Cisco UCS B-Series Other Advice
PK
PankajKumar19
Data Center SME at Orange España
My recommendation and advice in this matter totally depend upon the requirement and the nature of the business.
For example, in the banking sector, with a heavy data workload on the premises and a need for high availability, I would definitely recommend Cisco for an on-premises environment. I might have the option with Dell, but I would compare Dell and Cisco.
Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten because the hardware is much more robust. But they have not expanded as per the user requirement. Firstly, it should be more user-friendly. Secondly, it should move to automation from the user's manager's point of view. It should be more user-friendly, and deployment should be easily done through automation.
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Olalowo Olaleye
Senior VMware\Cloud Solutions Engineering Consultant · at Shell
I rate this solution a ten out of ten. I recommend the solution to others because they will gain from using it, and it is very reliable.
Rishabh_Jain
Senior Member Of Technical Staff at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Cisco UCS B-Series at eight.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
Cisco UCS B-Series
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cisco UCS B-Series. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Prasanth Kailasam
Senior Client Manager at GBM
Speaking about how the tool can improve computing efficiency in data centers, I feel that, ultimately, there are other kinds of hardware or servers that Cisco provides. From a management perspective, certain aspects can be incorporated to help users understand their current standing. It would be good if certain larger configurations could also be made suitable for the tool to suit the needs of multiple customer bases.
For virtualization needs, the product works well. I have dealt with certain virtualization environments using - Cisco UCS B-Series. As of now, the tool is fine. Cisco UCS B-Series recently got registered with Nutanix, one of the market's HCI platforms. Nutanix can run on Cisco. Cisco UCS B-Series' direction is right. I don't think any further improvement is required in the tool right now.
The integration capabilities of the product are okay. I haven't seen any challenges when installing the tool in an environment. I think that the tool supports multiple hypervisors.
Speaking about the feature that has improved our company's data center operation, I would say that the Cisco brand name provides our organization with the benefits we need from the product. I believe that manageability is one crucial aspect of the tool, considering that it is pretty easy to manage. Performance-wise, some improvements have been introduced in Cisco UCS B-Series.
Whenever somebody evaluates and goes ahead with some traditional setup in their environment, along with HP and Dell, they can also consider Cisco as a part of it because it has become more cost-effective and competitive presently. Networking-wise, the tool is pretty strong, and it operates as a brand that actually helps with the support offered to customers. The support offered by Cisco adds a lot of confidence for the clients.
I feel that Cisco is doing a lot of innovation in order to offer scalability and flexibility to adopt future technologies. I believe Cisco users might see a lot more solutions that get introduced in the market that might become more and more compatible with many products in the future. In the future, I think that users will see AI and other related aspects run pretty well in a Cisco environment.
I would say that the benefits and value of the use of the product stem from the brand name attached to Cisco products. Cisco's support when you use Cisco UCS B-Series is good. In the networking space, Cisco has been a leader for a very long time, and the same kind of credibility is what you can expect when you consider Cisco UCS B-Series.
Considering the availability of the products from competitors, I rate the tool a seven out of ten.
Filip Kopecký
Chief Technology Officer at HOPI HOLDING a.s.
We have a team of around 50 people to deploy and maintain the solution. I would recommend the solution to other users.
Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.
Mahmoud Elsayed
Senior Solution Architect at Zak Solution
It integrates with all other solutions, including building and internal solutions.
Overall, I rate the solution nine out of ten.
Muhammad Alihyder Bhuiyan
Head of IT Operations at NCC Bank PLC
Cisco UCS B-Series enables easy integration with existing infrastructure. The deployment process is well organized, including the basic foundation and design.
It has very good management capabilities. Integrating iOS and firmware management and comprehensive inventory tracking allows us to check and log the information through a single dashboard. There is no need to purchase any external software for insights.
It is a good solution. I rate it an eight out of ten.
View full review »
JohnDeavers
Senior Solutions Architect at ePlus Technology
New users need to definitely understand how the UCF manager works. They need to understand InterSites, fabric interconnects, and how everything connects both up links to the northbound core switches and make sure all the connectivity is correct.
Connectivity is a big issue. If you don't have the right connectivity configured specifically for the UCS manager with the FIs and also the fabric modules coming off the chassis, there will be a lot of issues. I've seen a lot of attack-related issues going forward. Users need to make sure that they have everything configured correctly.
I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.
View full review »
Javed Koor
VMware Administrator L3 Support at Diyar United Company
I give the solution a ten out of ten.
We have four people that use the solution and one person who is primarily responsible for any related UCS.
View full review »
Ehsan Emad
Head of IT at Synnapex
On a scale from one to ten, I would rate this solution at ten.
