Great point. I agree with you there. There are cases where writing it yourself can be cheaper and easier to use. You do still need to keep in mind ongoing support – hopefully it would be easy enough for someone else to pick up and run with when you leave.

Thanks for the comment!

#5 – When it is cost-effective to do so.

Take your German bloke you referenced in your previous post. He said that he could use cron and rsync, plus a little bit of magic with the .vmx file, to replicate VMs. Whilst he might have been impressed with the additional functions of vReplicator, if he only had two ESX hosts and a few VMs, then he mightn’t really be that interested in vCenter awareness or pretty reports.

This might be a bad example as vReplicator is hardly an expensive package, but the principle applies to other things too. If you can do a job yourself, and have it perform the functions you require it to perform, for less than the cost of going out and buying a comparable package, then writing your own makes sense. The same principle also applies to ease of use and suitability; if, by using your own custom software, you or your staff can do a job quicker and more efficiently, then – again – it makes sense to invest the time and effort in custom-writing something.

Just a thought…