Overall Satisfaction with VMware ESXi
We use VMware for almost all of our entire server infrastructure. The only servers we don't have virtualized are backup and video servers. It would be difficult to manage the number of physical servers it would take to server the school district at this point. It saves us a lot of time and money by keeping our physical server infrastructure small and easily manageable.
- Hugely reduces our need for physical hardware. Our four hosts handle over 130 virtual servers without any problems.
- It is stable. I have not had an ESXi server crash in years, nor do I really ever have to reboot them for problems. They just run smoothly.
- The HTML5 web interface has taken a while to be brought to parity with the old thick client, and a few features are sometimes tricky to find.
- We are a school with a limited budget, and if we had to buy physical servers for all of our needs, we would exceed our budget many times over
- With ESXi, we are able to put on average 30-40 virtual servers on each physical server.
We have considered Hyper-V from time to time, but it seems that Microsoft has always been a step or two behind ESXi when it comes to features and reliability. The gap has definitely narrowed in recent years, but there would have to be a hugely compelling reason to switch to Hyper-V at this point, and we just don't see that.
Do you think VMware ESXi delivers good value for the price?
Yes
Are you happy with VMware ESXi's feature set?
Yes
Did VMware ESXi live up to sales and marketing promises?
Yes
Did implementation of VMware ESXi go as expected?
Yes
Would you buy VMware ESXi again?
Yes