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Cisco UCS B-Series vs Supermicro SuperBlade comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 20, 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
Supermicro SuperBlade
Ranking in Blade Servers
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Supermicro SuperBlade is 5.9%, down from 7.1% 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.
Gergely Lakos - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Since its UCS release in 2009, Cisco has extended the core functionality with Central, a tool for managing multiple domains"
"The servers' resilience was particularly impactful."
"The solution is very reliable in comparison to the other brands."
"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."
"Stateless Blade is the best feature."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to replace a server with another one, simply by applying the profile"
"It is less time-consuming to deploy the software."
"The architecture of this solution is very valuable; it has five traffic interconnects, and uses a network highway so bandwidth is never an issue."
"I think the IPMI is a really good feature."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The ability to save resource is a key feature."
 

Cons

"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 price of the solution could improve."
"We have to have Java to manage the infrastructure. It would be great if we can manage the infrastructure through a web browser."
"Previously, the unified port functionality allowed the same port to function as both FC and Ethernet, however, this has now changed."
"There are patches that cannot be implemented without any downtime or reboot required."
"HTML5 interface is a much needed improvement over the old Java interface, but still needs a little work."
"It should be more user-friendly."
"The product could be made more secure."
"The solution does not scale well."
"There is a lack of support for fiber channels currently that needs to be added."
"Supermicro blade servers are not the best. They could improve in scalability but are not really scalable right now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This is a premium device and our clients are not as concerned about the reasonableness of the price compared to satisfaction with their productivity."
"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 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 B-Series is an expensive solution."
"Cisco products are at the high end in terms of cost, but everything is included with the licensing fees."
"There is a need to pay towards the licensing costs of the solution on a yearly basis. Price-wise, it is an expensive product"
"We have to pay a monthly licensing fee for the solution."
"The pricing for Cisco is less than for the HP Proliant series."
"The product is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

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.
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.
Ask a question
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Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
SuperBlade
 

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
Prace
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Supermicro SuperBlade and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,862 professionals have used our research since 2012.