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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 March 2025, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.8%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of PowerEdge C is 0.6%, down from 0.9% 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 most valuable features of the solution are stability and security."
"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."
"The solution is very unified and the technical team is very supportive, no help is needed from outside vendors."
"The product is easy to use."
"The scalability is good because it comes with Fabric Interconnects, and you can directly add more blades as you go. Therefore, scalability is not a problem."
"I like that it's very manageable very easy to use and configure. I am not an expert, but the graphic user interface is quite simple very easy to use. It's a complete solution."
"The solution is stable...The solution is scalable."
"The ratio in terms of the number of units and the number of servers that we can get each chassis is quite good."
"With the tool, we can easily upgrade and ensure compatibility between operating systems, hardwares and drivers. Among other features, the hardware also stands out because it is certified and aligns with the processor manufacturers like Intel. This enables them to offer the latest options which are not available with other suppliers."
"I have found the compression capability the most valuable feature."
"The scalability of the solution met our needs."
"The product has high performance and no downtime."
"PowerEdge servers have high CPU processing power, and the support is also good."
"It was not complex to deploy."
"It provides the necessary infrastructure for our operations."
"The solutions are easy to handle, priced correctly, reliable, and dependable."
 

Cons

"The initial setup is not easy."
"The main issue with this solution is that it is quite vendor-restricted, meaning that when we use third party software, we cannot use all of the available configuration tools or pre-validated design features."
"Right now, the market is rapidly transitioning to solid-state media and the Cisco options tend to be less varied and more expensive than a broader slate of products from HP, Dell or IBM."
"The initial setup and service profile deployment can be tricky and should be improved for ease of use."
"Integration with storage could be improved."
"USC Central seems a bit confusing for technicians."
"The initial setup process is complex."
"The cost of the solution has room for improvement."
"For improvements, the iDRAC application isn't very intuitive to handle."
"A feature that needs to be added is the ability for full container storage."
"We had a few minor issues with compatibility on the latest version during the installation process."
"There could be some more ports added in the future."
"The VxRail should be opened to allow other virtualization platforms to be used."
"The product’s pricing could be a little cheaper."
"The solution’s pricing could be cheaper."
"An area where the product lacks and needs to consider improvement is by allowing it to integrate with some AI tool for monitoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It makes much more sense for individual licenses for distributed environments"
"The price of this solution compared to others is fair."
"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."
"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."
"Pricing will be based on your requirements so it is important to plan, engage, and negotiate directly with the Cisco Account Manager."
"The type of service level purchase will determine the level of support response that you receive from Cisco."
"The cost of the Cisco UCS B-Series is comparable to HP solutions but higher than Dell solutions."
"It is expensive."
"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."
"We buy licenses for the solution's advanced features."
"There is a need to pay towards the annual subscription-based licensing model offered by the solution. The product is moderately priced. Price is a critical issue, and it is always good to have moderately priced solutions."
"The licensing cost of PowerEdge C is very high."
"Despite the slightly higher price, we prefer Dell due to the high quality of their products."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"PowerEdge C is a reasonably priced product, and the pricing depends on how many years you need the product. The cost also includes the support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
14%
Venture Capital & Private Equity Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.