Cisco UCS Manager vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) comparison

Cisco and IBM are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Cisco is ranked #17 with an average rating of 8.4, while IBM is ranked #45 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 1.5% mindshare in IM, compared to IBM’s 0.8% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS Manager

Read 26 Cisco UCS Manager reviews

1,766 Views
1,491 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Read 53 IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) reviews

1,414 Views
808 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS Manager

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management and Cisco UCS Manager compete in the network performance management category. IBM SevOne NPM appears to have the upper hand due to its superior real-time data capabilities and extensive device support.

Features: IBM SevOne NPM offers real-time data capabilities with one-minute polling, agentless monitoring, and extensive device support allowing full infrastructure visibility. Cisco UCS Manager provides consolidated management of network, compute, and storage, which simplifies overall system management but lacks the detailed network performance insights of SevOne.

Room for Improvement: SevOne could enhance data migration, reporting, and AI integration for analytics, along with improving UI simplicity and the upgrade process. Cisco UCS Manager needs improvement in the performance dashboard, firmware upgrade process, and user-friendliness, as well as better integration capabilities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM SevOne NPM offers hybrid and on-premise deployment options fitting various needs and ranks highly in customer service for its responsive and effective technical support. Cisco UCS Manager, despite robust on-premises deployment, requires greater technical expertise for installation and is seen as less accessible in customer service compared to SevOne.

Pricing and ROI: IBM SevOne NPM is notable for its flexible pay-as-you-grow pricing model and significant ROI by reducing labor costs and SLA penalties, integrating smoothly with existing systems. Cisco UCS Manager, although reliable with bundled offerings, has higher hardware and maintenance costs, which can be a barrier for smaller enterprises compared to SevOne.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS Manager vs. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

January 2025

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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 Manager

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

17th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

45th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.2

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (40th), Server Monitoring (19th), Log Management (48th), Cloud Monitoring Software (28th)

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.5%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is 0.8%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Edwin Mwosa

IT Infrastructure Manager at KTDA

Enhanced network oversight with rapid issue identification and good efficiency

We mainly use Cisco UCS Manager to integrate and manage our Cisco switches across the building. We also utilize it for network integration. It provides an integrated solution for our Cisco environment, streamlining our operations and managing multiple Cisco devices like switches and routers Cisco…

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Grzegorz Nowak

Solution Architect at Wingu

Improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic

We use SevOne to collect and report on network flows SevOne improves infrastructure planning by helping us analyze network traffic. We can look at bandwidth for specific endpoints on the customer's network and analyze traffic to identify issues. For example, maybe some connectors are unavailable.…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The reporting functionality will give you any report you want."

"Technical support has been good so far. We haven't had any issues with them. We're satisfied with the level of service they provide our company."

"The most valuable features of Cisco UCS Manager include the visibility it provides and the ease of identifying issues within the Cisco environment."

"For the blade architecture and ease of use, I consider Cisco UCS Manager the best option on the market at the moment."

"One of the valuable features is the user interface base."

"It's robust."

"The interface is ergonomic and native. We can use UCS Manager to do all the configurations for the servers, including storage, networking, and all the other components we need inside the fabric. It's simple and flexible."

"When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time."

More Cisco UCS Manager pros

"It also gives us the closest thing to real-time insight into network performance that we have, with just a 10-second delay. It's very important for us to know the health of the infrastructure very quickly."

"Data Insight reporting tool is the most valuable feature. They came up with it a couple of years ago. The most pleasing factor is the dark theme. You don't have a white background. It has templates that you can create for all kinds of reports that you can hit on the fly. It's much better printing of the reports. If you want to send PDFs to people, the reports are actually decent. Whereas for years, the old architecture of the PDFs was rubbish and even our customers said, "We have to manipulate your PDFs because they all have bad margin breaks. SevOne fixed that a couple of years ago with the new Data Insight. It's fantastic."

"The automation feature is good because if your CMDB is OK and it is already in sync, then the automation part is good to go."

"It's given us the ability to create various real-time network performance reports and distribute them to any colleague who can access these reports immediately."

"The most valuable feature as of late has been the API integration with ServiceNow."

"With this tool it is interesting to show the info to the client and explain where the traffic is."

"Scalability. I have never had to worry about how to handle really big environments."

"We have benefited mainly from the use of the dashboard interface. It makes the network visually interesting for other people who are not in the network. A lot of people are not network techies who understand streams in the network. Based on location, we have streams coming in and out. They can see visually when there is some problem. They don't need to understand all the network technology behind it to be able to understand if everything is working well or if there is a problem."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

Cons

"We have three data centers and if we could manage all three data centers using one interface, it would be great."

"Getting a CLI report on routers, switches, or any other CLI configuration device is difficult."

"The integration with other solutions could be better. I think Cisco can only integrate using Intersight. There is a second interface available as a SaaS platform, in the cloud, or on-premise. It's based on the Redfish protocol, which is standard for all the B-series servers in the market. We can integrate other solutions using API."

"The installation and upgrade sytems need to be improved."

