vCenter Server

What do you like best?

vCenter allowed me to manage and monitor the status of my large virtual cluster in just one dashboard. It is very user friendly which makes an admin task much more easier. It does not only provide the management of virtual servers, but it also provides the management interface for storages, networks.

What do you dislike?

Sometimes the lack of a dedicated application for the dashboard can be felt by the administrator. Vmware focuses on browser only management interfaces but for complex task and sometimes for big files, browsers are constantly fails to handle the background jobs. I would prefer to have a desktop version also besides the browser version. Vmware should make a choice of a preference to allow user to select desired connection method.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

Although HyperV comes very good when considering the budget, Vcenter is much more reliable and trustworthy to manage the virtual environment. It provides a better workplace for admin comparing HyperV mangement.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Managing different standalone hosts or cluster environment can be really time consuming by visiting every each host. Vcenter allows to integrate all the hosts into one place where you can see all the event details, tasks, and performance metrics. Now, we have more time to improve our IT infrastructure, rather than browsing separately each host.