VMware Workstation Pro vs. VMware vSOM (discontinued)

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

Vsphere Operation Management is suitable for automating the process of bringing up an alternate data center in case of a disaster. It also is a great way for testing your readiness of disaster. You have the ability to bring up a server in a "bubble" for testing. This way you can show your admins how the failover process will work.

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

• The best thing about VSOM is that it's built into VCenter so you only have one point of administration
• VSOM does a great job of making applications intuitive
• Re-IPing virtual machines are a must and VSOM does a great job of making this a simple process

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

• The installation of VSOM is very tedious
• It uses an MS SQL database
• It should be able to adjust for hardware modifications in VCenter

Incentivized

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

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

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

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

vSphere with Operations Management has a much better way of automating the re-IPing of servers so you can stand them up in a different environment or location. You do, however, need another way of replicating your servers to your DR site, VSOM will not do that. We used EMC Recover Point for replication.

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

• In the case of a disaster, the ROI would be substantial.
• The license for VSOM is pretty expensive initially.
• Support for VSOM is terrific.

Incentivized