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 8.3, while IBM is ranked #45 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 1.6% 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 25 Cisco UCS Manager reviews

1,784 Views
1,532 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Read 53 IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) reviews

1,470 Views
837 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS Manager

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

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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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Helped 838,713 peers since 2012

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

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

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 (39th), Server Monitoring (19th), Log Management (47th), Cloud Monitoring Software (27th)

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.6%, 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 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."

"Cisco UCS Manager is overall a good package because it gives a GUI interface and a CLI."

"We can configure the Cisco UCS Manager, the profiles and interactions with the resource we manage."

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

"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."

"Cisco UCS has different layers of security, and you can do multiple installations of your LIAMs on top of the server and Blade. You can install VMware, Windows Server, Hyper-V, etc."

"I can quickly manage the provisioned servers."

"The hardware is very powerful and it is a stable solution."

More Cisco UCS Manager pros

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

"SevOne provides support for all universal connectors. They internally work with other data sources to get features implemented. We have an SD-WAN implementation and use other app data to monitor performance. If you pull that data into one centralized location, that is very useful for management."

"The feature that I have found most valuable is the scale-up and scale-down. The scale-up is an operation where the CPU boosts-up and then the memory will boost-up. That works awesomely."

"Its ability to monitor practically any type of network device via SNMP is most valuable. This is the main functionality that we're using. If a network device exposes a metric, such as interface utilization, SevOne will monitor it for us."

"The most valuable feature is the NMS because that's the core of the system. Without the NMS, the other tools aren't that usable."

"Another useful feature is that SevOne gives you real-time insights into your network performance. It polls every five minutes. That is important for our customers because there are some network teams that are always monitoring their networks."

"SevOne has rich API capabilities, giving us the flexibility to control what we collect and customize the collection, creation, and manipulation of now metrics as necessary."

"One of the most valuable features is the graphs, which you can build instantly. I have used some open-source platforms in the past, but they are not as good. With SevOne, the sampling in the graph can be every few seconds, not just every few minutes, and that's really helpful. It's really fast."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

Cons

"Its user interface can be improved. It can be more user-friendly."

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

"I would like to see improved visibility into the operating system, enabling us to identify issues directly from the operating system itself."

"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."

"Cisco UCS Manager should have a simplified deployment in the sense of not having multiple machines, demilitarized zones, and on-premise options."

"There is room for improvement in the software part of Cisco UCS Manager. It should be more user-friendly, especially when creating policies."

"I found it a bit of a challenge to get training on UCSM. I've been trying to get that for some time now. I feel like I have to figure it out a lot of things myself. For years I've to log calls with support whenever I've got challenges that I cannot resolve. If I had some training or more manuals, I'd be better able to handle more things on my own."

"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 confusing."

More Cisco UCS Manager cons

"High-frequency polling is data-intensive because you're pulling more. If SevOne could figure out a way to manage the impact of high-frequency polling on the system, that would be very popular."

"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."

"One area that requires a little bit of improvement is the topology of visualization and being able to map out connections, end-to-end. It's able to do that, but it's not as impressive as we would like it to be. We would like to understand the different interface types and the connection points better, through the visualization. Heatmaps also need further development."

"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."

"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."

"When I started using it, I tried adding one of the BroadWorks application servers into SevOne... it created thousands and thousands of objects from that one application server and we immediately ran out of license... It would help, when new objects are discovered, if there were a way to categorize those objects and to pick the part of the object you need..."

"We need to be thinking about streaming telemetry protocols. They already have the port for enhanced visualization, which they already have through Data Insight."

"The user management features need to be improved. It would be nice if we had more granular control, or layers of control, out of the box."

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."

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

"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."

"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 has not evolved with the market, which is one of the reasons we are moving to a new product."

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

"There are cheaper solutions available."

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

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

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

"For the value that you get from SevOne, it's worth the price. There are a lot of cheaper alternatives on the market, and even free options. But they require more staff, more resources, and engineers with more advanced knowledge of monitoring. That's what makes SevOne worth the price."

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

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

29%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Educational Organization

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

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

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Compared 3% of the time

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

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager

February 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)

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