Cisco UCS B-Series vs Lenovo Flex System comparison

"Some of the features I like from this solution are it has a fast configuration, it is not complex, and has high availability."

"The Dashboard is quite impressive and is, so far, the best based on my experience."

"The scalability is very good."

"Cisco UCS B-Series is scalable."

"Great security and functionality."

"The stability provided by the product is its most valuable feature for our organization."

"The solution is very unified and the technical team is very supportive, no help is needed from outside vendors."

"The solution is stable...The solution is scalable."

"The functionality is reliable and requires minimal support."

"We use the solution as a compute model to run the compute load on servers."

"The stability and speed are always good. The processor is good and it's still working with our loads."

"It comes at a good price. We didn't face any problems with this product."

"Flex System's best features are its performance and stability."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system."

"The product is very user-friendly and has many resources at the enterprise level."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"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."

"The product could be made more secure."

"Cisco is expensive and difficult to manage. The product is not intuitive. It also needs to improve storage management and upgrades."

"Integration with storage could be improved."

"Previously, the unified port functionality allowed the same port to function as both FC and Ethernet, however, this has now changed."

"The aggregation in the data center is beneficial."

"The cost of the solution has room for improvement."

"It is more expensive than the competitors."

"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."

"Flex System's integration with the XClarity Management System could be improved."

"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 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."

"The most valuable feature of the Lenovo Flex System is the storage system."

"I had some difficulties with the initial setup."

"The product could improve its integration capabilities."

"The price of this solution is a little bit higher, but given that this system is Cisco, it feels more secure and dependable."

"The cost of the blade servers is okay, but the cost of Fabric Interconnects ends up increasing the overall costs. For example, suppose it costs 3,500 USD per blade server. When you include the Fabric Interconnects, you could pay up to 30,000 USD. Therefore, compared to the cost of servers from Lenovo, Huawei, Dell, or HP, the cost of Cisco servers can be high. However, Cisco gives good discounts (about 90% to 94%) to partners and to customers who are already using Cisco servers. New Cisco customers do not get the level of discount that an existing customer does. Because you can get discounts with Cisco, I would give pricing a rating of four out of five."

"Cisco UCS B-Series is an expensive solution."

"The pricing for Cisco is less than for the HP Proliant series."

"Cisco products are at the high end in terms of cost, but everything is included with the licensing fees."

"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."

"Cisco UCS B-Series is not a cheap solution."

"It is not a yearly subscription but a yearly support renewal that you need to do for Cisco UCS B-Series."

"We are just paying the operational cost, which is not much."

"There is a one-off payment to buy the equipment and the support is purchased annually."

"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."

"The price is interesting. I am able to quote a client based on their needs and offer them either Lenovo or Dell."

"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."

"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."