View full review »KE
KareemEzzat
Cyber Security Analyst at Petrotrade
In terms of the ability of the product to improve our company's data center's computing efficiency, I feel that it is a very good solution for me right now, especially in areas like production and workflow. I am very satisfied with the product.
I think that every product from Dell, Cisco, HPE, or any other vendor can be well-integrated with the solutions in any infrastructure.
The most valuable feature of the product for workload optimization stems from the fact that I use the many dashboards offered by the tool. With the tool, I have many separate dashboards. I don't have just one in the dashboard where I can see the integration and take care of the management.
To others who plan to use the product, I can say that Cisco UCS B-Series can be good for networking but very bad with the security part.
In terms of the flexibility of the tool to adapt to technology needs, I think it is a very good solution. I can recommend the solution to others who plan to use it. Cisco doesn't need any recommendations from my end because it is the backbone of the networking infrastructure throughout the world, and it is currently present in 70 percent of the market share.
I rate the tool a ten out of ten.
HN
Hoang Quan Nguyen
Infrastructure Integration Analyst at a government with 10,001+ employees
Overall, this is an excellent product.
View full review »
Taha Yegenler
Application Programmer at Turkish Airlines
We use Cisco because of its VPN. I will recommend the product to others. It is easy to use and easy to connect. Overall, I rate the solution an eight or nine out of ten.
View full review »SB
reviewer1199268
Sr. Network Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
I haven't had experience with others series, like the C-Series. I hope they are good but so far, after three, four years, this has been good and we haven't had any issues.
I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.
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RajPrakash
Associate Project Manager at MSSL
I give the solution a nine out of ten.
Around ten administrators are required to manage the solution.
I recommend the solution to others because it has good performance and is highly stable with little downtime.
View full review »FA
Fred Armantrout
Senior System Specialist at Burns & McDonnell
Look closely at your needs.
- Do you need more computing power and memory or storage expansion possibility?
- Do you need redundancy in installation sites HA/DRS?
- If you do HA/DRS, does it need to be near real-time disk writes, or more managed recovery/failover?
HK
Himanshu-Kumar
Associate Engineer at Quess GTS
This is a product that I recommend. If somebody instead chooses to implement a Dell, then they will have a converged system or will be using NetApp. This is much more complex than setting up a hyperconverged system.
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
View full review »MM
Mohamed Mourshedy
IT infrastructure at Halcon
Cisco makes it possible for its users to work with the new series of its products, which is Cisco's M6 series blade servers, and Cisco also allows for a lot of enhancements to be made. It is a fine solution for big customers.
Considering the multiple use cases for which the solution can be used, others who plan to use it can consider purchasing and deploying it.
I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
Mohsin-Raza
Manager Data Center & Services at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
I rate the solution a nine out of ten because it is a tricky piece of equipment with state-of-the-art technology, reliable parts, good stability, and robust features. When you need to compute, it will provide you with speed. However, the solution can be improved by simplifying the configuration.
David Fartouk
CTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Cisco UCS B-Series is part of our VMware environment. The Unified Architecture is one of the unique features of the solution that is very usable for us. With the feature, we can immediately understand that we need to configure a separate environment and easily configure networking to allow us to distribute the environment.
The solution is deployed on-premises, but it's managed by the cloud environment. The solution’s maintenance is done by one person. I would recommend the solution to other users.
Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
it_user68991
Manager of Engineering with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cisco UCS changed the server blade game, converging network and compute into a single profile-based platform. Now with HCI, Cisco is converging storage into UCS as well. I recommend getting in contact with Cisco and one of their channel partners for a whiteboard session, design conversation and potential proof-of-concept. This worked well for me in the past. I have since been capable of designing and implementing Cisco UCS environments without aid from external resources, only asking for design validations.
View full review »ST
Sotiris Tomopoulos
Presales Solutions Architect at Intracom Telecom
Cisco is compatible with Mac and Dell. Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
View full review »SP
reviewer1803549
Senior Technical Consultant at a engineering company with 10,001+ employees
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
View full review »RO
reviewer1414053
Senior Principal Systems Engineer at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Advice that I might want to give to someone considering the product is that I would say they really have to know their own use case to determine whether UCS is applicable as a solution for what they need. The B-Series is really meant for data center deployment. I would not propose or suggest it for small or medium enterprises simply because the initial investment is quite high. You need to get a server interconnection if you get a chance. And if you are not looking to potentially deploy a large number of servers in the near future, then B-series is really not necessary — it is overkill.
On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate the product as a nine-out-of-ten.
To make it 10, the user-friendliness needs to be improved. Right now the user experience really detracts from the technical abilities of the product. The users need to have too much technical know-how. Cisco should make administration much easier and more straight forward. Maybe there could be some automation and translation of all the operations so that the user does not have to be so technically adept to operate it.
