Cloud Management

A PEEK INTO WHAT REAL USERS THINK

2015

IT Central Station helps tech professionals by providing...

A comprehensive list ofenterprise level CloudManagement vendors.

A sample of real userreviews from tech

professionals.

Specific information to helpyou choose the best vendor

for your needs.

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ABOUT IT CENTRAL STATION

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ABOUT THIS REPORT

This report is comprised of a comprehensive list of enterprise level server virtualization softwarevendors. We have also included several real user reviews posted on ITCentralStation.com. Thereviewers of these products have been validated as real users based on their LinkedIn profiles to ensurethat they provide reliable opinions and not those of product vendors.

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If you found this report and/or the reviews on IT Central Station useful, we would greatly appreciate yourparticipation in giving back to our community.

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VENDOR (BY RANKING) SOLUTION

VMware vCloud Director Rating: 8.4(21 reviews)

VMware vRealize suite Rating: 10.0(2 reviews)

Apache CloudStack Rating: 10.0(8 reviews)

HP Eucalyptus Rating: 6.0(1 reviews)

Oracle Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control (2 reviews)

VMware vCenter Orchestrator (1 reviews)

CA Technologies 3Tera

Abiquo Abiquo

NetIQ Aegis

BlueBox BlueBox

ASG Cloud Factory

Citrix Cloud Portal (1 reviews)

CloudEndure CloudEndure

CloudPhysics CloudPhysics

VMware DynamicOps Cloud Suite

Enomaly Elastic Computing Platform

Ensim Ensim Unify

Dell Enstratius

Flexiant Extility

Dell GaleForce

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Oracle Nimbula

Piston Cloud Piston Enterprise OS

IBM Platform Computing (4 reviews)

RightScale RightScale MultiCloud Platform

SaltStack SaltStack (1 reviews)

ScaleXtreme ScaleXtreme (1 reviews)

Hexagrid vxDatacenter

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Top Cloud Management Vendors

Over 73,639 professionals have used IT Central Station research on enterprise tech solutions. Here arethe top Cloud Management vendors based on product reviews, ratings, and comparisons. All reviewsand ratings are from real users, validated by our triple authentication process.

1. vCloud Director 4011 Views3157 Comparisons

6 Reviews154 Followers

Average Rating: 8.4

Chart KeyViews: Number of total page views

Comparisons: Number of times compared to another product

Reviews: Total number of reviews on IT Central Station

Followers: Number of followers on IT Central Station

Average Rating: Average rating based on reviews

The total ranking of a product (i.e. bar length) is based on a weighted aggregate ranking of that product's Views (weighting factor =17.5%), Comparisons (17.5%), Reviews (17.5%), Followers (17.5%), and Average Rating (30%).

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TOP 5Based on Views

4011 vCloud Director

1149 Oracle Enterprise Manager CloudControl

1079 CloudStack

921 vRealize suite

770 vCenter Orchestrator

TOP 5Based on Views of Comparisons

3157 vCloud Director

1392 CloudStack

1148 vRealize suite

877 Eucalyptus

805 vCenter Orchestrator

TOP 5Based on Followers

577 Extility

289 Platform Computing

154 vCloud Director

116 Elastic Computing Platform

67 Nimbula

TOP 4Based on Rating

10.0 CloudStack

10.0 vRealize suite

8.4 vCloud Director

6.0 Eucalyptus

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vCloud DirectorVendor: VMware

Overview: VMware vCloud Director provides software-defined services for data centers in the form of virtual datacenters. Computing, networking, security, and storage are all virtualized when you deploy this solution. Theresult is that users will get to enjoy infrastructure that is operationally ready in a matter of minutes withoutneeding to install and configure any physical infrastructure.

SampleCustomers:

MicroStrategy, National Democratic Institute, and NYSE Euronext.

TopComparisons:*

vRealize suite vs. vCloud DirectorHP Operations Orchestration vs. vCloud DirectorvCenter Orchestrator vs. vCloud Director

Compared 9% of the time.Compared 8% of the time.Compared 8% of the time.

Company Size:* 1-500 Employees500-5000 Employees5000+ Employees

13%9%78%

* Data is based on the aggregate profiles of IT Central Station Users researching this solution.

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WHAT REAL USERSARE SAYING...

"It has easy to deploymachines but is nowdifficult to implementbecause VMware nolonger offers the product."

"Although deployment issimple, I suggest takingsecurity and licensingcompliance intoconsideration when doingso."

