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Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Synergy comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Ser...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
4.3
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Rack Servers (7th), Density Optimized Servers (3rd)
HPE Synergy
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Blade Servers (4th), Composable Infrastructure (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are IT Hardware and Infrastructure solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is designed for Rack Servers and holds a mindshare of 5.2%, up 5.0% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 8.8% mindshare, down 19.8% since last year.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers5.2%
Dell PowerEdge R-Series21.8%
HPE ProLiant DL Servers17.2%
Other55.8%
Rack Servers
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy8.8%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series8.6%
HPE BladeSystem8.1%
Other74.5%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

Berthold Manz - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at ExperTeach GmbH
Seamless server transitions enhance IT infrastructure for AI projects and improve management capabilities
If you are integrated into the Cisco management solution, it is very easy to handle. The performance aspects of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are very strong. The ability to move from one server to another without changing anything is excellent. We can transfer all the identity of the servers between the servers.
MS
Works at Saudi Telecom Company
Manage servers efficiently with an integrated view while reducing downtime
My use case is to serve the complete IT environment of the telecom, including all cloud applications. I use HPE Synergy servers for my private cloud and for network management systems. 70% of my workload is running on HPE servers The integrated view, such as managing complete servers and…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It has centralized our server management and allows us to treat servers like a pool of resources instead of discrete devices."
"The C-series is number one, in my opinion."
"When you hear the brand Cisco, you don't really need to recommend it."
"The solution is easily scalable."
"The VIC card is the most important feature."
"The solution is reliable and easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the expansion and replacement of parts."
"The hardware customization capabilities are great."
"The solution is built very well. It's very robust and durable."
"The processing time has been about 50 times faster and allows us to do AI models."
"It's more composable, you can use storage as well as compute blades. So maybe it's more versatile compared to the traditional blade systems."
"For us, it's all about up-time and a good performance experience for our customers and Synergy helps us do that."
"Changing the form factor in Synergy allows us to have more RAM, which is significantly helpful for us."
"The most valuable feature is its composable infrastructure. Everything I need is in the box. Manageability is through OneView, so I can get all the information about the box itself at any time I want."
"This is a robust, stable, scalable solution."
"The benefit is that it's going to be maintained, contrary to what we had last year, when the maintenance went off for the last generation of the servers that we had there."
 

Cons

"The solution is not as economical as other vendors."
"The scalability of the product is an area of concern where Cisco needs to focus on making some improvements."
"The price of the solution is problematic, not the solution itself. It could be less expensive."
"The solution needs more capacity and more scalability."
"The initial setup could be easier."
"Absolutely we had scalability issues. We tried several times to upgrade, scale up, expand our infrastructure, but Cisco insists to demand excessive amounts of money."
"There is room for better integration with other brands."
"Technical support could be more responsive."
"The cost is high or a big investment and that is a drawback for some customers."
"If it would be possible to connect clusters of five with other clusters, so that they could all share resources, that would change the game for us. It would make it a viable solution for us."
"The main challenge we faced was that when it was installed it just did not work. There were faulty components and it took weeks of troubleshooting to find the faulty components, get them replaced. Getting help from HPE was difficult. Nobody knew about the product. It was a brand-new product and people had not been trained on it. That part was not a great experience."
"Changes to the solution are quite complex."
"We'd like to see faster networking in the back-end."
"Its management needs some work. It is not the best in terms of management. It has decent management. Its user interface can also be better."
"There is room for improvement in the efficiency part. The power consumption is very high, and there should be a more efficient way of reducing the power requirements while maintaining high performance."
"The post-sales activity needs improvement. There is some sort of convoluted spreadsheet that you have to fill in prior to the platform being delivered. It seems a little bit out-of-date and inefficient. Surely, there is some sort of web page configuration tool online that a customer could use. Then, it could be validated by somebody else, like a partner or HPE technical resource, then that would be a lot more efficient."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The server itself isn't costly at all, but the CPU and the RAM can be pretty expensive. You can buy a UCS for $2,000, but the RAM and CPU can cost up to $80,000. The most expensive asset is the intel processor, but it depends on how many cores you want and the technology you want to use on your CPU, like Hyper-V, etc."
"The pricing is expensive."
"The prices of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers are higher compared to the competition. When we try and sell against the competition, then it becomes quite difficult to sell"
"This product is quite expensive and it would be better if it were cheaper."
"Cisco is expensive, but we didn't look at the cost of the product. We were looking at reliability and support."
"The solution could be more cost-effective."
"If they plan to expand their infrastructure in periods, then simply Cisco is not a good choice."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis, which is only $2,000 or $3,000."
"There was at least about a 20 percent savings in cost over our purchase based on the purchase price of the compute modules themselves versus what we've had to pay before. It was significantly less."
"We do CAPEX."
"We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."
"We do a biannual renewal. I know how much that renewal is, but I don't know how much it breaks down to be just Synergy, since we have our VMware, all of our physical equipment, etc. all rolled up into one renewal, which is a little over $300,000 every two years. However, only a subset of that is the Synergy product."
"We have already paid once. It is just the price for the permit and its use. It seems you don't have to keep paying for it, but I am not sure."
"We are satisfied with its price."
"When we made the purchase of the hardware, we added Professional Services to it."
"The price point is a little high. We were able to get a good deal on a promotion, to go with it. It would be nice to see the prices come down a little bit."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise56
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?
My experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is not troublesome, but it is confusing. It takes a lot of time to navigate licensing and to work through ...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?
I think Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers could be improved, but I'm not really a forward thinker; everything works pretty well with how we're using it. It's not really an improvement, but the soluti...
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers?
My main use case for Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is hypervisors, using them as a hypervisor.
How would you choose between HPE's Bladesystem and Synergy?
For me, choosing between HPE’s Bladesystem and Synergy came down to which solution was more powerful, reliable, and stable. It turns out Bladesystem was the winner. Bladesystem is excellent because...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HPE Synergy?
As far as the prices are concerned, rack mount solutions are less expensive than HPE Synergy prices; however, HPE Synergy prices are higher but justify themselves as the solution accommodates all t...
What needs improvement with HPE Synergy?
In my opinion, for future improvements in HPE Synergy, there should be better management of power consumption complexity as well as an increase in the number of servers that can fit in a single Syn...
 

Also Known As

Unified Computing System C-Series, Cisco UCS C-Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Advanced Medical Transport, Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Artoni Transporti, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, City of Mississauga, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Electricity Authority of Cyprus, Grupo Industrial Saltillo (GIS), Kind en Gezin, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Nationwide, Quest, Talbots, University of St. Gallen
HudsonAlpha, Virgin Media, EMIS, United
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