What I like most is the ability of how it works with the rest of the VMware stack. Since we already were using vSphere, adding vSAN was very easy. Scaling out is easy too, you just add a node, and the storage grows with it. For day-to-day operations, that simplicity saves a lot of headaches. Also, the UI is user friendly and easy to understand.

What stands out most is how seamlessly vSAN integrates with the rest of the VMware stack. vCenter, vSphere, and NSX work together without requiring a separate management layer, which helps cut down operational overhead. Performance has been consistently solid, even under mixed workloads, and being able to scale storage simply by adding nodes (instead of doing a forklift upgrade) has made capacity planning much easier. Policy-based management is another standout. Defining storage policies per VM rather than per LUN gives far more flexibility, and it means I no longer have to manually provision separate storage arrays. The AI-driven capabilities available through Aria Operations have also been useful, especially for predictive capacity planning and for flagging anomalies before they turn into real problems. From a support perspective, VMware’s documentation and knowledge base are extensive. Onboarding our team took less time than expected because the interface remains consistent with tools we already knew. In terms of ROI, consolidating compute and storage into a single HCI layer has reduced our hardware footprint and simplified licensing compared to running a separate SAN.

What I like best about VMware Tanzu CloudHealth is its comprehensive cloud cost management and governance capabilities. It provides clear visibility into cloud spending, resource utilization, and security across multiple cloud providers through a centralized dashboard. The automation features, customizable policies, and actionable recommendations help optimize costs, improve compliance, and enhance operational efficiency, making it easier to manage complex multi-cloud environments.