"VMware vSphere, vCloudDirector, vCOPs andvCAC."

"Great product, if you arealready heavily investedwith VMware"

"Great product withscalability as the centralnotion"

VCLOUD DIRECTOR REVIEW BY A REAL USEREduardo Aguilar Alonso Verified by IT Central StationConsultor TI at a tech services company with 1-500employees

Valuable Features:

It has easy to deploy machines.

Improvements to My Organization:

A department can deploy a machine easily without using the IT department.

Use of Solution:

I only used it for four months.

Deployment Issues:

None in this version.

Stability Issues:

No issues encountered.

Scalability Issues:

Yes, a lot including, for example, with Chargeback Manager integration.

Customer Service:

8/10.

Technical Support:

5/10 as the VMware support seem very ignorant.

Previous Solutions:

No, but in the future, we are planning to install Open Stack as it's simpler.

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Initial Setup:

It has an easy setup by following the documentation.

Implementation Team:

We used a vendor team who I would rate as 7/10.

ROI:

We couldn't calculate it.

Alternate Solutions:

Yes, with other colleagues. No implementations being done by us at the moment.

Other Advice:

I think VMware has abandoned the product a with vSphere 5.5, vCloud Director isan obsolete solution. As VMware no longer offers the product, it is now difficult toimplement.

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VCLOUD DIRECTOR REVIEW BY A REAL USERLino Telera Verified by IT Central StationSystem Administrator at a cloud provider with 1-500employees

Valuable Features:

The real multi tenancy and distributed administration for vDCs is the goal of thisproduct, which combines consuming resources as a service with a greatgovernance model for different customers.

Suppose you need to build one or more virtual datacenter, and meet the demandsof customers, supplier and departments. In a traditional architecture (vCenter andesxi hosts) you need hard integration work to answer this problem.

vCloud director solves this problem weaving computational resources, storage andnetworking with consumption requests from companies, departments andindividual operators in a dynamic and safe way.

Improvements to My Organization:

We combine this architecture with existing vDCs with limited business impact(because vMotion could aid to limit or eliminate downtime). Now selling VM,request demo or trying an environment is very simple: just a few clicks to go!

Improvement in IT departments regarding the delivery of virtual datacenters forBusiness, Government and Captive area (holding headquarters and associatedcompanies). Hospitals and Governments could use this because data is under theircontrol, with very low risks for stability and security: governance still remains withthe cloud consumer.

In my scenario I'm using 2 vDCs (marked as gold and platinum) in 2 differentplaces and allow an organization (our customer) to use parts of these vDCs tostretch VM distribution across a datacenter, make DR on-demand (and without up-front costs) and respond quickly to business demands.

Use of Solution:

I've been using this solution for 3 years.

Deployment Issues:

Deployment is very simple, but I suggest a little design and hardening phase tomeet security and licensing compliance.

Stability Issues:

Product is mature enough to support huge loads: the underlining technology is thebest in class to meet many customer needs. The product is very stable.

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Scalability Issues:

Product is born to be scalable, because it should be used in different modes (cloudprovider and private cloud environment).

Customer Service:

People say that VMware customer service is very helpful and quick to solve issues.In my life I've use this service only for administrative issues (contracts, portals,licensing); this is because documentation, their knowledge base and communityalways are enough for problem solving.

Technical Support:

Official documentation is very good, and could give you skill to deploy, run andimprove your vCD system (VMware always work hard for this phase).

Initial Setup:

Setup was quite straightforward, because VMware always provides greatdocumentation for deployment, configuration and troubleshooting.

Implementation Team:

I deployed and set up this system in-house (my team staff: virtualization area),because this is a company core-business, and it is the minimum to do to learn andsolve problems quickly.

ROI:

Our ROI was reached considering 2 factors:

- A service provider model built on VMWare contracts and many resource deliverymodels, cost are as-a-service and bound to the VM vRAM: licensing cost is 1:1 tothe assigned resource. Considering 50% of infrastructure cost per VM in 3 years,10% of VMware cost and 10% of infrastructure cost, break even could be in 1.5years.

- In both private and public scenarios many administrative tasks are solved by on-demand models that could be elastic and efficient. Considered a manpowerreduction of about 40% and a potential reduction of 99% for provisioning tasks. ITVirtual administrator staff finally do the real job: troubleshoot, provision and do onlyheavy activities with less effort.

One more important thing: vCloud works with his chargeback product to show andtake many costs under control.

