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Cisco UCS B-Series vs Dell PowerEdge M comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
6.4
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Dell PowerEdge M
Ranking in Blade Servers
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.3%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Dell PowerEdge M is 19.3%, up from 17.2% 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

"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easily scalable."
"The Dashboard is quite impressive and is, so far, the best based on my experience."
"The solution is very unified and the technical team is very supportive, no help is needed from outside vendors."
"Stateless Blade is the best feature."
"The most valuable feature that the B-Series has is related to the structure and architecture of the solution because in these solutions, you are using fabric interconnect as an interconnect device. The beauty of fabric interconnect is that it can work as in-house mode."
"The initial setup is pretty simple and straightforward."
"The solution has the ability to reuse or divide the networking, making it a flexible networking environment."
"The biggest advantage of PowerEdge is that it is cost-effective, and its performance and infrastructure are much better than other competitors like Lenovo and HP."
"The installation is easy."
"The most valuable feature of Dell PowerEdge M is iDRAC."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its interface."
"It allows us to consolidate our infrastructure very efficiently, enabling us to deploy eight servers in a seven-unit density."
"The solution integrated well."
"It is easy to manage by an administrator and we can spend valuable time on other IT issues."
"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."
 

Cons

"Cisco UCS B-Series competitors have similar features as they do, Cisco needs to make some changes to make their offering better."
"The monitoring features and integration with other products can be improved."
"The initial setup process is complex."
"Compared to the deployment of servers such as Dell XCDs, the deployment of UCS servers is more complex. They take longer to deploy."
"The aggregation in the data center is beneficial."
"This product uses a converged network adapter because it is the only way to provide flexibility with both fiber and ethernet connections."
"Dell should address the issue of direct support and spare parts availability in our region."
"It needs a better UI. Cisco makes a great product, but doesn't know how to make a UI."
"Dell support should be faster."
"The last year, we experienced problems with support, as Dell decreased staff in Latin America, impacting support quality."
"It requires time to transition to the new generation."
"I would like to have additional HPC and AI capabilities on general Dell PowerEdge servers."
"There is room for improvement in scalability."
"The set up is complex"
"There is no specific feedback on improvements directly from our usage."
"We have had some issues with the vendor's support that we have received. When you open up a support case with Dell they send a partner to assist you and in our experience, they are lacking knowledge about the solution. There are times when you need professional support from the vendor that knows the solution well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a premium device and our clients are not as concerned about the reasonableness of the price compared to satisfaction with their productivity."
"It is not a yearly subscription but a yearly support renewal that you need to do for Cisco UCS B-Series."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is not a cheap solution."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is an expensive solution."
"The pricing for Cisco is less than for the HP Proliant series."
"The cost of the Cisco UCS B-Series is comparable to HP solutions but higher than Dell solutions."
"A physical licensing fees needs to be paid."
"The price of this solution compared to others is fair."
"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."
"If we would not have gone with the vendor we might have been charged unnecessarily for packages we did not need."
"The solution's pricing is slightly higher."
"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."
"I know we get three years basic, and the on-site licensing model for business seems fine. I wouldn't pay for a support plus or anything."
"The pricing of PowerEdge Next is higher than it was before."
"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."
"It was budget friendly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
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
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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.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.