Item: VMware vSphere
Rating: 10
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Where I work we are a VMware virtual shop, meaning most all of our systems are virtualized. Server virtualization comes with plenty of benefits for a business and it really can improve efficiency when it comes to properly administering server resources like CPU, memory, and storage. Growing your environment by increasing resources on your servers is just a few clicks away using vSphere versus the traditional ordering hardware, scheduling downtime of your hardware servers, and installing resources such as physical memory, CPU power, and storage disks. It is definitely a huge time saver allowing you to focus your time and efforts on other important issues.

Pros and Cons

Fast resource provisioning.
Quick virtual server reboots.
Solid performance monitoring.

Clearer documentation on upgrade paths.
Simpler compatibility matrix.
Simplify SRM.

Return on Investment

Datacenter footprint shrunk as less physical servers are needed.
Can be kind of pricey to purchase ESXI hosts with lots of cpu/memory resources.
vSphere works practically on any server hardware solution.

Support Rating

I rarely ever have to contact support and when I do need to resolve an issue, there is always an abundance of kb articles and research information available that can help quickly resolve the issue. Depending on the type of support contract you have, you may get support from some offshore group in another country and this could be a little challenging because of the language barrier.

Key Insights

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

Yes

Are you happy with VMware vSphere's feature set?

Yes

Did VMware vSphere live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of VMware vSphere go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy VMware vSphere again?

Yes

Usability

I love using vShere to manage my server environment. I can see and manage all of my systems using the vSphere console. I can quickly provision new virtual machines. I can quickly grow and shrink resources on any system without requiring extended periods of downtime. I can efficiently and at a quick glance investigate the performance of my systems.

Contract Terms and Pricing Model

Like any contract, they can be long and confusing. Thankfully we run contracts through our legal department which deals with the majority of the things having to do with the contract.

Likelihood to Recommend

vSPhere is great for large or small organizations. It is easy to scale and add additional ESXi hosts. You can quickly create virtual machines for all types of environments including test, dev, and prod. If you are a small shop, you simply need to have a couple of ESXi hosts to be able to spin up dozens of virtual machines to manage your different apps. If you are a large environment, you can easily create clusters with multiple ESXi hosts in each and easily manage your apps or test, dev, and prod environments in a very organized way. Perhaps less appropriate in scenarios where Microsoft Hyper-V is preferred.

vSphere is great

Overall Satisfaction with vSphere