Cisco UCS B-Series vs Super Micro SuperBlade comparison

Cisco and Super Micro are both solutions in the Blade Servers category. Cisco is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.4, while Super Micro is ranked #9. Cisco holds a 8.7% mindshare in Blade Servers, compared to Super Micro’s 7.0% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Super Micro users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS B-Series

Read 72 Cisco UCS B-Series reviews

1,680 Views
1,217 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Super Micro SuperBlade

Read 4 Super Micro SuperBlade reviews

937 Views
770 Comparison Views

80% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS B-Series

Super Micro SuperBlade

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco UCS B-Series and Super Micro SuperBlade based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Blade Servers solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Super Micro SuperBlade Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Super Micro SuperBlade

October 2024

Download the complete report

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Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS B-Series

Ranking in Blade Servers

4th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Super Micro SuperBlade

Ranking in Blade Servers

9th

Average Rating

8.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.7%, down from 11.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Super Micro SuperBlade is 7.0%, up from 6.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Blade Servers

Featured Reviews

Olalowo Olaleye

Senior VMware\Cloud Solutions Engineering Consultant · at Shell

A great solution with high availability, reliability and a low cost of ownership

It has reliability, high availability, and a low total cost of ownership. Your servers stand a better chance of having data available because the total cost of ownership is very low. Once you buy it, you can almost afford to go to the last, because you don't need to buy another one.

Read full review

Gergely Lakos

DevOps Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

With many servers in one, these blade servers are easier to manage

The service could be improved by faster servers, more widely available VMs, and more storage in one place. Then, in the event of a blade failure, we could start our VMs on another blade in a couple of minutes. This is why we wanted to buy storage. But now, we want to buy a twin server with 24 VMware discs to create test storage. The next product release should allow more servers to be controlled simultaneously.

Read full review

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 product's tech support has good people."

"The most valuable feature that the B-Series has is related to the structure and architecture of the solution because in these solutions, you are using fabric interconnect as an interconnect device. The beauty of fabric interconnect is that it can work as in-house mode."

"It's modular."

"The most valuable feature of the solution stems from the fact that it is easily scalable."

"The Dual Fabric design allows for online/in-service upgrades during production with no impact."

"The ratio in terms of the number of units and the number of servers that we can get each chassis is quite good."

More Cisco UCS B-Series pros

"I think the IPMI is a really good feature."

"The initial setup was straightforward."

"The ability to save resource is a key feature."

Cons

"The license is expensive. Cisco should decrease the delay in the delivery of their products."

"The solution’s pricing could be improved and made cheaper."

"The product pricing needs improvement."

"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."

"Its scalability could be better."

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

"There are patches that cannot be implemented without any downtime or reboot required."

"The price of the solution could improve."

More Cisco UCS B-Series cons

"The solution does not scale well."

"Supermicro blade servers are not the best. They could improve in scalability but are not really scalable right now."

"There is a lack of support for fiber channels currently that needs to be added."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product cost is high."

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

"UCS is expensive, and we will be migrating to the cheaper HP servers."

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

"This is a premium device and our clients are not as concerned about the reasonableness of the price compared to satisfaction with their productivity."

"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 does not require a license. However, this license is not specific to users."

"It makes much more sense for individual licenses for distributed environments"

More Cisco UCS B-Series pricing and cost advice

"The product is not expensive."

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816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

17%

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS B-Series?

Previously, Cisco pricing was higher, but now both Cisco and HP are competitive with pricing. At the end of negotiations, the pricing is usually matched between the two, so cost is not a major diff...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?

It would be beneficial for Cisco UCS B-Series to improve on the technological adaptability aspect, especially with regard to containerized applications, as the market in our region is still adaptin...

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Comparisons

HPE Synergy vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 38% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 25% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 5% of the time

More Cisco UCS B-Series Competitors

HPE Integrity vs Super Micro SuperBlade

Compared 29% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Super Micro SuperBlade

Compared 22% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs Super Micro SuperBlade

Compared 16% of the time

Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs Super Micro SuperBlade

Compared 8% of the time

HPE Synergy vs Super Micro SuperBlade

Compared 7% of the time

More Super Micro SuperBlade Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series

November 2024

Download Cisco UCS B-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

Blade Servers

November 2024

Download Super Micro SuperBlade product report

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series

SuperBlade

Learn More

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Cisco

Super Micro

Overview

Based on Intel Xeon processor E7 and E5 product families, Cisco UCS B-Series Blade Servers work with virtualized and non-virtualized applications to increase: Performance, Energy efficiency, Flexibility and Administrator productivity.

Super Micro's SuperBlade blade servers offer many unique advantages that differentiate it from competitors' blade products and traditional rack-mount solutions. Customer benefits include maximum density, affordability, reduced management costs, lower power consumption, optimal ROI, and high scalability - and in most applications, blade servers would reduce system acquisition costs. While other blade suppliers only offer general-purpose blade servers, the SuperBlade family enables full optimization for a wide array of mission-critical and compute-intensive applications. With in-house design engineering agility to accommodate customer needs rapidly, SuperBlade revolutionizes modular computing architecture by offering several advanced application-optimized models such as Enterprise Blade Server, Data Center Optimized Blade, Workstation Blade and Office Blade.

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

Prace

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Super Micro SuperBlade

October 2024

Free Report: Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Super Micro SuperBlade

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Super Micro SuperBlade and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.

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