Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] vs VMware Aria Operations comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Cisco and Broadcom are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Read 1 Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] review

100% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations

Read 376 VMware Aria Operations reviews

20,487 Views
13,726 Comparison Views

94% willing to recommend

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

VMware Aria Operations

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] and VMware Aria Operations based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix, Broadcom, IBM and others in Cloud Management.

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Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

October 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Piston Enterprise OS ...

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Aria Operations

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.9

Number of Reviews

376

Ranking in other categories

Cloud Management (3rd), Virtualization Management Tools (2nd)

Featured Reviews

Enterprise677

BS Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees

A simple interface and helpful support for a solution that grows with us

It's a flexible enough tool to submit the changes that you want. It gives you the ability to cancel any loop. You can connect new orchestrations together. It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device. The user interface is simple and easy to use.

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AldoDomini

Senior System Network Analyst at Net spa

Have faced limitations due to high costs but have maintained reliability over time

The primary issue is the pricing, which is very expensive for my company's budget. We cannot afford to pay such a large fee. We are not Microsoft or BMW; we are a small company. As a small company, I have no power to negotiate directly with VMware. Perhaps larger companies have more opportunity to contract directly with VMware, but I do not have that leverage. The only path I can follow is to change solutions. Net.spA is a company working in the field of waste management. We are not a technological company, so we do not have a large margin to justify purchasing and maintaining the VMware infrastructure at current costs.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"I strongly recommend the solution to people."

"It offers enough support so that you don't need to have the need to get another device."

"Using the solution for capacity allocation and management has also helped us to save on hardware costs, by about 20 percent."

"It's been terrific so far."

"I have found the reporting tool, capacity planning, and reports for performance monitoring the most valuable features."

"Doing the rightsizing of the VMs themselves, telling me whether to add more memory or take away some."

"vROps is more user-friendly than some other products that we've seen on the market. It was very easy for our technicians to pick up. The search functionality works well. It makes it easy for our technicians to get down to a workload that they're possibly having an issue with."

"vROps has been able to cut down our time to be able to find our problems, if we have something arise in our infrastructure."

"We were able to downsize workloads and our hardware."

"Our customers who have used it have definitely seen an ROI; instead of using so many physical servers to achieve the same thing, they've reduced it to five physical servers, and they are able to do much more with those five servers."

More VMware Aria Operations pros

Cons

"The solution is just too expensive, so maybe the pricing could be better."

"They should have more automation features for database management."

"We would like to have monitoring for containers."

"I haven't had to use technical support for this version but I have had to use them in the past with other versions. There have been some challenges with them. It's hard to get through to the right person and resolving issues in previous versions was hard."

"You can troubleshoot, you can do all kinds of deep-dives into the issue and find out what the root cause is and everything, but in order to get it fixed, whatever it is (doesn't matter what it is), you need to log into another tool in order to fix it."

"Honestly, I don't think it's as good as it used to be. I think it's gone downhill a little bit."

"I would like to see the automation perform a bit smoother."

"I would like to find a tool that is a single pane of glass for everything. The endpoint operations agent doesn't really do much when you install it on an endpoint - for example, on a Windows Server or a Linux server. You don't really get any beneficial information at the OS level from VMware tools."

"If I could integrate with vCenter with vROps, then I could execute more things by managing vSphere from within vROps. That would be great."

More VMware Aria Operations cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"In terms of the pricing for VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), I can't remember exactly how much it costs, but it was included in the VMware vSphere enterprise plus licensing package my company paid for."

"vRealize Operations has proved to be a cost effective solution for our big environment."

"As we continue to implement it across multiple environments, it reduces costs as well."

"The pricing is a little bit expensive. Licensing is an issue because there are always changes, and by that I mean cost increases. And that's not only for vROps but for VMware, vSphere, and all the products that are involved."

"Bundle it in with your license rather than buying it as a separate product. It saves a lot of money that way."

