Cisco UCS Manager vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications comparison

Cisco and VMware are both solutions in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category. Cisco is ranked #15 with an average rating of 7.8, while VMware is ranked #45 with an average rating of 7.0. Cisco holds a 1.7% mindshare in IM, compared to VMware’s 1.3% mindshare. Additionally, 96% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of VMware users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS Manager

Read 24 Cisco UCS Manager reviews

1,873 Views
1,620 Comparison Views

96% willing to recommend

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Read 9 VMware Aria Operations for Applications reviews

1,495 Views
1,357 Comparison Views

90% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS Manager

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Cisco UCS Manager and VMware Aria Operations for Applications compete in IT infrastructure management. Cisco has an advantage in networking and compute integration, whereas VMware stands out for its monitoring capabilities.

Features: Cisco UCS Manager includes comprehensive network, storage, and compute unification, ease of server deployment and management, and robust support for enterprise environments. VMware Aria Operations for Applications provides strong application monitoring, extensive metrics for cloud environments, and container platform support.

Room for Improvement: Cisco UCS Manager needs improvements in firmware upgrade processes, user interface complexity reduction, and streamlined update procedures. VMware Aria Operations for Applications could offer enhanced integration with Kubernetes, improve predictive abilities, and simplify licensing complexities.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco UCS Manager typically involves on-premises deployment with highly rated technical support. VMware Aria Operations for Applications supports both on-premises and hybrid cloud deployments and is praised for its proactive support model.

Pricing and ROI: Cisco UCS Manager is regarded as expensive but offers good ROI with fewer hardware failures. VMware Aria Operations for Applications involves high licensing costs yet is valued for its comprehensive capabilities, offering efficient management that can save development time. Both products ensure good ROI when suited to the organizational needs, though Cisco may have higher initial costs.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications Report (Updated: December 2024).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

December 2024

Download the complete report

Helped 824,067 peers since 2012

Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS Manager

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

15th

Average Rating

8.0

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

VMware Aria Operations for ...

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

45th

Average Rating

7.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (48th), Container Monitoring (9th), Cloud Monitoring Software (33rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.7%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations for Applications is 1.3%, down from 1.4% 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…

Read full review

Yves Sandfort

CEO & Majority Shareholder at Comdivision Consulting GmbH

Easy to deploy, worth the money, and helpful for uptime monitoring and performance insights

Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more. The other thing for us is that while it is great that we have all these standard metrics, it would be good if we can also more easily define standard metrics to be consumed for our own application. At the moment, for a lot of applications, we have to reinvent the wheel every time. If there was something so that we can build our own packaging of metrics, it would be helpful. In the future, we might be deploying our software to other customers as well. So, they should make it easier to redeploy that. There should be more customizable dashboards. The Wavefront dashboards are very technical and a more business-oriented dashboard design would definitely help.

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 most valuable features are flexibility and management."

"The solution is highly scalable, mainly because of the templates that make it easy for you to actually edit on the system."

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

"Ease of management is certainly the most valuable feature in this product."

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

"What I like most about Cisco UCS Manager is the ease of administration. It also allows the central management of maintenance, installation, and configuration activities."

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

"The management is one of the most valuable features of this solution."

More Cisco UCS Manager pros

"This solution allows me to have true visibility for any metrics when it comes to my cloud, and private."

"Tanzu itself, integrated with multiple solutions, bestows support and security upon a container platform, especially when it comes to managing open-source container platforms such as Kubernetes."

"The solution is great for virtualization and preparing the infrastructure in Tanzu to test products. It's very fast and has good visibility."

"VMware comes with a support team, and if you have trouble, you can easily create a ticket, and VMware will help you. Therefore, the best aspect is the support."

"The features I find most valuable is the querying and alerting capabilities."

"No issues with stability."

"People are very pleased with the implementation."

"For us, the ease of deployment in combination with TMZ was the most important part because we don't have to manually deploy a complex monitoring solution. We can more or less do that with the click of a button, and we are not dependent on the developers to provide us with all the necessary features and functions to make that work. We can just deploy it on a workload cluster and monitor at least a good part of the workload. If we want to go into detail, we clearly need to make changes, but for a good part of application monitoring, it gives us good insights."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications pros

Cons

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

"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."

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

"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 the software part of Cisco UCS Manager. It should be more user-friendly, especially when creating policies."

"In the next release, I would like to see improvements made to their security."

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

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

More Cisco UCS Manager cons

"The implementation is a long process that should be improved."

