Virtualization Manager Survey conducted by SolarWinds. The survey was done to capture how existing Virtualization Manager (VMAN) customers are using the product Specific questions about the product, features, ROI, why they chose SolarWinds, their experience with other virtualization management tools, and so on were the focus areas of this survey The survey was rolled out to all existing Virtualization Manager customers in North America and the findings are based on answers from 136 respondents

1. Virtualization Manager
Features, Competitive, and ROI Survey
August 2014
© 2014 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

2. Overview
» The survey was done to capture how existing Virtualization Manager (VMAN)
customers are using the product
» Specific questions about the product, features, ROI, why they chose SolarWinds,
their experience with other virtualization management tools, and so on were the
focus areas of this survey
» The survey was rolled out to all existing Virtualization Manager customers in North
America and the findings are based on answers from 136 respondents
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
1

3. Survey respondents save on average $70,000/year and experience
over 40% fewer hours of downtime after deploying VMAN
Before VMAN After VMAN Annual Savings – Year 1
Time Saved
• Staff
• VM Sprawl
• Troubleshooting
3 FTEs Managing 216 VMs
8.5 hours/month
6.5 hours/month
2 FTEs Managing 244 VMs
2.5 hours/month
3 hours/month
1 FTE @ $65,000
Downtime 3.5 hours/month 2 hours/month 18 hours
Resources Saved (Annual)
• CPU
11 CPUs
• Memory
15 GB
• Storage
23 GB
Hardware cost savings: $6000
Total VMs Managed 216 VMs 244 VMs
Virtualization Manager Average Software Cost $5,995 ($5,995)
Total Savings $65k+ hardware cost of
$6,000 – (Average software
cost of $5,995)
Plus revenue or efficiency
benefits of reduced downtime
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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4. Results – Comparing Smaller and Larger Environments
Smaller Environments (< 500 VMs) Larger Environments (> 500 VMs) Annual Savings – Year 1
Time Saved
• Staff
• VM Sprawl
• Troubleshooting
2 FTEs Managing 117 VMs/1 FTE Managing
130 VMs (before/after VMAN)
6.3 & 2.1 hours/month (before/after VMAN)
4.6 & 2.3 hours/month (before/after VMAN)
3 FTEs Managing 295 VMs/2 FTE
Managing 333 VMs (before/after VMAN)
7.3 & 2.6 hours/month (before/after
VMAN)
5.3 &3.4 hours/month (before/after
VMAN)
1 FTE @ $65,000 for both environments
Downtime 2.3 & 1.3 hours/month (before/after VMAN) 3.2 & 1.8 hours/month (before/after
VMAN)
12 hours and 17 hours for smaller and
larger environments
Resources Saved (Annual)
• CPU
• Memory
• Storage
8 CPUs
12 GB
17 GB
9 CPUs
17 GB
26 GB
Hardware cost savings: $6000 for smaller
environments and $6500 for larger
environments
Total VMs Managed 117 & 130 VMs (before/after VMAN) 295 & 333 VMs (before/after VMAN)
Virtualization Manager Average
$5,995 $10,995
Software Cost
Total Savings $65k + hardware cost of $6,000 –
software cost of $5,995 (smaller
environments)
$65k + hardware cost of $6,500 –
software cost of $10,995 (larger
environments)
Plus revenue or efficiency benefits of
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014. reduced downtime
3

