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VSphere - A multiserver in one server solution
May 06, 2016

VSphere - A multiserver in one server solution

Chris Sumrall | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with vSphere

We use vsphere across the entire organization. It has eliminated the issue of having to have downtime of physical and virtual servers. Our physical servers have been up and running with no reboot for about 2 years. Some of our virtual servers get rebooted once a month, some once a week, and some once a day. It allows me to do maintenance on the virtual servers on the fly. If I need to add more disk space, I can do it easily without having to take down the servers.
  • Adding disk space on the fly is a big plus. We have a lot files and if I had to take down a server each time to add some more disk space, it would be a real pain.
  • The ability to be able to reboot them from a console. If we have a server that is having issues, being able to be reboot it without having to be at the site is a big help.
  • Being able to build servers from a template is another great feature. It saves me a lot of time from having to build a server from scratch. I just deploy one of my templates, catch up the updates and in a matter of an hour, we are ready to go.
  • VSphere has the ability to scan for updates, it would be nice to be able to incorporate third party updates along with the update manager.
  • It has had a positive ROI. We were able to set up 20 servers for the price of 3 Physical Virtual Servers. Also along with the MS Datacenter licensed per server, we haven't had to buy a new server when we need to add additional ones.
I have used Micrsoft's Hyper-V Server in the past and I hated it. Microsoft's products can consume a lot of memory some times and running Hyper-V was like having a memory hog running on a memory hog. With VSphere there is no slow down when it comes to resources if properly set up.
Veeam Backup & Replication
I believe VSphere would be well suited anywhere. I like the idea of having one physical server and separate virtual servers for different applications (i.e File Servers, Application Servers, Domain Servers).

VMware vSphere Feature Ratings

Server Virtualization
10.0
Virtual machine automated provisioning
10
Management console
10
Live virtual machine migration
10
Hypervisor-level security
10

Using vSphere

The IT Department uses it to manage the servers, everyone elses uses the virtual servers built within VSphere.
4 - You have to have a basic understanding of how VSphere functions to do the simple tasks. For the more indepth reviewing and troubleshooting you have to have some knowledge of Linux.
  • Server uptime
  • Server Mainteance
  • ROI
  • We use pano clients for some of our computers. This allows us to run a windows pc in the virtual environment with a zeroclient (only a box, video port, usb and network port) while the PC is up and running all the time in the virtual environment.
  • Some day I hope to implement VMWare VDI along side of the VSphere.
It is a really rock solid product with a lot of great uses.

Evaluating vSphere and Competitors

  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Prior Experience with the Product
  • Vendor Reputation
The uptime and ease of managing the servers.
I wouldn't.