Cisco UCS B-Series Reviews

We are running many applications for a logistics provider. We do the storing of goods for our partners and transport and so on.

The most valuable features of the solution are stability and security.

The solution’s pricing could be improved and made cheaper.

I have been using Cisco UCS B-Series for five to six years.

We haven’t faced any issues with the solution’s stability so far.

I rate the solution ten out of ten for stability.

We haven’t faced any issues with the solution’s scalability. Around 1,000 to 2,000 users are using the solution in our organization, and we may plan to increase the usage.

The solution’s initial setup is straightforward.

We implemented the solution through an in-house team.

We have to pay a monthly licensing fee for the solution.

We have a team of around 50 people to deploy and maintain the solution. I would recommend the solution to other users.

Overall, I rate the solution ten out of ten.

We use the solution to help manage our data centers.

Stateless Blade is the best feature. If we have a blade go down we find that the server continues to work well.

The technical support is sometimes delayed and has room for improvement.

The cost of the solution has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

Cisco UCS B-Series is stable.

The solution is scalable by adding additional hardware.

The technical support is good but can sometimes be delayed.

Positive

We use HPE BladeSystem and Cisco UCS B-Series but we are going to replace them both with the Cisco X210c M6 series because of the high performance.

The initial setup is straightforward. The configuration is also simple.

The implementation is completed in-house.

The cost of the Cisco UCS B-Series is comparable to HP solutions but higher than Dell solutions.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Around ten administrators are required to manage the solution.

I recommend the solution to others because it has good performance and is highly stable with little downtime.

We've used blades and hyperflex. It's for data center refreshes and greenfield solutions. We've done a lot of HCI Solutions.

We're basically taking old three-tier storage, no compute, networking solutions and then pulled into an ACI solution hyperflex or blades. I've worked on both the UCSX series and also the B series. M6, M7, and M5, and with a lot of fabric interconnects - just pretty much anything and everything for UCF.

Over the years, it's been it's come a long way from going from UCS manager to intersite managed solution. So we're doing a lot of cloud type management where we've been able to use that as which are like tenant managed services solutions with Cisco UCS and Hyperflex. We have managed services. Engineers that do manage all the customer's inter-site portal configurations, and then also we manage all the deployments, and pretty much we build run books and everything for them so that they know how to customers know how to how to work with their the hard new hardware for the hyperflex environments. Overall infrastructure-wise, we manage that for them, and they just manage internally.

It's modular. You can get higher-density blades within the 5108 chassis and the 9508 chassis. With the X series, it's even better, as you can add bigger blades and more processing and memory. It is a lot more resource-intensive and scalable. 

The solution is stable.

The setup is straightforward. 

InterSite is still working on a lot of bugs. Specifically, going from UCF's manager to all strictly interstate-managed environments, there have been a lot of challenges. It is a challenging environment as far as migration from UCS manager director to strictly an inter-site managed in the cloud. Cisco's still working out those bugs. We've been doing a lot of troubleshooting.  

I would like to see more density within the blades compared to HPE and other Dell blades. They do have more slots available. However, the UCSX series that's going to be a game-changer. I'm going through advanced architect training for that engineering training for that product as well. I foresee that X is probably going to replace the C or B series blades since you'll be able to get more density. In the end, you may be able to get double the nodes per slot.

The solution is expensive.

Sometimes, support isn't as fast or knowledgeable as customers need them to be.

I've used the solution for probably over ten years. 

It's pretty stable. I'd rate the reliability eight out of ten. 

The B series is pretty scalable. You can have several chassis within an FI pair. Then you could have multiple UCS domains. Now, with the InterSite, you can have multiple configurations more so than the UCSB series with the InterSite managed solutions where you can have B series and you can have both UCS manager and InterSite yet you can't have both. With the UCS X series available, that's another game change.

Our customer base definitely intends to increase usage.

From a partner perspective, we pretty much can troubleshoot more in-depth than some of the tech engineers. We've had a lot of tech engineer engagements with our large customers, and wasn't that I wasn't that impressed. They just seemed not to have a full understanding of what the customer issues were, and that took a long time to sort out. 

They also had multiple tech engineers involved. That prolonged the overall support for the customer. We jumped in and had more expertise, and we were able to help solve the issue before the tech in a lot of cases.

Neutral

The initial setup was straightforward. 

You can deploy on-premises. We've also worked with customers in remote installations where they would rack a stack, and then we would do a remote configuration on everything if it's through either a VPN or a Webex session, a Cisco secure Webex session. If it's InterSite, we can pretty much do it remotely. There's no UCS manager available to support that now, and everything's pretty much in the cloud managed, which is nice.

I typically note a three-year ROI.

The solution is pricey, and Cisco's prices change every month - or, at least, it seems that way. It's a constant challenge for our customers. However, we work with account executives at Cisco and work to get discounts. 

New users need to definitely understand how the UCF manager works. They need to understand InterSites, fabric interconnects, and how everything connects both up links to the northbound core switches and make sure all the connectivity is correct. 

Connectivity is a big issue. If you don't have the right connectivity configured specifically for the UCS manager with the FIs and also the fabric modules coming off the chassis, there will be a lot of issues. I've seen a lot of attack-related issues going forward. Users need to make sure that they have everything configured correctly.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We have been working with Cisco UCS B-Series for data center operations since 2018. We implemented it in one bank, but everything else is handled by HP.

The Cisco solution provides a unified dashboard that enhances virtualization tasks, allowing configurations from a single interface. It also helps with space and power management, which are vital for data center efficiency.

