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 8.3% 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

1,595 Views
1,152 Comparison Views

98% willing to recommend

Super Micro SuperBlade

Read 4 Super Micro SuperBlade reviews

902 Views
734 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: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Super Micro SuperBlade

December 2024

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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 December 2024, in the Blade Servers category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS B-Series is 8.3%, down from 11.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Super Micro SuperBlade is 7.0%, up from 6.3% 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 hardware is easily swappable and, utilizing the boot from SAN option, you can always keep your server intact due to the service profiles."

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

"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 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."

"Cisco UCS B-Series is scalable."

"It is a very robust and reliable solution."

"I like that the hardware is separated from the software definition of the components."

"Since its UCS release in 2009, Cisco has extended the core functionality with Central, a tool for managing multiple domains"

More Cisco UCS B-Series pros

"The initial setup was straightforward."

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

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

Cons

"It should be more user-friendly."

"This model does not support virtualization of the switch."

"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 configuration is a bit complex, as it requires very high technical expertise to apply it."

"The price of this product is too high. They should work to make it more affordable."

"The initial setup is not easy."

"The GUI is not the greatest."

"The management interface needs a lot of improvement. As it is right now, it's a pain to use. It's not user-friendly."

More Cisco UCS B-Series cons

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

"The solution does not scale well."

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

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."

"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 product is expensive."

"The pricing for Cisco products is always high."

"Pricing with Cisco is very high."

"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."

"Make sure you work with a vendor partner than can get you a substantial discount off of list pricing."

"The product cost is high."

More Cisco UCS B-Series pricing and cost advice

"The product is not expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Computer Software Company

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?

The pricing is competitive. While the UCS price was high before, it is more competitive now.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?

If we could get more reference architecture available on the portal, it would be helpful in making decisions. Also, the content should be more extensive, especially technical content.

See all answers

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Comparisons

HPE Synergy vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 37% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 23% of the time

HPE BladeSystem vs Cisco UCS B-Series

Compared 19% of the time

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

Compared 6% of the time

More Cisco UCS B-Series Competitors

HPE Integrity vs Super Micro SuperBlade

Compared 26% of the time

Pure Storage FlashBlade vs Super Micro SuperBlade

Compared 23% of the time

Dell PowerEdge M vs Super Micro SuperBlade

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco UCS E-Series Servers vs Super Micro SuperBlade

Compared 9% 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

December 2024

Download Cisco UCS B-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

Blade Servers

December 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

December 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: December 2024.

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