or something else. For instance, there was a time when refreshing the storage connections for all hosts fixed an issue, but there was no direct indication that anything was going on with the storage connections. I don't know if this is clearer to see in newer versions, but having a way to indicate that in some way can make certain troubleshooting easier to do.

Access to some resources requires a VMware account, while others do not. I can understand this is the case due to licenses being required for certain product support. We have never been in a situation where we couldn't access anything, plus we have all of the accounts and licenses we need. However, it can be confusing for someone new to managing a VMware environment why they can't access something they need to manage the environment.

High Availability.

Upgradable inline in production.

Easy integration with backup software.

Upgrade function could be more seamless.

vCenter snapshots could be more responsive.

Support is good but could always be better.

VMware ESXi is a dependable platform that provides excellent performance.

VMware ESXi is compatible with a wide range of operating systems, too.

Third-party backup programs cannot be integrated.

Third-party programs may be able to simplify processes and minimize the number of applications that are needed.

Hosting servers.

Allowing 3rd party integrations such as Veeam Backup.

Allowing administrators to adjust system resources on the fly.

Allowing administrators to power on/off resources or schedule maintenance.

Just kicking butt in general. VMware does everything really well.

Every product has bugs or maintenance issues from time to time and VMware is no different. There were some Log4J vulnerabilities identified in VMware recently but patches were quickly released.

Virtualizes servers and workstations across many different platforms.

Provides a great way to setup labs to test new services.

Can easily piece out part of the infrastructure for different staff based on their roles.

Greater support for newer OS's on previous major version of VMware ESXi.

Provide easier upgrade method for vCenter appliance deployed in HA mode.

Fix recurring issues. Often hangs or lose functionality from filled up ramdisk.

High-speed performance.

Memory occupation is less than 150 MB.

Itself allows for the basic creation and management of virtual machine.

Remove API limitations in the free version.

Allows more than 8 vCPUs per VM.

Support from VMware and documentation.

Hosting of multiple OS VMs.

Provides excellent troubleshooting tools.

It is reliable: very low down-times.

ESXi tends to require larger network bandwidth allocations than some of our other systems. This is problematic for remote field sites.

Save money.

Centralized computing.

Allows easy evaluation of new software.

Hardware monitoring.

Scalability

Fault tolerance resilience.

Centralized management.

Host network hardware configuration.

Physical-to-Virtual conversion can be tricky.

Some of the back-end configurations are exceptionally tricky to learn.

VMware ESXi provides a wizard for the hypervisor to be installed making it very easy to configure on almost any bare metal box.

It provides an easy interface to see information about the Virtual Machines you have set on the VMware ESXi hypervisor.

VMware ESXi is also very easily upgradable. The hypervisor takes care of all the necessary tasks prior to a hypervisor upgrade, allowing for peace of mind when upgrading and no effect on the virtual machines you have running.

VMware ESXi can improve on the UI that is installed on the bare metal machine. The menus can be hard to navigate when looking for simple configuration items.

VMware ESXi can improve on the stability of their overall hypervisor. There have been a few times we had to reinstall due to corruption of VMware ESXi.

I would like to see VMware ESXi do better at adding more standard free features in their consumer version of VMware ESXi. For example, having the ability to back up virtual machines is good practice and something that would be very nice if offered in their free version.

Easy to install.

Easy to manage.

Troubleshooting is easy.

Upgrading is sometimes difficult.

Cost

COnfiguration is easy the self explanatory in ESXi.

ESXi supports various operating systems as well.

ESXi is reliable and gives great performance.

ESXi makes functionality seamless.

Unable to integrate with 3rd party backup applications.

Integration with 3rd party applications could help simplify tasks and reduce multiple applications.

Performance tracking should be available in data analytics format.

An extremely reliable platform with greater than 99% of uptime.

Very secure platform.

Number of tools that enable management of the platform.

Very stable VMware product.

The upgrade/patch process is in need of a complete overhaul.

Virtualization

Orchestration

Security

Networking

Price

Hybrid between on-premise and cloud services.

vSAN

Ease of Access to all of my Virtual servers.

Great performance visibility.

Easy to Grow at a moment's notice.

Complexity - if you're not familiar with the product there is a learning curve.

VMware ESXi could find a way to boot faster.

Hardware Virtualization.

Supports multiple OEMs.

Can be aligned with other important infrastructure tools.

Single host management should be improved.

One-click SSL certificate renewal from custom location cannot be done.

Host isolation management can be improved.