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 #24 with an average rating of 7.7, while IBM is ranked #43 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 1.7% mindshare in IM, compared to IBM’s 0.9% mindshare. Additionally, 95% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS Manager

Read 23 Cisco UCS Manager reviews

1,952 Views
1,691 Comparison Views

95% willing to recommend

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Read 53 IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) reviews

1,680 Views
942 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: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

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

October 2024

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Helped 814,649 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS Manager

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

24th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM SevOne Network Performa...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

43rd

Average Rating

8.4

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Network Monitoring Software (44th), Server Monitoring (21st), Log Management (43rd), Cloud Monitoring Software (31st)

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

IT Infrastructure Monitoring

Featured Reviews

Joshua Kurian

Sr. Technical Architect at StarOne IT Solutions

Apr 8, 2024

Used to manage servers, monitor or manage firmware upgrades, and push policies

The solution's SDK and API can be integrated with ServiceNow for ticketing for any purpose. The solution's unified management interface is a central point of management that allows us to manage switches, blades, and storage connectors. One person is enough to maintain the solution. The speed of the network interface has been 100 G since day one. The network is scalable, and GPU nodes can be added seamlessly. Cisco is claiming to support water cooling in the near future. The solution can be easily integrated with other tools and platforms. Compared to Dell, Cisco UCS Manager provides straightforward configuration, reusable policies, and flexibility. Dell lacks a proper GUI for configuring everything. Cisco has only one GUI, which allows us to configure everything, including the network server and server profile. Before releasing each model, Cisco should conduct proper testing or engineering validation to ensure that the customer doesn't face any issues initially. Overall, I rate Cisco UCS Manager a nine out of ten.

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Grzegorz Nowak

Solution Architect at Wingu

Apr 29, 2024

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

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

"Creating UCS service profiles for quickly deploying servers and replicating that configuration to another server makes it easier for deployment."

"I can deploy something in my 50-odd servers all in one go, in parallel, whereas if I was to do that individually, it could be a nightmare."

"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."

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

"Cisco Infrastructure is one of the top vendors and no one can beat them in terms of switching and routing."

"The flexibility and the ease in which the features can be expanded are the solution's most valuable aspects."

More Cisco UCS Manager pros

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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 in-house. We don’t have to carry the data all over the globe. Also, I am impressed with the tool's flow reporting and Wi-Fi."

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

"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 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."

"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."

More IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) pros

Cons

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

"Upgrading the firmware is a difficult procedure."

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

"Cisco UCS is expensive compared to others. The Cisco UCS Chassis is more expensive than a standalone server, but some companies require standalone servers because of their production load and affordability. You need to pay more if you require more features on the Blade or if you need more ports on the switch."

"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."

"Improving functionalities similar to InterSite within UCS Manager would be beneficial."

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

"The solution's pricing is high and could be reduced."

More Cisco UCS Manager cons

"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."

"We previously have had discussions on some reporting enhancements. So, we raised a feature request, which was delivered from SevOne."

"The method of searching for SIP and the way to create the groups."

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

"User-friendly, multi-tenancy."

"I'm not really sure if this was the software's fault or a server issue, but a couple of years back the disks were failing on our SevOne physical server every month and the server would go down. The secondary server took over from the primary until the disk issue was resolved. That was annoying."

"Some similar solutions offer end-to-end visibility."

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

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."

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

"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."

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

"The pricing has been fair."

"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."

"Many tools price things based on the number of KPIs that you're collecting around a device. In many cases, there could be hundreds of metrics that you need to collect. SevOne provides device-level pricing. That gives us the flexibility to turn on, and expand on, the metrics that we're collecting around those devices, without taking a financial hit."

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

32%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

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?

Cisco is the most expensive compared to other vendors like Dell and HP when it comes to data center solutions.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Manager?

There are options that could make configuration and administration easier. Improving functionalities similar to InterSite within UCS Manager would be beneficial.

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 3% of the time

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Compared 2% of the time

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Compared 8% of the time

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

Compared 7% of the time

Zabbix vs IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

Compared 6% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager

November 2024

Download Cisco UCS Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM)

October 2024

IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) report

Download IBM SevOne Network Performance Management (NPM) product report

Also Known As

No data available

SevOne

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Cisco

IBM

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.

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...

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)

October 2024

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: October 2024.

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