IBM Cloud for VMware Solutions vs. VMware Workstation Pro

VMware Cloud Foundation for Disaster Recovery environment, when the client needs to deploy a pay-as-you-go service or if they need to migrate SAP workloads, you can use VMware Cloud Foundation for Classic and VPC. We are the unique SAP-Certified VMware cloud service provider.

Incentivized

Some scenarios where VMware Workstation pro is best suited are: 1. Utilization for testing software - can install a virtual machine to simulate software requirements and testing it on your network. 2. Testing operating systems upgrades and installation on specific hardware requirements. 3. Virtualizing a physical server 4. Being able to backup a whole server and restore from it in the event of any issue occurring.

Incentivized

• Ease of use - we don't want to spend extra hours trying to figure out a problem.
• Easy Setup - onboarding was simple and quick.
• Great documentation - Most of the answers to our questions are very easily accessible without additional help.

Incentivized

• Not HTML based - Web applications are not always the best method to access VM's
• Isolation - VM's can be pulled off production networks for testing in a safe environment
• Operability - The interface mirrors the HTML format giving the user all of the features necessary to modify, access and manage VM's

Incentivized

• Support is horrible and or non-existent
• Documentation is out of date and incorrect for the most part
• IBM employees and salespeople are not aware of features or offerings
• Does not integrate the Zerto, only Veeam and has limited options for data migration

Incentivized

• Making it easy to export VMS is something that Workstation struggles with; exporting to OVA which is the primary type of VM we export to is cumbersome and can be difficult without proper knowledge on how to do this.
• Management of VMS could be a little bit more in depth.
• I think the networking portion of Workstation could use some slight improvements, more in-depth segmentation to support containers, however, this is a small issue and not something many people will miss or need.

Incentivized

It's a solid product, and if they make it compatible with HyperVM (WSL, Docker, etc.) it would be great

Incentivized

Everything is very clearly laid out. Being familiar with vSphere already, it was a quick transition over to the IBM environment. This allowed us to spend less time on the implementation phase and move quickly to actually utilizing the system on a day to day basis. Also, the performance is very good. No lagginess to the website like our previous on-prem environment.

Incentivized

It is well documented since it is a long actor in the virtualization scene. Easy to use for most user cases. Pretty much not maintenance on the software besides the occasional software updates and/or compatibility issues from time to time.

Incentivized

Overall, just a great experience here. No one in my opinion gets a perfect 10/10 rating (no one is ever perfect), so 9/10 is probably as good as it gets! From initial planning to post implementation support, the IBM Cloud and professional services has been there for my group as much as we have needed them. Great job!

Incentivized

I haven't had to call VMware Workstation support. The majority of the time, whenever I have a problem, I can perform an online search and find the answers I need. Online forums and users with similar situations are generally sufficient to answer any questions I have had, though, from previous experience at another company, their support is outstanding and responsive to circumstances. However, that is generally for a paid support contract and should be expected when you are paying for that support.

Incentivized

IBM professional services helped us plan and implement the project with great success. They guided the project from planning, scoping, pre-implementation, testing, roll-out, then production and post-production support. We were very impressed with their knowledge of VMware and really appreciated their desire to make our project a success. I would highly recommend them!

Incentivized

We chose VMware over Azure App Service because of the way that it was at that point natural and still offered similar cloud capacities that Azure would have acquired us. This permitted us to continue to utilize a similar interface and not need to relearn everything beginning to end with another item.

Incentivized

VMware Workstation does have a price unlike VirtualBox, that is free. But, Workstation Pro makes up for it by how many features comes with it. We are also able to take VM's in our vSphere Production environment and spin it up on and isolated laptop for sandbox testing within Workstation Pro. I'm not sure that VirtualBox is able to do that

Incentivized

• One of our business objectives was to ensure as close to 100% uptime of our servers and applications. This solution has helped us achieve that goal.
• Another goal was to try and minimize our datacenter footprint. This was achieved by using the product.

Incentivized

• The ROI on Workstation would be hard for us to compute. It makes things easier to do and to get access to, but there are other applications and methods to do much the same thing.
• Where there has to be a some form of ROI is in the fact that you will actually do things that you might not otherwise do simply because Workstation makes them easier. Sandbox testing is a good example of this idea.

Incentivized