As an Admin IT I use VirtualBox to test a lot of things. Whether it be for a windows machine or a linux machine, it gets used a lot. It allows me to test several things in a virtual setting instead of our actual machines. This way if anything goes wrong it isn't messing with our systems.
Pros
Can test software in a virtual setting
Storage can be changed dynamically
USB ports and ethernet can be used
Cons
Can be difficult to set up for first timers
Can be slow at tiems
Likelihood to Recommend
In the IT world there are several times were software or other things need to be tested and virtual box gives users a perfect setting to test them without harming or changing settings on other machines. It doesn't have good mac support since apple makes that difficult, but windows and linux work great.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (Education Management company, 51-200 employees)
It might be used across the organization, but the only use I'm familiar with is in my department. We use VirtualBox so that students can work on platforms other than the ones that their computers natively support.
Pros
Easy to use virtualization.
Nice tool for teaching.
Easy updates.
Wide range of client operating systems.
Cons
Occasional slow performance (but not very often).
There's always room for a more friendly user experience.
Likelihood to Recommend
VirtualBox is an indispensable tool for teaching Computer Science courses of all kinds at the college level. Most recently, I used VirtualBox to run a toy operating system in my OS course. Without VirtualBox (or a product like VirtualBox) students would have had to install the toy operating system directly "on the metal" on their computers. This would have been both inconvenient and a bit dangerous. In other courses, students get to learn to use operating systems that they would otherwise not have access to. In still other courses, VirtualBox provides a common image that all students, regardless of their laptop's platform, can use.
My department mostly uses Oracle VM VirtualBox for running virtual machines from the command line with Vagrant, and VirtualBox is free to use and available on several different platforms. We use virtual machines for all of our development because this enables us to more closely match the servers used in our production environment.
Pros
Works well with Vagrant.
Runs other operating systems as a virtual machine, like Windows or Linux.
Cons
Not the best user interface.
Not the best at running Windows in a VM.
Likelihood to Recommend
Oracle VM VirtualBox works great if you just need a simple virtual machine provider for use with Vagrant. It also works well if you need to run another operating system in a VM and you don't care too much about nice host OS integrations. Other VM software can get kind of expensive, and VirtualBox is a pretty good option if you don't want to spend any money. If you are looking for the best experience running Windows in a VM, then I would recommend looking elsewhere.
It is being used more at the department level than across the whole organization. It is really up to individual departments to decide if they want to use VirtualBox for managing VM's. It addresses the business problem of having a VM management all-in-one-solution that can manage most platforms in use today (e.g. Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc.) Some solutions don't offer support for most all platforms, or some are more problematic when it comes to managing the wide array of platforms out there.
Pros
One thing it does really well is the actual interface (home screen) of the management console. It is well laid out as far as showing you the VM's you have installed and giving information on each of those VM's (such as General information, System Information, etc.).
Another good feature of VirtualBox is it generally doesn't use a whole lot of system resources for the most part, and generally won't slow down a computer too much while it is in use.
Cons
One thing that could be worked on is improving how the program affects system resources when running multiple VM's at the same time. For the most part, running just 1 VM doesn't tax system resources too much, but if you run multiple VM's, you may experience system slowdowns or other performance issues.
Another improvement can be made in how VirtualBox detects the host system to determine whether the host is 32-bit or 64-bit. My experience was that the application came back saying my system didn't have a 64-bit processor, but in fact it did, and it was running the 64-bit OS.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is well suited for organizations that are looking for a low cost, or no cost, VM management solution. Some other commercial solutions can get quite expensive, but the best thing about VirtualBox is it's free. Also, it is well suited to environments that have a lot of different platforms (e.g. Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) running, or where users are all using different platforms
It is less suited in environments that want to have access to many different channels of support, such as phone, web, email. As an end-user, with VirtualBox, you pretty much have online/KB articles to refer to for help/support with the product, and also a Community forum for getting help/feedback from other users of VirtualBox.
VU
Verified User
Supervisor in Information Technology (Education Management company, 1001-5000 employees)
We currently use VirtualBox for both production and non-production environments. In production, it supports an application that is rarely used. In non-production, we use to extensively test applications and new software. Historically, I have found VirtualBox invaluable for any testing I can think of for I.T. matters. It has provided a safe environment that was affordable for extensive testing.
Pros
Cost
Ease of use
Ease of deployment
Innovation
Cons
Enterprise use in production environments
Support
Training
Likelihood to Recommend
VirtualBox is hands down the best option for test/non-production I.T. environments. It is trivial to install. From there, it is the easiest of any virtualization product when it comes to creating VMs. VirtualBox has always been simple and straightforward. If you encounter a problem, it's very easy to delete the VM and start all over again with minimal time lost.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (Higher Education company, 51-200 employees)
