Your new VM Examiner - SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
April 16, 2018
Your new VM Examiner - SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
We currently have SolarWinds Virtualization Manager deployed in our organization, in conjunction with SolarWinds Server & Application Monitor. We use Virtualization Manager to monitor our VM environment, which consists of 35 ESXi Hosts and 575 running VMs. It helps to identify any issues with hosts of VM servers, that are not normally visible in VMWare. We are able to identify any over or under provisioned VM servers, and add/remove resources as needed.
- Dashboards - The dashboards for SolarWinds Virtualization Manager allow for customization, and can be designed to show only the information needed.
- Virtual Appliance - SolarWinds Virtualization Manager offers an appliance installation option, making it simple to install and deploy.
- Reports - The reports SolarWinds Virtualization Manager offers (both the pre-canned and custom) are the reason we continue to use this. We can easily generate or create custom reports, that we can provide to our internal 'clients' for Charge-back or to management when it comes to purchases of new hardware.
- Licensing - Licensing is sold in blocks of sockets, so if you are over a current block by just 1 socket, you will need to buy the license of the next block of sockets.
- Integration/Uptime - Works well with the dashboard along with SAM, but sometimes the VM dialog boxes go blank, and the SolarWinds appliance server needs a reboot.
- Small Toolset - It is more for reporting, as it's function outside of VMWARE/Hyper-V are limited. You cannot deploy VMs from a template from the VM interface.
- SolarWinds Virtualization Manager has helped to identify VM resource sprawl and gives recommendation, saving and cost on purchasing unnecessary hardware.
- SolarWinds Virtualization Manager has helped to identify HIGH usage VMs, helping to start dialog with the application and business users of the VMs on standing up additional VMs to spread the workload.
- VMware vSphere with Operations Management
VMware vSphere with Operations Management is a tool that VMware offers and performs the same data collection and presentation, as SolarWinds Virtualization Manager. Where VMware vSphere with Operations Management lacks is in the reporting function. When we used Operations Management, the reports were not informative or non-existent. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager shined in this area for us, and we made the switch.