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Cisco UCS B-Series vs Dell PowerEdge M comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 3, 2025

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 UCS B-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerEdge M
Ranking in Blade Servers
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.3%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge M is 19.0%, up from 17.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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Featured Reviews

Prasanth Kailasam - PeerSpot reviewer
Supports multiple hypervisors but needs to improve in the area of configuration
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.
JohnDeavers - PeerSpot reviewer
Average pricing and good feature sets but is complex to set up
We use the solution for hyper-converged infrastructures with VMware and physical/virtual SQL solutions.  Both Dell and Cisco would be data center modernization. We're modernizing from a three-tier to a single infrastructure.  The enterprise manager feature sets are great. It's great for managing…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's modular."
"The stability provided by the product is its most valuable feature for our organization."
"Dell has a huge portfolio of products."
"Great security and functionality."
"It is less time-consuming to deploy the software."
"The initial setup is simple, and not very complex."
"The GUI makes is simple to use and deploy."
"The most valuable features of the Cisco UCS B-Series are reports for virtualization and the large memory it has."
"It's great for managing overall infrastructure."
"PowerEdge has high functionality, especially for automation on the firmware, which allows us to receive alerts for issues."
"The solution is made with high-quality hardware."
"The server is more common for the mass market and although it is nothing special, what stands out is the good after-sales service provided."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It allows us to consolidate our infrastructure very efficiently, enabling us to deploy eight servers in a seven-unit density."
"The solution integrated well."
"The networking features for administration and working with the server are valuable."
 

Cons

"Integration with storage could be improved."
"The initial setup and service profile deployment can be tricky and should be improved for ease of use."
"There are patches that cannot be implemented without any downtime or reboot required."
"The main issue with this solution is that it is quite vendor-restricted, meaning that when we use third party software, we cannot use all of the available configuration tools or pre-validated design features."
"The price of the solution could improve."
"There is a delay in the product's reporting and the rebooting system compared to servers from other vendors."
"The solution is difficult to set up."
"This product uses a converged network adapter because it is the only way to provide flexibility with both fiber and ethernet connections."
"Dell PowerEdge M needs to run AMD CPUs on it."
"There is room for improvement in scalability."
"The set up is complex"
"In terms of improvement, it should also offer a hyper-converged option."
"It requires time to transition to the new generation."
"The costing could be improved as it is somewhat expensive."
"One area for improvement is VLAN configuration."
"Dell support should be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for Cisco is less than for the HP Proliant series."
"It is highly-priced."
"The product cost is high."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is an expensive solution."
"Pricing with Cisco is very high."
"It is expensive."
"This is a premium device and our clients are not as concerned about the reasonableness of the price compared to satisfaction with their productivity."
"We have to pay a monthly licensing fee for the solution."
"The solution's pricing is slightly higher."
"The cost varies significantly depending on the server's configuration and can range from $10,000 to $60,000 for the same server line family."
"The product is budget-friendly. The initial cost for each server was around 10,000 euros. It's a standard price, not too high or too low."
"It was budget friendly."
"Dell PowerEdge M price is comparable to other solutions but cheaper than IBM. However, the IBM solution is a higher grade solution whereas Dell PowerEdge M is a medium-level solution."
"The pricing of PowerEdge Next is higher than it was before."
"If we would not have gone with the vendor we might have been charged unnecessarily for packages we did not need."
"The product is neither expensive nor cheap. It is manageable for medium enterprises as well."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Computer Software Company
15%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS B-Series?
The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easily scalable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS B-Series?
The pricing is competitive. While the UCS price was high before, it is more competitive now.
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?
If we could get more reference architecture available on the portal, it would be helpful in making decisions. Also, the content should be more extensive, especially technical content.
What do you like most about Dell PowerEdge M?
The solution's most valuable features are centralized monitoring and management and the ease of upgrading firmware.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Dell PowerEdge M?
The cost of Dell is reasonable. Dell is not expensive compared to HP. It is a little cheaper, but customers still prefer HP.
What needs improvement with Dell PowerEdge M?
I do not know if I can comment about the tool itself since I do not have much experience with Dell. I work mostly with HP and only sometimes with Dell. I cannot say where improvement is needed. Del...
 

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Anonymous Banking Group, Artoni Transporti, Bellevue, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Hertz, Houston Methodist, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Lufthansa Systems GmbH & Co.KG, Outscale, Sony Corporation, Talbots
Newport City Homes, Neuroblastoma and Medulloblastoma Translational Research Consortium (NMTRC), Georgian College, AgreeYa Solutions, IIHT Cloud Solutions, Arizona State University, AudienceScience, University of the Incarnate Word (UIW), The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), Holy Cross School
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Dell PowerEdge M and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.