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Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE BladeSystem 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
HPE BladeSystem
Ranking in Blade Servers
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
137
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 HPE BladeSystem is 13.5%, down from 18.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Blade Servers
 

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.
JuanDuque - PeerSpot reviewer
Very reliable, expands well, and is pretty simple to set up
It is very straightforward to set up. It's not complex. The length of deployment depends on the way that you configure the Blades. For example, if you're going to work with VMware, the time could be at least 25 to 30 minutes. It is not going to depend on the BladeSystem; it is going to depend on the time of the operate system deployed. The number of people you need for maintenance depends on the monitoring system that you have. For example, if you have a good monitoring system for this platform you're going to need less than ten specialists, but if you don't have a monitoring system to check the platform, probably you're going to need more than ten people.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has the ability to reuse or divide the networking, making it a flexible networking environment."
"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 most valuable feature is the service profile."
"The architecture of this solution is very valuable; it has five traffic interconnects, and uses a network highway so bandwidth is never an issue."
"The most beneficial feature is UCS Manager. It's the best way to manage hardware, creating group policies, like scrub policies and maintenance policies."
"The Dashboard is quite impressive and is, so far, the best based on my experience."
"The initial setup is simple, and not very complex."
"I can connect Cisco UCS B-Series to multiple chassis and rack servers using a unified platform, then manage them on a single console."
"The solution uses a smaller space in our data centers. It uses less feeder and network cable, which reduces costs."
"Remote management features are valuable."
"With just one cable, for redundancy let's say two, you can feed sixteen servers in a single c7000 chassis."
"Basically, in a cluster, it works really nicely, especially within a cluster environment. Also, it's easily configurable."
"For me, the most valuable features are integration and simple defining."
"It also has a pretty solid design and management."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the ease of management with the hardware."
"HPE BladeSystem is a scalable solution. It is a composable infrastructure which we can manage our external services. This is the one factor which I can see the server is much more suitable for the OneView console."
 

Cons

"There are some shortcomings in the product when you look at it from the perspective of the area involving multiple configurations, making it an aspect where improvements are required."
"HTML5 interface is a much needed improvement over the old Java interface, but still needs a little work."
"The solution’s technical support could be better."
"There are patches that cannot be implemented without any downtime or reboot required."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved and made cheaper."
"The initial setup process is complex."
"The pricing could be less."
"There is a delay in the product's reporting and the rebooting system compared to servers from other vendors."
"HPE BladeSystem can improve proactive monitoring."
"It would be nice if the solution were cheaper."
"Currently, in the case of a disk failure there is a need to remove the whole bay and as a result, to disconnect all the other disks."
"HPE has a replacement system called Synergy, though it’s a more high-end system than the old C7000."
"They are not selling BladeSystem anymore. The end of the sale of this platform was this year, 2020."
"I would like to see the upgrade path a little bit smoother."
"It may be coming to its end of life."
"I would prefer to have changes in the compatibility of the blade servers with the new ones designed by HPE, as the top team's version does not have it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Considering our market, I rate the pricing of Cisco UCS B-Series as a six."
"The cost of the Cisco UCS B-Series is comparable to HP solutions but higher than Dell solutions."
"We have to pay a monthly licensing fee for the solution."
"The price of this solution compared to others is fair."
"Pricing with Cisco is very high."
"UCS is expensive, and we will be migrating to the cheaper HP servers."
"It makes much more sense for individual licenses for distributed environments"
"It is not a yearly subscription but a yearly support renewal that you need to do for Cisco UCS B-Series."
"The prices for the HPE Virtual Connect Modules are expensive compared to other I/O Modules available."
"When you purchase HPE BladeSystem you have to pay for the support service. The first three years are covered under the warranty, and for any further support, you have to pay annually. When comparing the cost of HPE BladeSystem to other vendors, the fees are less expensive."
"Regarding the cost, HPE BladeSystem is not cheap. The solution and its support are costly, and there are challenges with renewal and pricing, especially in Nigeria, due to the dollar rate and FX issues. However, it is reliable. I don't have specific figures for licensing costs, as the procurement and finance departments handle them."
"Its pricing was good. We selected this solution because it was within our budget. We paid just once when we bought it. We never bought any license."
"The price for HPE BladeSystem can vary between $100,000 to $1 million or above. The price can be high."
"We have been satisfied with the price. However, there are additional costs for support."
"The licensing is on an annual basis."
"The HPE BladeSystem is an expensive solution."
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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
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

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.
How would you choose between HPE's Bladesystem and Synergy?
For me, choosing between HPE’s Bladesystem and Synergy came down to which solution was more powerful, reliable, and stable. It turns out Bladesystem was the winner. Bladesystem is excellent because...
What do you like most about HPE BladeSystem?
The solution is scalable, offering flexibility and expansion options to meet changing business needs.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE BladeSystem?
We paid approximately 60,000 Saudi Riyals per year for support from HPE, equivalent to $15,000 USD. However, some years, we did not utilize their support services.
 

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
HP ProLiant BL Series Servers, HP ProLiant BladeSystem
 

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
EMIS Health
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. HPE BladeSystem and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.