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Cisco UCS B-Series vs HPE Synergy 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
HPE Synergy
Ranking in Blade Servers
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
Composable Infrastructure (1st)
 

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 HPE Synergy is 22.0%, up from 22.1% 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.
CarlosArdila - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps grow horizontally or vertically within one box or chassis
The initial setup is very easy. We deployed this in two days, including installation, system setup, firmware upgrades, configuration, and network connection. By the next day, we were already deploying virtual machines. We initially began with the Blade system. As the migration to SAP HANA approached, it seemed prudent to upgrade our hardware. Consequently, we facilitated their transition from the Blade system to Synergy. Subsequently, we collaborated closely with the SAP consultancy company to oversee the migration process, ensuring seamless integration of all workloads and sub-environments. We have four people working on the deployment, including a project manager, two specialists, and one tech support.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I like that the hardware is separated from the software definition of the components."
"The most valuable feature is definitely the service profile."
"The hardware is easily swappable and, utilizing the boot from SAN option, you can always keep your server intact due to the service profiles."
"The most valuable feature is the service profile."
"The platform has valuable features for management and good monitoring tools. It provides efficient insights."
"The Boot from SAN function is good because using OTV, we can boot the device from any remote location."
"From a return on investment perspective, Cisco UCS B-Series is worth the money."
"The most beneficial feature is UCS Manager. It's the best way to manage hardware, creating group policies, like scrub policies and maintenance policies."
"I love the satellite architecture for the Virtual Connect. I think this is great. I love the storage drawer, which you can present volumes to any compute node within the same frame."
"The initial setup is fine."
"Ability to easily re-utilize parts of the hardware for different purposes."
"The stability of the solution is very reliable."
"The solution has decreased the deployment time for a new blade, saving us three hours."
"I like that it's suitable for virtualization. It's also stable and scalable. The newer version has a lot of memory, and you don't have to worry about updates."
"The most valuable features are the evolution of our existing HPE portfolio, the integration with our existing tool sets, and the enhanced capabilities that OneView bring."
"Changing the form factor in Synergy allows us to have more RAM, which is significantly helpful for us."
 

Cons

"For future improvements, it would be a benefit if the solution could integrate better with products such as Oracle."
"The license is expensive. Cisco should decrease the delay in the delivery of their products."
"The cost is expensive and has room for improvement."
"Next generation support for VMware needs to be introduced as it does not support eighth-generation VMware."
"The graphic code that UCS can support is limited and less accessible than other systems."
"Despite the benefits gained from the product implementation, the cost could be more appealing if the overall cost of ownership were reduced."
"The initial setup process is complex."
"Dell should address the issue of direct support and spare parts availability in our region."
"I would definitely like to see them fix the firmware updates on all the blades. No matter what operating system it is running on, make sure I can do the firmware as well as the software for those firmware components at the same time. I don't want to have to rely on an external product. Let's bring that product inside the menu so that I have a better experience with updates."
"We haven't seen any ROI, and it hasn't reduced our cost of operations."
"The profiles aren't so easy to work with."
"The only good thing is that they have some powerful machines that you can use, such as the latest generations of HPE Compute that you can use."
"We'd like to see faster networking in the back-end."
"The deployment time of a system through OneView is pretty slow, but apparently that's being addressed in an upcoming update."
"After delivering the contract, they became a little less active. So, it needs some pushing from my side sometimes."
"The installation and initial setup process is complex and needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to the more in-demand hyper-converged environments such as Nutanix or DVX rail, Cisco UCS B-Series is even more costly due to the expensive fabric interconnects."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is not a cheap solution."
"The pricing for Cisco is less than for the HP Proliant series."
"Make sure you work with a vendor partner than can get you a substantial discount off of list pricing."
"The product cost is high."
"The pricing for Cisco products is always high."
"Pricing with Cisco is very high."
"The price of this solution compared to others is fair."
"We outright purchased Synergy."
"For temporal use, when you throw on the fact that you're essentially doubling your capacity, right there you could claim a 50 percent TCO reduction."
"The hardware licensing cost is reasonable."
"The price point is a little high. We were able to get a good deal on a promotion, to go with it. It would be nice to see the prices come down a little bit."
"We have already paid once. It is just the price for the permit and its use. It seems you don't have to keep paying for it, but I am not sure."
"The platform that we run Synergy on is all virtualized. Our primary cost is likely VMware."
"There was at least about a 20 percent savings in cost over our purchase based on the purchase price of the compute modules themselves versus what we've had to pay before. It was significantly less."
"We don't have to pay for Synergy because it's part of our plan."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
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.
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 Synergy?
It is a good product for hypervisors.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?
The pricing is relatively high compared to Cisco servers. However, due to the volume of my purchases, I get good discounts.
 

Also Known As

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

Learn More

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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
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. HPE Synergy and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.