Item: VMware vCenter
Rating: 10
Author: Ivan Sytchev

Overall Satisfaction with VMware vCenter Server

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our entire infrastructure is virtualized, and we standardized on VMware vCenter Server for our hypervisors. We don't have a massive amount of hosts in our environment (only 6), but it is still enough that managing them without VMware vCenter Server would be a pain. We use the VMware vCenter server to manage all our hosts, and it makes it very easy to do so from a single console.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Easy to manage multiple ESXi servers and VMs
GUI is easy to use and relatively intuitive

Cons

HTML5 console is a massive improvement over flash, but it is still a bit slow on response time.
Some administrative pages are challenging to find and use.

Return on Investment

The administration of virtual infrastructure is easy.
VMware vCenter Server integrates with many other tools for reporting and monitoring.

Support Rating

VMware vCenter Server support, in general, is pretty good. The only problem is that if the issue is not clear, a bunch of departments will need to get involved, and then the resolution of the issue could take longer. Otherwise, the support engineers are very knowledgeable in their own area of expertise and are almost always within SLAs.

Key Insights

Do you think VMware vCenter delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with VMware vCenter's feature set?

Yes

Did VMware vCenter live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of VMware vCenter go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy VMware vCenter again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

VMware vCenter Server is a fantastic management tool for ESXi servers. If you have more than one server and need to manage them together, a VMware vCenter Server is virtually a must. Anyone with an Enterprise license should automatically get WMware vCenter Server to utilize all features of the license fully. WMware vCenter Server is required for these licenses, so it should be automatically included in the cost instead of being a separate license.

Comments

Please log in to join the conversation

VMware vCenter Server - A must for any VMware shop