5. Results – Comparing Advanced & Basic Users
Expert/Advanced Users UseWhen Needed/Infrequent Users Annual Savings – Year 1
Time Saved
• Staff
• VM Sprawl
• Troubleshooting
2 FTEs Managing 180 VMs/1 FTE Managing
210 VMs (before/after VMAN)
6.4 & 1.7 hours/month (before/after VMAN)
5 & 2.3 hours/month (before/after VMAN)
2 FTEs Managing 160 VMs/1 FTE
Managing 170 VMs (before/after VMAN)
6.4 & 2.1 hours/month (before/after
VMAN)
5 & 2.9 hours/month (before/after
VMAN)
1 FTE @ $65,000 for both user groups
Downtime 2.5 & 1.4 hours/month (before/after VMAN) 2.5 & 1.8 hours/month (before/after
VMAN)
13.2 hours and 8.1 hours for experts and
infrequent user groups
Resources Saved (Annual)
• CPU
• Memory
• Storage
12 CPUs
16 GB
18 GB
6 CPUs
12 GB
18 GB
Hardware cost savings: $6000 for expert
users and $5000 for infrequent users
Total VMs Managed 180 & 210 VMs (before/after VMAN) 160 & 170 VMs (before/after VMAN)
Virtualization Manager Average
$10,995 $5,995
Software Cost
Total Savings $65k + hardware cost of $6,000 –
software cost of $10,995 (expert users)
$65k + hardware cost of $5,000 –
software cost of $5,995 (infrequent
users)
Plus revenue or efficiency benefits of
reduced downtime
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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6. 7% sys admins are extensive/expert users. 19% sys admins are infrequent/not fully deployed users. Out
of all the virtual admins, only 21% of them are expert users/use VMAN extensively.
Q1: What is your current role in your organization? • Network Engineer
61%
50%
27%
25% 24%
System Administrator Admin for Virtual Environment IT Generalist Capacity Planner Other
Current Role
• IT Director
• Executive
• IT Ops Manager
• VP of IT
• Desktop Support
• Network Manager
• Engineering Architect
• IT Security Manager
• Network Analyst
• Storage Admin
• System Architect
• Operations Manager
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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7. 42% of the users use VMAN only on need basis. Out of which 53% are virtual admins, 28% are capacity
planners, 67% are sys admins, and 32% are IT generalists. Out of the 30% frequent/advanced users, 54%
are virtual admins, 41% & are capacity planners, 59% are sys admins, and 32% are IT generalists.
Q2: What best describes your level of expertise with SolarWinds Virtualization Manager?
42%
Level of Expertise
30%
10%
10%
8%
Use when Needed/ Use Basic Out of the Box Capabilties Use Frequently/Advanced User
Infrequent/Not Fully Deployed Haven't Deployed/Don't Use It
Use Extensively/Expert User
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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8. On an average every admin monitors at least 315 VMs using VMAN.
Q3: How many VMs do you monitor using Virtualization Manager?
32%
29%
18%
15%
7%
Less than 100 VMs 101 - 250 VMs 251 - 500 VMs 501 - 1000 VMs Greater than 1000 VMs
# of VMs
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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9. 53% of all respondents have not spent a single dollar after purchasing VMAN. 64% extensive/expert
users have not spent a single dollar after purchase in the last 12 months.
Q4: Excluding the software cost for VMAN, how much have you spent in the last 12 months on training (including
class fees, travel expenses), consulting (installation/upgrade/customization) and other services related to VMAN?
53%
26%
9% 9%
2% 1% 1% 0%
$0 $1 - $5,000 $5,001 - $15,000 $30,000 - $100,000 $15,001 - $30,000 $100,001 - $200,000 Greater than
$500,000
$200,001 - $500,000
Software cost for VMAN
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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10. 12% admins who added 51-100 VMs are extensive/expert users. 83% admins who added over 250 VMs
also monitor over 1000 VMs using VMAN and they are also expert/frequent users. On an average, every
admin has added at least 80 VMs to their environment in the last 12 months.
Q5: How many VMs have you added in the last 12 months to your environment?
54%
31%
# of VMs Added
10%
4%
Less than 50 VMs 51 - 100 VMs 101 - 250 VMs Greater than 250 VMS
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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11. On an average, all respondents have added around 38 vCPUs and 7 TB of memory
over the past 12 months.
Q6: What is the quantity of resources (processor & memory) added to your virtual environment over the past 12 months?
35%
30%
14%
11% 10%
Less than 24
vCPUs
25 - 48 vCPUs 0 Greater than 96
vCPUs
49 - 96 vCPUs
Number of processors (vCPUs) added
55%
16% 16%
9%
4%
1 - 5 TB 0 6 - 10 TB 11 - 50 TB Greater than 50
TB
Memory in TB
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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12. 64% admins who buy new resources without analyzing have added 1-5 TB memory and 36% added less than 24
vCPUs in the past 12 months. Among those who selected both combinations, 41% added 1-5 TB of memory and
60% added less than 24 vCPUs in the last 12 months.
35%
14%
57%
6%
Optimize and right-size existing
resources using Virtualization Manager
Buy new resources without analyzing
opportunity for reallocation
Combination of the previous choices Other
Resource Contraints
• Use other tools to
analyze resources
• Not planned at the time
• Optimize & reduce
waste
• Reallocate manually, but
new resources when
that runs out
• Educated guess
• I do not use the
hardware/software
• We don’t have
constraints
Q7: What do you do when you have resource constraints in your virtual environment?
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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13. Overall VMAN helps every admin save at least 11 CPUs, 15 GB memory, and 23 GB
storage annually.
43%
25%
20%
8%
3%
1 - 10 CPUs 0 11 - 25
CPUs
Greater
than 50
CPUs
26 - 50
CPUs
CPUs
23% 23%
22%
19%
12%
0 Less than 5
GB
5 - 20 GB Greater
than 50 GB
21 - 50 GB
Memory
28%
27%
16% 16%
12%
Greater
than 50 GB
0 Less than
10 GB
11 - 25 GB 26 - 50 GB
Storage
Q8: What is the approximate hardware resources saved annually using Virtualization Manager?
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
12