"The optimization is a huge return on investment alone."

"We have definitely seen ROI by removing unnecessary servers and VMs. By having vROps as an assistant when it comes to monitoring and managing resources, it has helped us a lot with cost savings and managing expenses."

"Don't overallocate! This means that you don't have to buy many hosts. You can save money that way."

More VMware Aria Operations pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

No data available

Outsourcing Company

13%

Construction Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	65
Midsize Enterprise	61
Large Enterprise	282

Questions from the Community

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What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?

vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...

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Is VMware Aria Operations a user friendly solution?

In terms of user-friendliness, VMware Aria Operations is one of the best solutions out there. It is not overly complex to set up and you can rely on the technical support to provide you with assis...

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What is the most useful new feature of VMware Aria Operations?

For me, the alerts features are the most unique part of this product, no matter the current name it uses. When they introduced the new version of VMware Aria Operations, they also introduced more a...

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Comparisons

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 15% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 14% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 13% of the time

Flexera Cloud Management Platform (CMP) vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

VMware Cloud Director vs Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL]

Compared 7% of the time

More Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] Competitors

IBM Turbonomic vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 7% of the time

SolarWinds Virtualization Manager vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 6% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 5% of the time

Nutanix Cloud Manager (NCM) vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 5% of the time

Densify vs VMware Aria Operations

Compared 4% of the time

More VMware Aria Operations Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Management

October 2026

Download Cisco Piston Enterprise OS [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations

October 2026

Download VMware Aria Operations product report

Also Known As

Piston Enterprise OS

VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)

Overview

Piston Enterprise OS (pentOS) is an enterprise grade cloud operating system meeting the security and governance needs of enterprises wanting to use OpenStack for their infrastructure services. pentOS is an OpenStack distro that builds on top of the OpenStack codebase adding some proprietary features to meet the security and governance needs of the enterprise customers.

Cisco

VMware Aria Operations provides detailed metrics, graphing capabilities, and historical data for proactive infrastructure management, offering a single pane of glass for comprehensive views, alert notifications, and seamless integration with VMware tools.

VMware Aria Operations is designed for monitoring and optimizing virtual environments, empowering businesses to enhance infrastructure efficiency and manage workloads. With stress ratings and capacity planning, it facilitates troubleshooting performance issues while forecasting resource needs. Automation and integration with VMware tools streamline operations, making it indispensable for maintaining system health and enabling data-driven decisions. Users appreciate its comprehensive infrastructure views, though they note the interface complexity and high pricing as key considerations. Improved automation, third-party integration, and usability are desired enhancements.

What are the key features of VMware Aria Operations?

Single Pane of Glass: Provides comprehensive views of infrastructure for easy management.
Performance Monitoring: Tracks performance with detailed metrics and trend analysis.
Capacity Planning: Offers insights into stress ratings and future resource needs.
Alert Notifications: Effectively notifies users of potential system issues.
Automation and Integration: Streamlines operations with VMware tools.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Infrastructure Efficiency: Ensures optimal use of virtual environments for effective workload management.
Operational Visibility: Improves decision-making with detailed insights and analytics.
Resource Optimization: Helps forecast and allocate resources efficiently.
Proactive Management: Facilitates early detection of issues to maintain system health.

VMware Aria Operations' implementation across industries like finance, healthcare, and education showcases its utility in maintaining operational efficiency. It aids in tracking usage metrics and integrating workflows, benefiting sectors with critical performance and resource management needs.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Science Applications International Corporation, Tribune Media, Heartland Payment Systems, Telkom Indonesia, Columbia Sportswear, iGATE, CSS Corp, Angel Broking, Adira Finance, Hipskind, Beiersdorf Shared Services, Innovate Mas Indonesia, Adobe, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi , Join Experience S.A, Borusan Holdings, Department of Transport - Abu Dhabi

Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix, Broadcom, IBM and others in Cloud Management. Updated: October 2026.

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