Item: VMware ESXi
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use ESXi in our organization for our virtualized workloads. ESXi provides a solution for growing organizations that have way too much of a physical presence. Without ESXi, datacenters would be filled with single-purpose, standalone servers. 99% of our environment currently runs on ESXi. I have used it in my previous jobs and still do in my current one.

Pros and Cons

Ease of management.
Installation is very straightforward.
Support is great as well as online documentation.

Return on Investment

Reduced the need to purchase more standalone servers.
Simplified management.

Alternatives Considered

Hyper-V

ESXi continues to improve the platform whereas Hyper-V has stayed pretty stagnant over the years.

Key Insights

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

Likelihood to Recommend

Having used both Hyper-V and ESXi (2 of the most popular options for businesses), I highly favor ESXi. There has been a lot of improvements made over the years to ESXi and it continues to get better. ESXi can even boot off of USB/SD, which makes it really easy to deploy. The only scenario I can think of that may be an issue is possibly licensing costs but that really depends on what your environment is like and what your goals are.

A class above the rest

Overall Satisfaction with VMware ESXi