Item: VMware vCenter
Rating: 10
Author: Rick Lupton

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

VMware vCenter Server is used to manage our enterprise production VMware host clusters. We have approximately 50 hosts each hosting around 40 VM guests running production applications supporting campus wide functions. Since the clusters are in a distributed environment with fail over capabilities enabled, vCenter is essential for managing these migrations and disaster recovery strategies. Without this software, all functions would have to be performed manually on each host with a great deal more downtime than currently experienced between migrations.

Pros and Cons

VMware environment client accesss
VMware host adminstration
VMware Cluster management
VMware alerts management

Transition from Windows Application to Web Client has been difficult
vCenter fail over needs improvement
Linked vCenters cause slow down when network links are down
Snapshot remediation needs more automation for cleanup processing

Return on Investment

Overall environment view provides quick stats for management
Pricing has increased over the years of usage, but we have become heavily reliant on this tool
This software has provided critcal functionality needed during data center outages
Maintenance and patching is much easier with the builtin Upgrade Manager feature

Alternatives Considered

Hyper-V and Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer)

Citrix XenCenter used an isolated client that directly connects to the hosts instead of using a management agent. This causes a number of issues if the host is not optimally configured. Microsoft Hyper-V has been behind VMware in feature set for many years, but is starting to catch up. The key feature that is missing is a comparable vCenter product. They do have a Virtual Machine Manger module for Systems Center, but licensing is more complicated than VMware and not all features are matched.

Other Software Used

OneDrive, New Relic, Tufin Orchestration Suite

Likelihood to Recommend

vCenter is well suited to any enterprise environment needing to run enough VM guest servers to need more than one host or when needing fail over and disaster recovery capabilities. vCenter might be overkill in testing or education environments where the advanced features are not needed. Since vCenter requires either per host CPU licensing or VM subscription model pricing, this has to be a consideration as well. There are other free tools for managing VMware; however, they are no match for the great functionality of vCenter.

Users and Roles

75 - VMware vCenter Server is used by all IT staff and department staff who need console level access to a virtual server. This includes Systems Administrators, Programmers, Business Administrators, Administrative Assistants, and Application Support staff. Access to the system is based on defined roles; application administrators have access to the group of servers that host their software, department 'owned' servers are granted permissions for specific users when the initial deployment is started or when a supervisor notifies of staff changes.

Support Headcount Required

5 - VMWare has an excellent training and certification program that provides all information needed to deploy, administer, and maintain the hosts and related infrastructure needed to run the virtual environment. Occasionally Network engineers or Storage Administrators will need access to the system to interconnect other devices, the VMware Administrators closely monitor this access to ensure that no configurations are changed that could cause harm to the system.

Business Processes Supported

Monitor VMware
Manage VMware
Maintain Cluster Stability
Manage virtual network switch
Grant console access to servers as needed

Innovative Uses

We have been able to allow virtual console access to 'off network' systems that would otherwise require a KVM module in the physical data-center
We have been able to provide temporary additional resources when demand is high without purchasing additional hardware
We have been able to shutdown a data center without loss of services due to automatic fail over capabilities between hosts
We have been able to create automatic snapshot backups on servers and restore to a separate clone for testing or restores

Future Planned Uses

Long distance off site fail over
Enhanced VDI
Container deployment
Testing software

Likelihood to Renew

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.

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Reputation
Prior Experience with the Product
Vendor Reputation

VMware vCenter is essential to the functions we perform for maintaining a healthy virtual environment. It allows management, delegation, maintenance, automation, security, disaster recovery, deployment templates, and many other tasks. We have been using VMware since vSphere version 3 and the product has continued to improve over time. Although the transition from Windows based servers/client was difficult, it has given a great level of autonomy and interoperability.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

I would like to get more accurate subscription pricing before we commit to this product. VMware has tiered pricing plans, but it is not always clear what you get at each level. We now have some features that we don't need and are missing some features that we do need. An integrated package would be better than pay per piece.

Implementation Rating

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.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled - As long as we are able to perform upgrades without disruption to other services, our customers are not even aware that an upgrade is taking place. This is what we like to see, the seamless process that causes no disruptions. In the past, we had to build a new environment running the new version, then manually migrate the VMs over to the newer version. Now, it is just as simple as migrating VMs to another host, running the upgrade and then migrating them back.

Implementation Issues

Locked snapshots
Misconfigured network ports
Locked cd-image mounts
VMFS needed to be upgraded

Support Rating

VMware Support Engineers are great, but their first tier employees are often not able to provide support to specific issues that don't meet the criteria of support articles or their troubleshooting scripts. Many times we have had to request that our support request be escalated by contacting our account rep instead of getting the support we need on the first call.

VMware vCenter Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Kept well informed Immediate help available Quick Initial Response	Escalation required Need to explain problems multiple times

Exceptional Examples of VMware vCenter Support

We try to stay up to date on all of our products to be sure we are not exploited by any security vulnerabilities. Unfortunately, we got to the 'bleeding edge' on a new version of vSphere that was not completely compatible with our hardware (even though it was not mentioned in the documentation). VMware Support went directly to the developer of this package and created a custom patch to resolve our issue before releasing it to the general public.

Usability

VMware vCenter Server does a great job with maintaining your virtual environment. It has great role based features to delegate various administrative tasks to multiple users. It is an excellent 'all in one' dashboard for viewing all aspects of your vSphere infrastructure. All alerts to software and hardware issues are easy to trace from this interface.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

Web Console view
Migration
Snapshots
Power Control
Host maintenance mode

Difficult Tasks

Datastore uplaods
Distributed Virtual Switch configurations
LDAP
Web Client browser extensions
Certificates

Virtualization Management at it's best

Overall Satisfaction with VMware vCenter Server