VMware ESXI beneficial for server environments
October 17, 2016

VMware ESXI beneficial for server environments

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi is being used throughout our whole organization, across our entire server environment. When we initially moved to VMware, it addressed the issue of having old, outdated hardware and allowed us to move to a new virtual platform. We were able to consolidate our infrastructure from 20 physical servers to 3 servers through the use of VMware.

Pros

  • VMware allows us to save time by installing servers much quicker than before, through the use of templates.
  • VMware vCenter controls all aspects of our server environment through one console and provides detailed hardware information.
  • The ability to move virtual servers from one host to another in a matter of minutes, which allows us to install server upgrades with no downtime.

Cons

  • Licensing costs are high, and are done by CPU, rather than per server host. As a result, this can add up pretty quickly with a large server environment.
  • Learning curve may be higher for those people that have not used a virtual platform.
  • Some applications have reduced performance in a virtual environment, and run better on physical hardware.
  • VMware has had a positive impact on our business. We were able to upgrade our entire server infrastructure through the use of less hardware, which was less expensive than going with the physical server per application route.
  • VMware is also more eco-friendly. Since we have less hardware running in our server room, we now need less cooling and are saving on energy costs.
  • Disaster recovery is quick. If there is a hardware issue, we can redeploy a new server in a matter of minutes, saving us both time and money.
We decided to go with VMware because of the features that we needed, in regards to disaster recovery, migration, and upgrades. VMware also has excellent technical support both online and via the phone. We also receive software updates that are included in our maintenance contract and this is beneficial in being on the latest platform.
VMware would be well suited in an environment where you have at least 10 servers (email, database, file servers, web). This would make sense because you can consolidate a larger physical infrastructure into 2 or 3 VMware hosts and increase reliability as well through redundancy.

VMware would be less appropriate if a business only has several servers, because they will spend more on licensing and will not appreciate all the aspects that VMware provides (redundancy, disaster recovery, system upgrades).

VMware ESXi Feature Ratings

Virtual machine automated provisioning
9
Management console
9
Live virtual machine backup
9
Live virtual machine migration
9
Hypervisor-level security
8

Comments

More Reviews of VMware ESXi