The dashboard of Cisco UCS B-Series allows users to have multiple options displayed on a single interface and facilitates configuration from that dashboard. This ease of manageability is also appreciated.

It would be beneficial for Cisco UCS B-Series to improve on the technological adaptability aspect, especially with regard to containerized applications, as the market in our region is still adapting to newer technologies. There is also a need for better local parts replacement, as HP is superior in this area.

We have been familiar with and using Cisco UCS B-Series solutions since 2018.

Both Cisco and HP solutions are similar in scalability, supporting up to sixteen blades. There are no significant differences in scalability between the two.

Cisco's tech support is superior to that of HP's, at least online. However, HP surpasses Cisco in local parts availability and replacement.

Positive

Our team handled the implementation as we executed it in a bank successfully while other projects were handled by HP.

Previously, Cisco pricing was higher, but now both Cisco and HP are competitive with pricing. At the end of negotiations, the pricing is usually matched between the two, so cost is not a major differentiating factor anymore.

HP solutions were considered and are still predominantly used.

I recommend focusing on the relationship with the customer as it plays a more significant role than the technical specifications in our region.

We use it as a stand-alone for computing only in HyperFlex. Using multiple projects and VDI projects, you can utilize distribution and access codes to find the storage that works for various solutions and scenarios.

They have management on the enterprise side. So, we manage directly through Fabric internet or the rack-mounted directly, whether on-premise, on the cloud, or private.

The most significant benefit of the blade itself is its stethoscope-like functionality. You can remove and reinsert the blade and attach the service profile if any hardware is damaged. This is the main objective of the solution. Additionally, we can leverage it in a hybrid infrastructure. We are also authorized to integrate the solution with other vendors. They have a wide range of offerings, and we integrate HyperFlex, which is merged with fabric and implemented with the ACI or Application Centric Infrastructure, to advance software defense solutions.

The price of the solution can be improved.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

The solution is stable.

The solution is scalable. We have more than 52,000 customers using this solution. We have it installed in banking, government entities, and private sectors.

The initial setup is not easy. You should know or understand the data center, particularly when integrating with SAN, NAS storage, or NFS.

It generally takes 30 minutes to an hour for basic tasks. However, it may take several days to involve blade integration and integration with other systems. The project's timeline depends on various factors, such as integration requirements, scope, and configuration tasks. Based on these considerations, we can estimate the number of days required for integrating the object.

First of all, we gather information from the customer regarding the project's purpose. The project has multiple components, such as configuring IBM Athena for management, aligning with the latest stable software, and configuring service profiles based on the project scope.

Once we complete these tasks, we will move on to system administration, which includes providing a visual interface and configuring the operating system. Depending on the scenario, we will decide whether to install a hypervisor or directly install the working system on the server. This decision will be based on the sandbox environment we have.

Cisco UCS does not require a license. However, this license is not specific to users. In collaboration with the tech team, it also controls and stores other components, such as hypervisors, JES control, technology integration, and analytics.

It integrates with all other solutions, including building and internal solutions.

Overall, I rate the solution nine out of ten.

We primarily use Cisco UCS B-Series in data center operations.

The system has reduced the number of customer aggregation requirements due to the aggressive network protocol cost.

Going inside with the management and monitoring is valuable. The aggregation in the data center is beneficial. It also makes management easier as we can manage everything from one place.

If we could get more reference architecture available on the portal, it would be helpful in making decisions. Also, the content should be more extensive, especially technical content.

I have been working with Cisco UCS B-Series for almost 12 years.

The performance, stability, scalability, and interface are fine.

The performance, stability, scalability, and interface are fine.

I would rate their technical support a six out of ten. They need more technical content in their documentation and perhaps more support personnel.

Positive

Before Cisco UCS B-Series, I worked with another system for about three years.

The initial setup was easy.

The pricing is competitive. While the UCS price was high before, it is more competitive now.

I would recommend that they include more technical content and ensure there is sufficient documentation available.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

The platform has valuable features for management and good monitoring tools. It provides efficient insights.

There is a delay in the product's reporting and the rebooting system compared to servers from other vendors like Dell and HP.

We have been using the Cisco UCS B-Series for two years.

It is a stable platform.

Organizations can purchase extra devices or appliances and integrate them easily with Cisco UCS B-Series. It has good scalability. We have more than 3000 end users for it, and we plan to gradually increase the number of users.

Sometimes, the technical support team delays the responses, and the connection works slowly. They could respond faster.

I have worked with HPE, Palo Alto, and Juniper before.

We do not encounter any complexity while deploying the software as we have worked with it twice or thrice. I have 29 technical engineers in my team working on the implementation.

The product is expensive. We encounter a licensing issue as well. It could be subscription-based.

Cisco UCS B-Series enables easy integration with existing infrastructure. The deployment process is well organized, including the basic foundation and design.

It has very good management capabilities. Integrating iOS and firmware management and comprehensive inventory tracking allows us to check and log the information through a single dashboard. There is no need to purchase any external software for insights.

It is a good solution. I rate it an eight out of ten.

We use the solution for our network system.

The product is easy to use. It's user-friendly.

The product could be made more secure.

I have been using the solution for approximately three or four years.

The tool is stable. I rate the stability a nine or ten out of ten.

The tool is scalable. We have 30,000 users.

The technical support is fast.

The initial setup was easy. Our IT department deployed the solution in our organization.

We use Cisco because of its VPN. I will recommend the product to others. It is easy to use and easy to connect. Overall, I rate the solution an eight or nine out of ten.