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Cisco UCS B-Series vs PowerEdge C 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
73
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
PowerEdge C
Ranking in Blade Servers
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Density Optimized Servers (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.7%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PowerEdge C is 0.6%, down from 0.8% 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.
Niraj  Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Good return on investment, round the clock technical support, and easy to install
PowerEdge C is used in both corporate and industrial settings One of the main features that attract customers to buy their products is the great management tool and almost zero failure rate, making it easy to use. As far as I'm concerned, the current product works perfectly fine and I don't see…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The scalability is very good."
"Overall service and support from Cisco is very good."
"The Cisco solution provides a unified dashboard which enhances virtualization tasks, allowing configurations from a single interface. It also helps with space and power management, which are vital for data center efficiency."
"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."
"From a return on investment perspective, Cisco UCS B-Series is worth the money."
"The solution is stable...The solution is scalable."
"The stability of Cisco UCS B-Series is impeccable, as it has been running smoothly without any need for maintenance."
"The hybrid solution is much more stable than other products."
"The performance is good."
"It provides the necessary infrastructure for our operations."
"The product stability has been excellent."
"The security of the product is very good."
"The management platform is great."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The scalability of the product is good since it offers high performance and capacity."
 

Cons

"The GUI is not the greatest."
"Cisco UCS B-Series competitors have similar features as they do, Cisco needs to make some changes to make their offering better."
"The price of this product is too high. They should work to make it more affordable."
"The aggregation in the data center is beneficial."
"The upgrades could be improved."
"The configuration is a little bit complicated and could be made simpler."
"The product could be made more secure."
"The solution is expensive."
"The pricing of PowerEdge solutions is very high nowadays."
"There is some trouble with the stability part of the product, making it an area where improvements are required."
"It should be improved in terms of future expansion. We should be able to have additional free slots for future extensions in terms of memory."
"It would be better if the solution provided simplified storage and hardware with an integrated one-tier architecture."
"The VxRail should be opened to allow other virtualization platforms to be used."
"Customer service and support have been generally helpful but can be slow due to the need to navigate different specialists."
"It would be better if it worked with SMTP servers on the cloud. Right now, it only allows notifications via the SMTP server. In the next release, I would like to have a better processor."
"The reliability needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Every three years, I need to renew my license and support the product...Every time I have to opt for the renewal of the license, I am shocked to learn about the increase in the price of the product."
"Pricing will be based on your requirements so it is important to plan, engage, and negotiate directly with the Cisco Account Manager."
"We have to pay a monthly licensing fee for the solution."
"The product cost is high."
"This is a premium device and our clients are not as concerned about the reasonableness of the price compared to satisfaction with their productivity."
"Considering our market, I rate the pricing of Cisco UCS B-Series as a six."
"The pricing for Cisco products is always high."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is an expensive solution."
"PowerEdge C is a product that is priced at a medium range, so it is not too expensive."
"I would rate the pricing 4 out of 10, in terms of its cost expense."
"The product costs can be high, especially for disks and other components."
"The licensing cost of PowerEdge C is very high."
"PowerEdge C is very expensive, but personally, I think it's worth the price."
"I don't handle the financial aspects, so I don't know the exact costs, but in terms of the value it brings, it's worth it."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"The price could be reduced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
16%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
11%
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 licensing cost for three years, followed by an AMC for two years, is reasonable. However, the management software, Cisco One, is priced a bit high but still considered reasonable. No additional...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?
Last year, we faced challenges with firmware upgrades, but they were quickly resolved with assistance from Cisco TAC.
What do you like most about PowerEdge C?
The solution provides good support and service.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for PowerEdge C?
PowerEdge is quite a costly solution, and I would rate the pricing around seven or eight on a scale from one to ten with ten being the most expensive.
What needs improvement with PowerEdge C?
With reference architectures like VX rack, the update process is quite painful. They could automate or simplify it more. There are prerequisites to go through, and that's usually the only time-cons...
 

Also Known As

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

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
NxtGen Datacenter, Medien-Service Untermain (MSU), Exasol, IndigoVision, Dayco
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. PowerEdge C and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.