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Cisco UCS B-Series vs Lenovo Flex System 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
Lenovo Flex System
Ranking in Blade Servers
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
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 Lenovo Flex System is 3.0%, down from 3.2% 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.
Syed  Ibrahim - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a high initial ceiling before upscaling is required, user-friendly and rich in resources, but has occasional stability issues
The solution should come with cloud native applications to prepare for cloud based solutions. Forced restarts due to free upgrades is an issue that needs to be resolved. We can manage this as we have high availability and redundancy, but without that it could be a real problem. The level of customer support needs to be improved. There is currently an issue with Lenovo switching out SAN switches from the chassis, which will cause problems for people who already have a set up with the SAN switch connected to the central storage. This could require an entirely different network, adding an additional cost for the user.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a very robust and reliable solution."
"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 solution's most valuable feature is KVM Launch Manager."
"The scalability is very good."
"If we could get more reference architecture available on the portal, it would be helpful in making decisions"
"The feature that I found the most value is the abstract and stateless capacities."
"Since its UCS release in 2009, Cisco has extended the core functionality with Central, a tool for managing multiple domains"
"The most valuable feature is the ability to replace a server with another one, simply by applying the profile"
"One of the most valuable features of this solution is its ease of use."
"The product is very user-friendly and has many resources at the enterprise level."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Flex System's best features are its performance and stability."
"It comes at a good price. We didn't face any problems with this product."
"The stability and speed are always good. The processor is good and it's still working with our loads."
"We use the solution as a compute model to run the compute load on servers."
"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system."
 

Cons

"It needs a better UI. Cisco makes a great product, but doesn't know how to make a UI."
"The graphic code that UCS can support is limited and less accessible than other systems."
"Integration with storage could be improved."
"The initial setup is not easy."
"Its scalability could be better."
"The product pricing needs improvement."
"There is a delay in the product's reporting and the rebooting system compared to servers from other vendors."
"The price of the solution could improve."
"The solution could improve by providing more integration with other platforms."
"Flex System's integration with the XClarity Management System could be improved."
"The user-interface needs improvement, because they have an application from which we have to manage the whole system and all the infrastructure. This application is not working at our premises, because of some problem with the hardware itself. So although we brought it with our systems, and we used it to manage all the systems: the storage, the switches, and everything, nevertheless we have to support every part alone and enter the interface in one-by-one."
"It does not have the same module flexibility that was present in IBM Blade. On the Blade System, I was able to choose between the Cisco module, or BMC module. Since the switch to Lenovo, I have not had the same choice of modules, only the BMC modules."
"Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo."
"The solution's firmware and driver upgrades are a bit difficult."
"I had some difficulties with the initial setup."
"The product could improve its integration capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of this solution compared to others is fair."
"UCS is expensive, and we will be migrating to the cheaper HP servers."
"The pricing for Cisco is less than for the HP Proliant series."
"The product cost is high."
"The pricing for Cisco products is always high."
"The licensing cost is a little bit expensive because by default, it depends on your fabric interconnect model. Most of the time, however, Cisco provides a lot of promotions to the customers, so the cost can be waived for many projects. The price of the chassis itself is fair."
"Make sure you work with a vendor partner than can get you a substantial discount off of list pricing."
"It is not a yearly subscription but a yearly support renewal that you need to do for Cisco UCS B-Series."
"The 14 blade server allows significant room for upscaling before having to invest in another chassis. You would have to purchase another chassis much sooner in the case of an eight or nine blade server."
"The price is interesting. I am able to quote a client based on their needs and offer them either Lenovo or Dell."
"We are just paying the operational cost, which is not much."
"The is an annual license cost to use the Lenovo Flex System. If the price was less expensive and flexible overall and for additional features, our customers would be happier."
"We have the whole maintenance for the 3 years, starting the deployment. We also have the VMware license for 3 years and I think we have another license to buy. There are no additional costs besides licensing."
"There is a one-off payment to buy the equipment and the support is purchased annually."
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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
20%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Government
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
6%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lenovo Flex System?
Compared to its quality, the pricing is very reasonable and represents good value.
What needs improvement with Lenovo Flex System?
Continuing the production of this product is necessary. It is currently out of support, and we are seeking support from other sources besides Lenovo.
What is your primary use case for Lenovo Flex System?
We are using Lenovo Flex System on the server for our VMware environment, which includes our VMs and all our servers, Linux and Windows. It manages the daily operation efficiently.
 

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
Flex System Blade Servers, Flex System SN Series
 

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