"I would like to see integration with Kubernetes cluster and APIs so that you can manage the entire stack."

"They could make it more easy to plug-in data so that a nontechnical person will be able to use it, like accountants or finance people. That way they don't have to ask us."

"The main problem I have is that the license cost is very high."

"The documentation and integration with Kubernetes could be improved."

"In the new version, I would love to see more prediction capabilities. It would be great if one could see the alerts get a little more enriched with information and become more human-friendly instead of the technical stuff that they put in there. I think those would be really awesome outcomes to get."

"It could use a URL document server. Everything in the market is moving towards automation and everybody's looking for the single click operations as well relational data locality."

"Its billing model is consumption-based. I understand the consumption-based model, but it is not necessarily easy to estimate and guess how many points or how much we are going to consume on a specific application up until we get to that point. So, for us, it would be helpful to have more insights or predictability into what we can expect from a cost perspective if we are starting to use specific features. This can potentially also drive our consumption a bit more."

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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 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."

"Different locations require different setups. In your terms, around 300 to around 400K USD."

"I don't have the details. In our case, there is a mixture in place. We have production usage, and we are also doing training for VMware. So, we also have a training instance. It is worth the money you would spend on it. That's because if you were to build all of this yourself by using some of the open source tools, then you would need a lot of time."

"I would rate the pricing as three out of five."

"The licensing costs are very high, particularly when you consider that we have to purchase a level 1 license for every integration, such as the load balancer, HAProxy, and the MSSP. And if you want to use vSAN, that's another license. Then, of course, Tanzu Observability has its own separate license."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

31%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Financial Services Firm

19%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

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 UCS Manager pricing is on the expensive side. I would rate its affordability at three out of ten. It is not very affordable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Manager?

I would like to see improved visibility into the operating system, enabling us to identify issues directly from the operating system itself. This integration could prevent the need to switch betwee...

See all answers

What do you like most about VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

VMware comes with a support team, and if you have trouble, you can easily create a ticket, and VMware will help you. Therefore, the best aspect is the support.

See all answers

What needs improvement with VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

It's hard to set up Tanzu clusters. It's hard to do a POC. Once you set up a customer's environment, you easily see the problems. The initial setup should be easier and more seamless.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront?

I primarily use the solution for consulting. I help company DevOps teams.

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Intersight vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 81% of the time

Nutanix Prism vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 13% of the time

HPE OneView vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 3% of the time

Zabbix vs Cisco UCS Manager

Compared 3% of the time

More Cisco UCS Manager Competitors

Grafana vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 13% of the time

Dynatrace vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 10% of the time

Zabbix vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 6% of the time

Prometheus vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 6% of the time

Datadog vs VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Compared 6% of the time

More VMware Aria Operations for Applications Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager

December 2024

Download Cisco UCS Manager product report

Buyer's Guide

VMware Aria Operations for Applications

November 2024

VMware Aria Operations for Applications report

Download VMware Aria Operations for Applications product report

Also Known As

No data available

Tanzu Observability, Wavefront, Wavefront by VMware, VMware Tanzu Observability

Learn More

Cisco

VMware

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.

VMware Tanzu Observability by Wavefront is a powerful tool for monitoring and analyzing the performance and availability of applications and infrastructure in real-time.

With its comprehensive monitoring capabilities, visualizing and analyzing data becomes effortless. The real-time alerting system ensures timely issue resolution, while scalability and a user-friendly interface provide a seamless experience for smooth operations.

Sample Customers

Management Science Associates, Peak 10, Virtual Consulting Professionals

1. Atlassian 2. Cisco 3. Databricks 4. DigitalOcean 5. Equinix 6. Fidelity Investments 7. Google 8. Hewlett Packard Enterprise 9. Honeywell 10. IBM 11. Intel 12. JetBlue Airways 13. LinkedIn 14. Lyft 15. Mastercard 16. Microsoft 17. MongoDB 18. Netflix 19. Nvidia 20. Oracle 21. PayPal 22. Pinterest 23. Qualcomm 24. Red Hat 25. Salesforce 26. SAP 27. Spotify 28. Square 29. TMobile 30. Twitter 31. Uber 32. VMware

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

December 2024

Free Report: Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.

DOWNLOAD NOW

824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Cisco UCS Manager vs. VMware Aria Operations for Applications report.

See our list of best IT Infrastructure Monitoring vendors.

We monitor all IT Infrastructure Monitoring reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.