"What's lacking in Cisco UCS Manager is the performance dashboard. If a blade has any performance issues, you should be able to create a dashboard on Cisco UCS Manager. Currently, this feature isn't present."

"The automation within the solution needs to be simplified."

"Upgrading the firmware is a difficult procedure."

"Cisco UCS Manager is not a scalable solution because once you have 160 blades, it cannot be expanded more."

More Cisco UCS Manager cons

"The tool needs improvement in non-Cisco SD-WAN."

"There are some tweaks and enhancements that I've already requested. One is to be able to make changes per device rather than as a global setting. That has to do with naming. It's minor."

"Telemetry is hot these days, and IBM can improve SevOne's support for telemetry correction. Reporting is another feature that could be better. It provides the bare minimum functionality, which is good enough for most engineers, but the management isn't advanced. The new portal provides a much lighter view and better visualization, but the management is not so good."

"NMS has several areas for improvement. It should be more user-friendly inside of NMS for some of the functionality in there. It's been getting better the last version or two, but the there have been bugs in there whenever I've gone to new versions."

"The customizations are very hard. The person doing it has to be very good at analytics and has to be very good in all languages"

"User-friendly, multi-tenancy."

"With the administrative management of the appliance, if some object appears from SevOne because something changed in the network or whatever, then as an administrator you will not be aware. If you are using this object in a report, this object will disappear from the report and you will not be aware of it. So, if you have 1,000 reports, you cannot always check these reports everyday to see if objects are missing or information has disappeared. We don't have any information on alerts, saying that something is happening there and maybe we need to take action. If an object was replaced by another one, or if a link was replaced by another one, then the graph needs to be changed because it doesn't exist in the graph anymore. However, we don't have this information."

"The one area with room for improvement is probably administration. They added data insights to make a better user experience, but I'd like to see some improvements in the way the system's administered."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You buy the hardware and then you get Cisco UCS Manager for free."

"We need to take a license for each port, which amounts to a big sum."

"Cisco UCS is more expensive than Dell and HP, but it is more reliable. I see less issues and it's quite stable."

"The pricing for Cisco UCS Manager is okay for its market, so it's a four out of five for me."

"With product discounts which can be negotiated, the product is a great value."

"Cisco UCS Manager’s annual licensing fee is expensive."

"It is inexpensive compared to other monitoring tools."

"The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing."

"Although I don't have exact details in terms of cost, my experience has been that SevOne is willing to make a deal with the customer."

"The pricing has been fair."

"A blocking point is the high upfront cost because it is challenging to get it accepted and the purchase approved."

"Have a bank of licenses, because it is about the number of objects (RAM, ports, CPU, etc.)."

"There are different options available for licensing, with the per-device option being more expensive but more flexible."

"Prices per license are not huge, but they exist."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

28%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Computer Software Company

15%

Legal Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Manager?

When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Manager?

As long as they can afford it, there is a setup cost involved.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Manager?

There is room for improvement in terms of cost and complexity to set up. It doesn't work straight out of the UCS, so someone who knows what they're doing is needed immediately, and it can be quite ...

See all answers

What do you like most about SevOne Network Data Platform?

I like the tool’s scalability and real-time reports. Earlier, we struggled to give real-time reports to clients. I also like the tool’s deployment model where we can deploy it either on-premises or...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SevOne Network Data Platform?

The tool is not expensive. We were able to negotiate with SevOne on pricing.

See all answers

What needs improvement with SevOne Network Data Platform?

SevOne could improve its flexibility because it isn't fully customizable and its out-of-the-box configuration doesn't cover all use cases.

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 82% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

Zabbix vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 2% of the time

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Compared 14% of the time

SolarWinds Network Device Monitor vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 10% of the time

NETSCOUT nGeniusONE vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 10% of the time

Splunk Enterprise Security vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 8% of the time

Zabbix vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager

March 2025

Download Cisco UCS Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

February 2025

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

Also Known As

No data available

SevOne

Overview

Cisco UCS Manager helps significantly reduce management and administration expenses by automating routine tasks to increase operational agility. Customers can extend the benefits of Cisco UCS Manager globally across an enterprise to thousands of servers in multiple domains with Cisco UCS Central Software.

Cisco

The IBM® SevOne Network Performance Management (IBM SevOne NPM) solution helps you spot, address, and prevent network performance issues early with machine learning-powered analytics from a single source. Boost network performance and improve your user application experience by proactively monitoring your multivendor end-to-end network across enterprise, communication, and managed service provider networks.

Transform raw network performance data into intelligent and actionable insights. The IBM SevOne NPM solution goes beyond detection, combining industry-leading expertise and advanced technology to help your IT team plan and optimize your network and act on what matters: improving network performance to provide an exceptional customer experience.

For further information, please visit www.ibm.com/cloud/sevo...

IBM

Sample Customers

Management Science Associates, Peak 10, Virtual Consulting Professionals

ATOS, Devereux, Spark New Zealand, Access4, Rogers Communication, Lumen (formerly known as CenturyLink)

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

January 2025

Free Report: Cisco UCS Manager vs. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Manager vs. IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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