14. 41% of those with 101-250 VMs manually search for dormant VMs. 35% of those with
101-250 VMs do not do any analysis. They just add new resources as constraints pop
up.
Q9: Before purchasing Virtualization Manager, how did you optimize virtual resources/manage VM sprawl?
61%
36%
12%
5%
Manually search for dormant VMs or
over used VMs
We did not do any analysis. We just add
new resources as constraints pop up
Purchased Virtualization Manager as
soon as we moved to virtual
environment
Other
Optimize VM Sprawl
• I do not use this
hardware/software
• We use vCenter tools
also
• Other SolarWinds
products and VM tools
• We don’t optimize
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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15. On an average, every admin has spent around 8.5 hours every month to do VM sprawl
analysis before buying VMAN, and now they spend only 2.5 hours per month after
buying VMAN.
Q10: How long did it take to do VM sprawl analysis per month before and after purchasing Virtualization Manager?
21% 17%
26% 23%
12%
68%
21%
8%
2%
1 - 5 hours 0 hours 6 - 10 hours 11 - 20 hours Greater than 20 hours
Before After
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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16. On an average, every admin took 6.5 hours every month to troubleshoot virtualization
performance issues before VMAN, and now it only takes 3 hours after deploying
VMAN.
Q11: How long did it take to troubleshoot virtualization performance issues per month before and after purchasing
Virtualization Manager?
19%
9%
37%
27%
7%
67%
13%
12%
7%
Less than 3 hours 0 hours 3 - 7 hours 7 - 15 hours Greater than 15 hours
Before After
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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17. On an average, all admins managed around 216 VMs with almost 3 FTEs before
deploying VMAN and after deploying VMAN they monitor around 244 VMs with 2 FTEs.
Q12: What is the total number of VMs managed per admin (VMs/Full Time Equivalents (FTE) – if a person only spends part of
their time managing the VM environment, estimate as a percent of their total time) before and after purchasing VMAN?
40% 39%
13%
6%
39%
35%
15%
8%
2%
101 - 250 VMs Less than 100
VMs
251 - 500 VMs 501 - 1000 VMs Greater than
1000 VMs
Before After
41% 38%
12%
6% 2%
52%
35%
8%
3%
1 2 - 3 4 - 5 5 - 10 Greater than 10
Before After
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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18. On an average, every admin used to face 3.5 hours of downtime every month due to VM performance
and configuration changes. Now after deploying VMAN, they face only 2 hours of downtime every
month.
Q13: How many hours of downtime did you experience per month due to VM performance and configuration issues? Both
before and after purchasing Virtualization Manager?
41%
31%
16%
7% 4%
58%
36%
4%
Less than 3 hours 0 hours 3 - 7 hours 7 - 15 hours Greater than 15 hours
Before After
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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19. 31% customers who rated performance alerts as good or excellent are all frequent/advanced users of VMAN. 29% customers who
rated capacity planning as good or excellent are also frequent/advanced users of VMAN. For all other features where customers
rated good excellent, 34% are frequent/advanced users, 2% are extensive/expert users, 48% use when needed/use out-of-the-box
capabilities, 4% say they don’t use often/infrequent users, and 7% haven’t deployed/don’t use VMAN.
Q14: How do you rate the following Virtualization Manager features?
31% 29% 32% 35%
VMAN Features
25%
39%
22% 23% 26%
59% 58% 50% 43%
52%
45%
56% 49%
54%
10% 13% 18% 21% 17%
15% 20% 25% 17%
6%
Excellent Good Average Poor
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
18