SM
Sreevatsa M
Systems Administrator at Diyar United Company
I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
It should have KVM connectivity similar to Dell and HP. Also, HP has a storage blade that helps connect monitors in case of network issues. We can plug in and access the keyboard and mouse to start with the task. It is not possible with Cisco Infrastructure.
View full review »DR
Dhruba Roy
Sr. Information Officer at Merino Industries Ltd (Merino Group)
We plan to upgrade the Cisco UCS B-Series in 2024.
I recommend this solution to others.
I rate Cisco UCS B-Series a ten out of ten.
View full review »
BOUMAIZA Aymen
Infrastructure Consultant at Adactim
Overall, this Cisco Blade is really good. My advice for anybody who is implementing this solution is to purchase the support agreement.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
View full review »RS
Ricky Santos
System Administrator at ON Semiconductor Phils. Inc.
Right now we haven't encountered any issues on our system that could result in our KPI being impacted.
View full review »BW
Bob Whitcombe
Technical Sales Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
The biggest issue is automation. How to move the mundane tasks from people to machines; alert filters to improve management productivity and reduce overhead. Cisco is deploying a suite of products (Central, Director, Performance Manager, etc.), as are IBM, HP and even Dell. However, UCS manger provides such a robust base that the ability to scale and realize benefits is greater.
At the end of the day, the UCS product requires planning before just jumping in, due to its ability to scale. As a user, you need to evaluate naming conventions, IP addressing models and so forth – think about the entire enterprise as opposed to a single server or rack of servers.
Use very good hardware and innovative network elements, such as the VIC 10Gb cards that allow for traffic sequestration and partitioning across multiple virtual channels in a single link and of course UCS Manager. I actually have the patent on similar IP when we started blade server systems with an acquisition by Intel. The direct spin-off was the IBM Blade Center, but due to the IBM investment in Tivoli, they never used our central management system. Cisco took a network- vs compute-centric perspective as they embarked on their server designs and, with a clean sheet of paper, evolved a centralized manager for deployment and systems management that enables huge scales in management productivity.
View full review »David Fartouk
CTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
We're a customer and an end-user.
Our current version is an older version. Right now, we are considering replacing it with the newest one.
I'd recommend the solution to other users and companies. We've been pretty happy with it overall.
I would rate it at a nine out of ten.
View full review »it_user901308
Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
My advice to a colleague looking at this or a similar solution would be to test it. When we started, Cisco UCS was the first solution on the market and the only one that provided certain capabilities hardware-wise. It was the one with the most cores per CPU and it was the one with the most memory per blade server. Of course, now there are other vendors in the market. If I were to start the search process right now, I would consider Cisco UCS, but also other vendors like Dell and HPE, which are making new blade servers. They are coming up with different solutions and are catching up to the market. Until there is something really new on the market, like UCS had when they started, UCS is facing some competition.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten. Two points go to the UI, which is lacking. Also, the way you can actually switch from one system to another doesn't allow for the easy transfer of all of the server definitions.
SM
SilaMAY
Head Of IT Infrastructure and Support at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
I wanted to try out Cisco products because most of the big industries use them such as banks, IT, and telecommunications. Cisco itself produced the server and at the time I researched more about Cisco and then I want to try it. This is why I invested in a tool from Cisco. Additionally, I plan to implement level IP2, HyperFlex soon.
I would recommend this solution for the financial sector and big industry enterprise companies that can invest with Cisco long-term. The scalability, high availability, and security all combined is a good offering.
I rate Cisco UCS B-Series a nine out of ten.
AR
ARAVIND RANGA
VMware Administrator at a consumer goods company with 1,001-5,000 employees
I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
View full review »it_user333597
System Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
JL
reviewer2200413
System Administrator
I would rate the product a seven out of ten. We have two administrators for the product. The tool is a good product but maintenance is not easy.
View full review »MJ
Mikael Jensen
Sr. Operations Engineer at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
If there are other organizations considering the solution, I'd strongly advise that they get training on the management side. It's very important to do this in order to successfully implement and use the product.
On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate this solution at a seven. It's good, however, it could use a simpler management structure. Cheaper licensing would go a long way as well. The UCS isn't the expensive part. It's more the Microsoft and VMware and the cost of running that.
View full review »JD
Juan Dominguez
Senior Solutions Architect & Consultant at ZAG Technical Services
Find a local Cisco UCS Partner that has a lot of experience setting up Cisco UCS. It does require some infrastructure knowledge for northbound connectivity outside the UCS blade server system and has to be well thought out in terms of how it will integrate into your existing infrastructure. Other than this caveat, the UCS System is easy to install, setup and configure once you have it in your possession.