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Setup Cost:

As mentioned above, the service provider model costs are calculated considering:

- physical environment cost (up front cost or by loan)

- licensing cost 1:1 to vRAM

- setup requires no more than 1 week.

Other Advice:

Before installing vCloud director, I suggest:

1. Check HCL and compatibility matrix between vCloud director, vSphere andvCloud network and security (ex: vShield manager)

2. Use vDC resources only for vCloud director purpose, don't mix traditionalvSphere and vCloud director usage.

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vRealize suiteVendor: VMware

TopComparisons:*

vCloud Director vs. vRealize suiteCloudStack vs. vRealize suitevCenter Orchestrator vs. vRealize suite

Compared 24% of the time.Compared 9% of the time.Compared 8% of the time.

* Data is based on the aggregate profiles of IT Central Station Users researching this solution.

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WHAT REAL USERSARE SAYING...

"Cloud Management toolsfor on heterogeneousprivate, public and HybridCloud"

VREALIZE SUITE REVIEW BY A REAL USERRichard Choi Verified by IT Central StationSenior Technical Consultant at a tech services companywith 1-500 employees

Valuable Features:

I found the ease of use with Operations Manager Dashboard and providingcomplete visibility of your infrastructure most valuable.

Improvements to My Organization:

The monitoring dashboard from Operations Manager has helped my company andmy customers troubleshoot issue by providing tools that make it easy to correlatespecific performance metrics

Room for Improvement:

I would like to see the vrealize Suite support the Mcrosoft Azure

Use of Solution:

I have been using these tools for 2 years

Deployment Issues:

There are no general issues per say however I would comment that the vRealizesuite is a collection of products that must be designed together as they integratetogether to provide complete management for your infrastructure.

Initial Setup:

The initial configuration is easy starting with Operations Manager, which isdeployed as a OVF and other components such as Hyperic, Automation andBusiness is deployed using the OVF.  However there are some components whichrequire a Windows OS for you to installt he software such as ConfigurationManager and Iaas Component for Automation.  So careful consideration is neededfor implementing these tools.

Implementation Team:

I would for UK based consultancy firm called "Ultima Business Solutions" weimplement a lot of the Operations Manager to our customers as we believe the tooldelivers great value.  We also use this in-house for out internal and demonstrationinfrastructure.

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Alternate Solutions:

Yes, we reviewed Veeam One which is another great tool for a virtualised basedinfrastructure however we found the tool limited to virtual machines only and someof our requirements needed to extended to Physical Servers.

Other Advice:

Again I can't stress enough the importance is in the planning & design,technically the product suite is easy to deploy however  enough thought has to begiven to how you plan to use the "Automation" piece and how you may want tocreate a Showback dashboard and manage your IT financial costs in the"Business" component.

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EucalyptusVendor: HP

TopComparisons:*

vCenter Orchestrator vs. EucalyptusCloudStack vs. EucalyptusRightScale MultiCloud Platform vs. Eucalyptus

Compared 7% of the time.Compared 7% of the time.Compared 6% of the time.

* Data is based on the aggregate profiles of IT Central Station Users researching this solution.

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WHAT REAL USERSARE SAYING...

"Useful private cloudoption for AWS users; lostit's sheen though becauseof the rise of Openstack"

EUCALYPTUS REVIEW BY A REAL USERAbhijit Chakraborty Verified by IT Central StationSenior Architect at a tech vendor with 5000+ employees

Valuable Features:

AWS API

Customer Service:

Requires improvement

Technical Support:

Good but could have been beeter

Other Advice:

Eucalyptus should see good momentum if AWS propagates the theory of Hybridcloud as the APIs in Eucalyptus are greatly compatible with AWS and serves asgreat private cloud option for enterprises.

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Join the IT Central Station Community

This report features just a few of the Cloud Management reviews on IT Central Station. If you would liketo read more about what real users are saying about the many Cloud Management solutions on themarket, visit the Cloud Management page at IT Central Station:

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Give to Get

Did you find this whitepaper helpful? At IT Central Station, our philosophy is “Give to Get”. Our activecommunity and unbiased reviews are made possible by your participation and as such, we ask that youshare your expertise with us as well. Please expect to be contacted shortly by an IT Central StationCommunity Manager. We will ask you for 10 minutes of your time to review a product that you use eithervia a 10 minute phone interview or questionnaire. You can choose to review anonymously or not andyour company name will not be included in the review.

If you found this report and/or the reviews on IT Central Station useful, we would greatly appreciate yourparticipation in giving back to our community.

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