Cisco UCS B-Series Reviews and Pricing

Head of Data Center at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Dec 2, 2012

Our Experiences with Cisco UCS

Hi,

Since you are asking about our experiences with Cisco UCS, here is what we've accomplished so far.

Our greatest accomplishment is server consolidation with the use of virtualization. We bundled our UCS system with VMware vShpere with vCenter management. So far, we are currently on-track to virtualize all our major services and servers.

As with any virtualization effort using commercial products, the cost is very significant. However, we look at this not just as a one-off project but it will be the foundation of our future systems and services as well.

Ultimately, the goal is for better services. Right now, our server reliability has improved, and this has translated to lesser down times. With the servers virtualized, it's also very easy to manage and perform tasks.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user1068Tech Support Staff at a tech company with 51-200 employees

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Jun 2, 2013

Cheap is always expensive. Although this product is quite expensive, you immediately forget its price the moment your company begins to enjoy its effectiveness and capabilities. We use it for our server virtualization services.

it_user1020

Head of Data Center at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Nov 21, 2012

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Cisco UCS is a great server system. Just make sure you have a knowledgeable implementation partner as this is a very complicated server system to set-up.

Pros and Cons

"What we really like about the product is the scalability of the entire server system, as the platform's architecture ensures that we can easily grow our systems as the need arises."

"The server system can be very daunting for an untrained system administrator to configure."

Valuable Features:

The Cisco UCS Blade Server system is our newest blade server system. We bought the server as the winning server system for our Oracle Peoplesoft Campus Solution system. It bested bids from Oracle, IBM, HP and Dell.What we really like about the product is the scalability of the entire server system. the platform's architecture ensures that we can easily grow our systems as the need arises.The server system also has the necessary features that we want like tight integration with virtualization technologies and storage systems. We have gone full virtualization with our Oracle system implementation and we are very satisfied with the implementation.Lastly, Cisco really did a good job in making sure that such a server system does not produce unnecessary cable clutter.

Room for Improvement:

The downside when using anything from Cisco is the required knowledge needed to ensure proper implementation. The server system can be very daunting for an untrained system administrator to configure.Also, the server system can consume a lot of power. Proper preparations must be taken to ensure that the electrical and cooling facilities where the new server will be housed is sufficient for this server system. I would definitely recommend this product as its benefits far outweigh its drawbacks. Just make sure that you buy all the necessary components to have a complete system.

Other Advice:

Choosing the right partner for implementing the system is also critical. They must be knowledgeable in implementing the Cisco UCS system as its a very complicated system to set-up. The implementation must also include a system administrators training so that company administrators can manage the system after configuration and deployment.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user154917Works at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

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Aug 3, 2015

Cisco UCS Servers up the Data Center to another level

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Cisco UCS B-Series

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it_user909

Owner at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Jun 18, 2012

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Great consolidation, high mem capacity, excellent reduction on ports. But you're locked in.

Pros and Cons

"Great consolidation, high mem capacity, excellent reduction on ports."

"Very tightly integrated, so once you are all in, you are likely to be there for a long time."

Valuable Features:

Great consolidation, high mem capacity, excellent reduction on ports.

Room for Improvement:

Very tightly integrated, so once you are all in, you are likely to be there for a long time.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

reviewer2234919

Senior Infrastructure And Storage Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Jul 19, 2023

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Has rock-solid performance and is easy to deploy

Pros and Cons

"It is less time-consuming to deploy the software."

"It is more expensive than the competitors."

What is most valuable?

Cisco UCS B-Series's most beneficial feature is agent management for print. Its performance is rock solid, and its servers are excellent.

What needs improvement?

The cost of the product is its biggest weakness. It is more expensive than the competitors.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco UCS B-Series for 15 years. I have also worked with Cisco UCS C-Series and Cisco UCS X-Series.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We use Cisco UCS B-Series predominantly and have 50 end users in our organization.

How was the initial setup?

It is easy and less time-consuming to deploy the software. The time taken for the process usually depends on the size of the installation. We had a team of around ten administrators for the implementation.