Cisco UCS Manager vs Zabbix comparison

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Cisco UCS Manager

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Zabbix and Cisco UCS Manager are both key players in IT infrastructure management. Zabbix, with its extensive feature set and open-source flexibility, seems to have an edge due to its cost-effectiveness and comprehensive capabilities.

Features: Zabbix offers automated network and inventory discovery, diverse notification options, and strong integration capabilities, all delivered at no cost. Cisco UCS Manager provides effective management of computing resources, comprehensive compatibility with Cisco hardware, and reliable performance.

Room for Improvement: Zabbix could improve its user interface intuitiveness, reporting capabilities, and reduce false positives. Enhancements in AI and ML integrations would be beneficial. Cisco UCS Manager could enhance its automation, simplify its interface, and improve the firmware upgrade process and support for hyper-converged systems.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zabbix's open-source model offers flexible deployments across clouds and benefits from a strong community for troubleshooting while official support is available for purchase. Cisco UCS Manager is recognized for dependable hardware support, though deployment can be complex with a steeper learning curve. Its technical support is effective but may incur higher costs.

Pricing and ROI: Zabbix's open-source model eliminates licensing costs, providing immediate ROI with substantial savings on support and licensing. Cisco UCS Manager is more costly, designed for advanced data center management with expenses in hardware and licensing, yet offers value in its stability and reliability for critical IT infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS Manager vs. Zabbix Report (Updated: October 2024).

Cisco UCS Manager vs. Zabbix

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

Zabbix

Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring

1st

Average Rating

8.2

Number of Reviews

103

Ranking in other categories

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and Observability (10th), Network Monitoring Software (1st), Server Monitoring (1st), Cloud Monitoring Software (2nd)

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 Zabbix is 12.2%, down from 13.2% 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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ASM Naushad Alam

Network Manager at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Dec 16, 2022

Allows any number of customizations but lacks functionality for finding root causes

Our company is a financial organization and we use the solution to check connectivity, CPU utilization, and hard disk utilization for all of our servers. We monitor networks to learn traffic conditions. We use threshold features to compare servers or routers and find each server's size before it…

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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

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

"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."

"From a usability and functionality perspective, Cisco UCS Manager is very good."

"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."

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

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

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

More Cisco UCS Manager pros

"Zabbix helps to save time."

"SNMP monitoring, source discovery, and alert triggering are most valuable."

"It is a great product. The SNMP protocol tracking feature is good. I really like how it tracks SNMP. The alerts are also great."

"The most valuable feature is that it provides network segregation for server monitoring."

"We have found that Zabbix is more easy to use than other applications."

"Its overall flexibility is most valuable. When our customers have some custom applications that are not necessarily covered by the community or a standard monitoring tool, we use Zabbix to build our own modules with our own templates. This feature has been useful in using Zabbix for infrastructure and IT monitoring. It has also been useful for industrial equipment monitoring. Zabbix is very lightweight. It is efficient in terms of performance because it doesn't use a lot of resources."

"Zabbix is a cost-effective solution. We're a small organization with a few dozen devices to monitor, and it was available for free. We can see what we need. We haven't done an in-depth analysis on it, but we're currently okay with the product."

"The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration."

More Zabbix pros

Cons

"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."

"I would like to see Cisco UCS optionally work as a hyper-converged system because right now, it only operates as a converged system."

"The interface and the way it is constructed is very complex. They should work to simplify it. It's quite difficult for somebody who doesn't know the product very well. Users should be able to get proficient with it faster. There's definitely room for improvement there."

"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."

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

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

"I want to be able to schedule multiple sequential updates in one go."

More Cisco UCS Manager cons

"I want Zabbix to improve the UX/UI. Zabbix doesn't use a JavaScript chart for images, and I want them to improve this."

"Zabbix isn't a great tool for cloud-specific monitoring - its connection to public clouds needs to be improved. Other areas for improvement would be the lack of dashboards and integrations."

"In the next release, I'm hoping for features targeted towards larger users with more customizable options. Despite this, I think pre-canned reports that can be used straight out of the box would be beneficial rather than having to configure each report individually. Additionally, a deeper dive into software configurations on the machines would be useful, although I understand there may be challenges in implementing this due to scripting requirements. More documentation would also be appreciated."

"Zabbix can use better documentation and support for troubleshooting."

"The server monitoring could be better."

"The performance reporting could be improved."

"As far as improvements, sometimes I get a bit frustrated when I move from a previous version to a new one because some configuration has changed—I need to investigate the documentation to deal with some configuration. But it doesn't take much time, so it's okay."

"The product delivers false positives during reporting because of flapping. Other reasonably priced alternatives may have better performance."

More Zabbix cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The product is an open source and free solution."

"For pricing, it's free. We don't pay anything for it. They open-source the code, and people pay for support."

"We purchased Zabbix for a good price, including support"

"Zabbix is a free solution but the support contact costs money."

"There are no licenses."

"This solution is completely open-source, so it is quite affordable."

"It is reasonable."

"It is open source. If you want to have a subscription or official support, you can pay for it. They have different plans, which are not that expensive. The plans are based on per monitoring server, not per monitored equipment. So, it is not at all expensive, and you can also live without the support if you want a cheaper option."

More Zabbix pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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

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Comparison Review

it_user174738

IT Developer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

May 31, 2015

Nagios vs. Zabbix vs. PRTG vs. Spiceworks vs. Solarwinds Network Performance Monitor

I have researched a quite a few network monitoring tools which can be used for various monitoring purposes of not only the servers, but the intermediate routers as well. There are majorly three types of these softwares. Ones which are completely open-source, you can do almost anything you want…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

32%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

39%

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

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.

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.

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.

What do you like most about Zabbix?

The template system in Zabbix is very beneficial as it saves time in configuration.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zabbix?

I use the tool's free version.

What needs improvement with Zabbix?

I'm using the free version of Zabbix, and I'd like to see more customization options, especially for setting trigger thresholds.

Cisco Intersight vs Cisco UCS Manager

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Product Reports

Download Cisco UCS Manager product report

Cisco UCS Manager

November 2024

Download Zabbix product report

October 2024

Learn More

Cisco

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.

Zabbix is an open-source monitoring software that provides real-time monitoring and alerting for servers, networks, applications, and services.

It offers a wide range of features including data collection, visualization, and reporting.

With its user-friendly interface and customizable dashboards, Zabbix helps organizations ensure the availability and performance of their IT infrastructure.

Sample Customers

Management Science Associates, Peak 10, Virtual Consulting Professionals

1. IBM 2. Dell 3. Cisco 4. HP 5. Oracle 6. Microsoft 7. Amazon 8. Google 9. Facebook 10. Twitter 11. LinkedIn 12. Netflix 13. Adobe 14. VMware 15. Salesforce 16. SAP 17. Intel 18. AT&T 19. Verizon 20. T-Mobile 21. Vodafone 22. Ericsson 23. Nokia 24. Siemens 25. General Electric 26. Honeywell 27. Philips 28. Sony 29. Samsung 30. LG 31. Panasonic 32. Toshiba