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Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers vs HPE Synergy comparison

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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 (5th), 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 5.1% compared to last year.
HPE Synergy, on the other hand, focuses on Blade Servers, holds 8.6% mindshare, down 19.5% since last year.
Rack Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers5.2%
Dell PowerEdge R-Series21.0%
HPE ProLiant DL Servers16.7%
Other57.1%
Rack Servers
Blade Servers Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
HPE Synergy8.6%
Dell PowerEdge MX- Series8.4%
HPE BladeSystem8.0%
Other75.0%
Blade Servers
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1441011 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr, Manager- Network Solution Architect at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Comprehensive support and integration ensure smooth cloud infrastructure operations
I may not be the right person to comment on advanced improvements because we are just using basic functionalities. We are getting all the functionalities which we used to get in other OEM rack servers. Potential areas for improvement may include a more flexible pricing model, better technical support, or tutorials from the vendor for users.
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 server can be configured easily."
"The solution has improved our organization by easily integrating with our VMware and storage solutions."
"It was simple to install and has given us no problems."
"The technical support from Cisco is fine."
"The VIC card is the most important feature."
"In most cases, computes compute, and there isn't much differentiation, but one point of differentiation is Intersight cloud management."
"The integration with IT infrastructure is seamless based on our experience."
"The solution has reduced our IT infrastructure costs by at least 30 percent, mainly because of the density compared to our former infrastructure."
"It has had a positive effect on the efficiency of our IT infrastructure team. The manageability of it is so easy, we're able to install it quickly, and replacement parts are easy to get in and out quickly."
"It makes it simpler for me to manage my environment. It is one pane of glass, compared to multiple."
"It is really easy to use, because it's GUI-based. It is not command line based, like mainframes."
"The solution is extremely scalable, it's one of the highlights of the product for us, and if a company needs to expand, it can do so with ease."
"For me, this is the best frame server technology available in the market. We can compare it to Cisco UCS. It is robust and stable, and it is also easy to deploy and scale. Their support is the best."
"The most valuable features are the evolution of our existing HPE portfolio, the integration with our existing tool sets, and the enhanced capabilities that OneView bring."
"It is a good product for hypervisors."
 

Cons

"Potential areas for improvement may include a more flexible pricing model, better technical support, or tutorials from the vendor for users."
"The hard drive of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is not very good. I have already replaced three of them."
"The only thing I would change is to provide more proactive support."
"The initial setup could be easier."
"Cisco UCS C-Series Rack could improve by selling storage. Cisco doesn't sell storage, which is a problem because some customers ask for storage. There are several brands in the market, such as HPE, and Dell EMC. However, Cisco doesn't have any storage. This is where the tension comes from buying this solution."
"The product must add customer-friendly monitoring features."
"The warranty and support periods should be extended."
"The product is losing ground to the competition, such as Nutanix."
"This solution could be improved by increasing the speed on the conversion adapters. It should be 100 gigs."
"I would like to see more nodes in a single chassis so we wouldn't have to purchase additional chassis."
"I would like to see support for other vendors’ hardware."
"I would really like a way to validate the firmware in my specific environment before trying to deploy it. Those were the issues we had early on with firmware upgrades, particularly around certificates. All in all, having some level of confidence aside from it just having been tested generically would help. Something more specific to my environment would be very helpful."
"In the Generation 10 modules, we have observed that very often the server has hardware issues."
"HPE Synergy could improve its remote support."
"The stability is not good right now. We have had a couple of outages where we have receive very good support from HPE. However, we have not been able to come up with cut and dried reasons for why the outages have occurred. They have not been able to be reproduced, so it has been difficult getting our trust back."
"Over the two years of using HPE Synergy, we have found some hardware failures that are frequent in the SOP models, CNA cards, and converged network adapters. These failures are frequently happening for a lot of the customers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​Best to buy all the blades configured for the same purposes of load balancing and failover or load shifting.​"
"This product is slightly more expensive when compared to others."
"If they plan to expand their infrastructure in periods, then simply Cisco is not a good choice."
"The price of Cisco UCS C-Series Rack Servers is high."
"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"
"The solution is expensive and I give the price a four out of ten."
"The solution requires an annual licensing fee."
"The solution could be more cost-effective."
"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 pay for licensing on the fibre channel uplinks, on the Virtual Connect, which is an add-on."
"It costs us around $60,000 a year."
"We bought everything outright to start with. We don't do much consumption-based stuff."
"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."
"Synergy has lowered our total cost of ownership significantly. I would say ballpark around 25 percent, maybe more."
"VMware is part of the cost. We bought the chassis, we bought the solution. The blades are roughly running us $60,000 a pop right now."
"For temporal use, when you throw on the fact that you're essentially doubling your capacity, right there you could claim a 50 percent TCO reduction."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM and others in Rack Servers. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.