Our relationship has grown stronger with Cisco due to our own internal decisions to encompass the Cisco hardware where and if at all possible. Our decision to use, sell and deploy Cisco UCS is solely due to all the reasons I’ve already mentioned plus more. Cisco has surely outdone the competition here on this one.
View full review »it_user164016
Works at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) provides unified, embedded management of all software and hardware components in the Cisco UCS. It is scalable and it controls multiple chassis and manages resources for thousands of virtual machines.
View full review »BB
SrEngineer672
Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
These are good servers for SAN environments, I think their Disks (RAID) need a lot of improvement before you consider them as a storage server.
View full review »KW
reviewer2234919
Senior Infrastructure and Storage Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
It is a good tool. I would rate it a nine out of ten.
View full review »AH
ArashHaghighifard
Team leader at Dana energy
Cisco is a huge company that can support a lot of services and has the most powerful website, which means its systems are the most stable. I would advise potential customers to use and enjoy it because it is the greatest experience. I would give this solution a score of ten out of ten.
View full review »AP
AMADO PLATA
IT Infrastructure Manager at a tech company with 11-50 employees
Before you buy infrastructure like this, I would recommend some training. It'll help to get really good training in infrastructure management. For example, in my case, a quick overview when I started to manage the infrastructure definitely helped. It's very hard because at the beginning you are a little lost. The infrastructure is easy to manage, but it would be better if you take time before you install the infrastructure to learn more.
On a scale from one to ten, I would give Cisco UCS B-Series a nine.
View full review »
Neeraj Mehra
Manager of Solutions and Support at Esconet Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
Our customers are very happy people.
View full review »it_user287739
Data Center Practice Manager at The Plow Group
Do it and don’t look back. Just make sure you get strong in-house knowledge of UCS early on, unless you are willing to outsource UCS support to an MSP. It is easily learnable, but there is a bit of a curve to support the overall UCS infrastructure at the start.
View full review »MS
reviewer909156
VMware Software Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
We use both cloud and on-premises deployment models.
I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.
I'd recommend the solution to other users and other organizations.
View full review »DA
Daniel Aramayo
Implementation and Support Engineer at PRACSO S.R.L.
We're a Cisco partner.
We are dealing with the latest version of the solution. I can't speak to the exact version number.
I can recommend the solution wholeheartedly to other organizations. I would really recommend it due to the fact that it's a really stable technology. Also, it can produce a return on investment for organizations as well.
On a scale from one to ten, I'd rate the product at an eight. We've largely been quite pleased with its capabilities.
View full review »it_user413451
Infrastructure Consultant at a tech consulting company with 501-1,000 employees
Training, training, training and planning, planning, planning!
View full review »it_user326826
Cyber Security System Architect at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
You need to have at least a basic understanding of the product concept and architecture variations in order to better understand use cases and ROI estimation in order to get the initial sizing right, and create the right scaling plan.
View full review »it_user683436
Data Center Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Cisco UCS is a fantastic product that is widely deployed with excellent support. Additionally, Cisco has developed CVD’s (Cisco Validated Designs) that assist partners and customers to properly deploy Cisco UCS with most major storage vendors. CVD’s are highly detailed deployment guides which are comprehensively tested by Cisco to ensure quick, highly reliable and predictable deployments.
View full review »it_user331449
Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Get a qualified vendor to help you go through the process, and take some training to get familiar with how things work together.
View full review »SS
reviewer1365930
Network Security Manager at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees
My advice for anybody who is considering Cisco UCS is that if it's within your budget, I recommend it because they are popular in the market and it is easy to find experts.
Overall, this is a good product.
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
View full review »it_user1020
Head of Data Center at a tech company with 51-200 employees
Choosing the right partner for implementing the system is also critical. They must be knowledgeable in implementing the Cisco UCS system as its a very complicated system to set-up. The implementation must also include a system administrators training so that company administrators can manage the system after configuration and deployment.
View full review »
WK
reviewer1390341
IT Infrastructure Engineer at a government with 5,001-10,000 employees
I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
View full review »it_user229368
Sr. Network Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
This is a complete solution with FI.
View full review »it_user402516
System Engineer at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Get help from Cisco Support.
View full review »JC
reviewer1790682
GM at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
I rate Cisco UCS B-Series an eight out of ten.
View full review »CC
technica379896
Technical Head at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
We used a Versa Stack solution so compute and storage was a breeze once setup was done.
View full review »Buyer's Guide
Cisco UCS B-Series
April 2024
Learn what your peers think about Cisco UCS B-Series. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: April 2024.
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Cisco UCS B-Series Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Updated: April 2024
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