20. 47% virtual admins, 25% capacity planners, 63% sys admins, and 35% IT generalists believe VMAN improved their
resource utilization and helped with their business growth. On an average 34% of all these admins who believe
VMAN helped towards their business growth have 101-250 VMs they monitor using VMAN.
Q15: Do you believe Virtualization Manager has improved your resource utilization and in-turn helped in your business growth?
Business Growth due to Resource Utilization
78%
22%
Yes No
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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21. 31% admins manage 5-10 alerts raised by VMAN and 100% of them have rated performance alerts as
either good or excellent. On an average, every admin is alerted to at least 9 performance issues in VMAN
that they take an action on every month.
Q16: How many performance issues are alerted in Virtualization Manager do you take an action on every month?
43%
31%
12% 11%
3%
1%
Less than 5 5 - 10 11 - 25 0 Greater than 50 26 - 50
Manage Alerts
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
20

22. 78% admins rated configuration changes as an excellent or good feature. On an
average, every admin takes at least 1 hour every month to determine host and VM
configuration changes using VMAN.
Q17: How long does it take to determine host and VM configuration changes every month using Virtualization Manager?
44%
33%
19%
4%
0%
Less than 30 minutes 30 minutes to 1 hour 1 - 3 hours Greater than 5 hours 3 - 5 hours
VM Config Changes
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
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23. 52% virtual admins, 30% capacity planners, and 69% sys admins leverage VMAN and SAM integration.
39% virtual admins, 19% capacity planners, and 68% sys admins leverage VMAN and STM integration.
48% virtual admins, 25% capacity planners, and 68% sys admins leverage VMAN and NTM integration.
Q18: Do you leverage any of the product integration capabilities?
76%
64%
32%
Virtualization Manager & Network Performance
Monitor
Virtualization Manager & Server & Application Monitor Virtualization Manager & Storage Manager
Product Integration
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
22

24. 38% admins who said no, currently monitor 101 – 250 VMs using VMAN. Out of the 38%, 57% admins
use VMAN only when it is needed/use basic out of the box capabilities. 50% of virtual admins said they
haven’t used another virtualization management tool prior to VMAN.
Q19: Did you use another automated virtualization management software prior to Virtualization Manager?
20%
80%
Yes No
Virtualization Management Tool Prior to VMAN
• 63% VMware vCenter
Operations Manager
• 32% Veeam One
• 21% Dell Foglight
• 16% WhatsupGold
WhatsVirtual
• 5% VM Turbo
• 5% Other (Hyper-9)
• 0% HP Virtualization
Manager
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
23

25. 90% of the admins who said the previous tool didn’t integrate with other products own
VMAN and NPM, 50% own VMAN and SAM, and 50% own VMAN and STM together.
Q20: Why did you switch from your previous tool to Virtualization Manager? Can you quantify the benefit you got?
47%
32%
26%
21%
16%
5%
Previous tool didn't
integrate with other
products/didn't provide
end-to-end visibility
Previous tool was harder to
use/install/configure
Previous tool was more
expensive
Previous tool didn't have a
feature/capability I needed
Previous tool didn't have
VM sprawl capabilities
Previous tools didn't have
capacity & right-sizing
capabilities
Reasons for Moving to VMAN
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
24

26. Every admin has saved around 4.2 hours per month on performance troubleshooting
and managing configuration when compared to the previous tool.
Q21: Considering performance troubleshooting and managing configuration, how many hours has Virtualization Manager help
save when compared to the previous tool every month?
37%
32%
16%
11%
5%
1 - 3 hours 5 - 10 hours Less than 1 hour 3 - 5 hours Greater than 10 hours
Time Saved using VMAN for Performance Troubleshooting
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
25

27. Are there other reasons why you moved to Virtualization
Manager from your previous virtualization tool?
» We’re testing both, unfortunately I’ve not gotten much support for either.
» We still use vCOPS, along with VMAN. VMAN was bundled in with our SolarWinds
purchase just to see if we liked it. It's nice, but we've never seen enough reason to
move from vCOPS to VMAN. It may be bias, as our virtualization team are all VCPs,
and huge VMware fanboys.
» NPM & NTA products
» Management bought it
» Different job and it was already purchased
» You bought it (Hyper-9)
» Value & support
» No reason
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
26

28. SolarWinds Virtualization Manager
Manage your virtual
environment with
Virtualization
Manager. Experience
the free and fully
functional 30 day
trial.
VMAN SURVEY. AUGUST 2014.
27

29. Thank you!
© 2014 SOLARWINDS WORLDWIDE, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.