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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

"Stateless Blade is the best feature."
"The most valuable features of the solution are stability and security."
"The scalability and easy management of the lifecycle, upgrades, and hardware failures are valuable."
"The Boot from SAN function is good because using OTV, we can boot the device from any remote location."
"The initial setup is pretty simple and straightforward."
"It is a very robust and reliable solution."
"The solution is very reliable in comparison to the other brands."
"The stability provided by the product is its most valuable feature for our organization."
"Every new version is better than the previous one."
"The management platform is great."
"The solutions are easy to handle, priced correctly, reliable, and dependable."
"The solution provides good support and service."
"The most significant benefits, in my experience, are the configuration, reliability of the equipment, and the support of Dell."
"It is a scalable solution."
"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."
"I like the feature that allows for a backup and that is suitable for me."
 

Cons

"The price of the solution could improve."
"The monitoring features and integration with other products can be improved."
"The GUI is not the greatest."
"The initial setup is not easy."
"The high price of the solution is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"For future improvements, it would be a benefit if the solution could integrate better with products such as Oracle."
"The product could be made more secure."
"The configuration is a bit complex, as it requires very high technical expertise to apply it."
"Customer service and support have been generally helpful but can be slow due to the need to navigate different specialists."
"There could be some more ports added in the future."
"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."
"For improvements, the iDRAC application isn't very intuitive to handle."
"Its customer service could be better."
"The product’s cost needs improvement."
"The VxRail should be opened to allow other virtualization platforms to be used."
"The need to update the firmware and check if there is any bug in the product is one of the areas where Dell PowerEdge C falls short and needs to make improvements."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco UCS B-Series is not a cheap solution."
"It makes much more sense for individual licenses for distributed environments"
"We have to pay a monthly licensing fee for the solution."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution on a yearly basis. Price-wise, it is an expensive product"
"The cost of the Cisco UCS B-Series is comparable to HP solutions but higher than Dell solutions."
"The product is expensive."
"The price of this solution is a little bit higher, but given that this system is Cisco, it feels more secure and dependable."
"It is highly-priced."
"The price of the solution is reasonable."
"When we talk about pricing it is the cheapest on the market that I have found."
"The product costs can be high, especially for disks and other components."
"PowerEdge C is very expensive, but personally, I think it's worth the price."
"The price could be reduced."
"Despite the slightly higher price, we prefer Dell due to the high quality of their products."
"We buy licenses for the solution's advanced features."
"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
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
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: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.