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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco UCS Series

    Score9.4 out of 10
    N/AThe Cisco UCS Series is a modular, high-density, high-availability, dual-node storage- optimized server suited for service providers, enterprises, and industry-specific environments. It provides dense, cost-effective storage to address your ever-growing data needs. Designed for a new class of data-intensive workloads, it is simple to deploy and excellent for applications for big data, data protection, software-defined storage environments, scale-out unstructured data repositories, media…N/A

    IBM Z

    Score9.3 out of 10
    N/AIBM Z is the company's mainframe enterprise server solution product line.N/A
    Pricing
    Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Z
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Z
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalOptional
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Z
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    IBM
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Would buy again
    19 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    15 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    18 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    87%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    18 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Z
    Small Businesses
    Dell PowerEdge
    Score10 out of 10
    Dell PowerEdge
    Score10 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Dell PowerEdge
    Score10 out of 10
    Dell PowerEdge
    Score10 out of 10
    Enterprises
    IBM Power
    Score9 out of 10
    IBM Power
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Z
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.4
    (56 ratings)
    9.6
    (42 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    7.8
    (7 ratings)
    4.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.8
    (10 ratings)
    9.9
    (3 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Configurability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Professional Services
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Z
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Cisco UCS Series is well suited for Enterprise data centers, offering centralized management of server profiles and policies. 2-Enterprise data center, wherein rack space, cooling, and power are a challenge. 3- Mission-critical application, Cisco UCS Series is well suited, Cisco UCS Series is less appropriate in the following situations: 1. Small SMB (high upfront cost and complexity may be overkill). 2. Expensive solution for a small business. Most cost-effective to use traditional rack servers.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    Most of the time, server utilization is reliable and stable during peak times. Truly amazing, this product offers a lot and gets it done in no time without any confusion.It is reliable, too accurate and the performance is top-notch. It seems to be competitive in all virtual energy systems and its connectivity is also good. It's available at a low cost, but it's enough to have as many low-cost, more efficient systems as possible. It's a minor thing, but very rarely, it can cause work interruptions while it can get stuck due to more frequent use such as restless work. These power servers are very efficient and really help when things go wrong. I am using this product to retrieve data much faster.
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    Pros
    Cisco
    • It's very customizable. It's customizable as in you have a chassis, but you could pick and choose the size of your blades puff with full width depending on what your workloads are. So in a way, you're not locked in. It's not like you buy a chassis and you're stuck into one thing could go and put, you need something that's storage intensive or maybe you've got more graphics intensive workload. You could choose and mix and match in the same.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • Virtualization for Scale-Out and Scale-Up in the same footprint
    • Security for different workloads: Large Confidential Computing and lightweight Secure Execution
    • Performance is a true game changer: extreme throughput powered by amazingly huge caches.
    • The one and only FIPS 140-2 Level 4 HSM on this planet
    • Quantum Safe Encryption NOW!
    • AI infusion to every transaction
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Cisco
    • Continue on development of platform management. Cisco has been notorious for terrible web applications but the functionality of this product is getting to where it is expected to be.
    • Recognition of this being a product in a competitive market. When I think of servers I do not think of Cisco. Cisco = Networking Dell,HP=Servers
    • 3rd party interoperability. I love Cisco but being tied to proprietary hardware/software is not a functionality that the end user or customer benefits from.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • It would be good if IBM could demonstrate more use cases for Z to potential clients
    • A migration strategy from Open Systems to Z would be helpful
    • Any additional marketing to could explain the benefits of Z/Linux, especially now that RedHat is in the mix.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    Cisco UCS has been a highly reliable compute platform for our workloads, handling MSSQL, SSIS, virtualization (VMware vSphere), and analytics workloads with low latency and high efficiency. UCS Service Profiles and centralized management (UCS Manager, Intersight) make it easy to provision, scale, and manage compute resources efficiently across production and non-production environments. Our UCS setup integrates well with Pure Storage and Nimble HF40, delivering high IOPS, low latency, and fast throughput for data-intensive workloads. Cisco UCS hardware and licensing can be expensive compared to some alternative compute platforms, especially when considering cloud-based or hyperconverged options. While UCS can work in a hybrid cloud setup, it doesn’t natively integrate as seamlessly with public cloud providers like Azure or AWS compared to some newer solutions. We may need to evaluate Azure Stack HCI or AWS Outposts for future flexibility.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    The IBM Z mainframe capabilities are unmatched for cloud readiness and optimization the learning capabilities are matched perfectly with Watson and the expandability of the cloud makes it a perfect choice.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    Cisco
    While Cisco's hardware is solid and long running, their software is usually the weak point. I will say that they are getting better with each release but if I had to find a problem with usability that would be it. Overall usability is good when you can work around software issues.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    Once you learn how, it easy. It's different than most other systems
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    The platform’s redundant fabric interconnects, power supplies, and built-in high-availability features ensure that systems remain online even during hardware failures or maintenance. Unplanned outages are rare, and when combined with proactive monitoring, UCS provides a very reliable environment for critical workloads.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    The Z in IBM Z is for zero down time. If you configure your system according to IBM's best practices, you can achieve zero downtime
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Cisco
    The system performs exceptionally well in terms of speed and efficiency, with pages loading quickly, and reports completing in a reasonable time frame, even with complex configurations. The integration of UCS with other systems, such as VMware vSphere and storage solutions, has generally not caused noticeable performance degradation. The scalability of UCS allows it to handle growing workloads without significant slowdowns. However, the performance could be slightly impacted during hardware or firmware upgrades, but these instances have been rare and well-managed. Overall, the performance has met our expectations and continues to provide reliable results.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    Performance is a major part when you configure your system. IBM has many tools to study your system and suggest the appropriate configuration. With the right contract, you can add processing power dynamically and remove it when no longer needed
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Cisco
    Cisco TAC is simply unbeatable and that goes for Cisco UCS server support just as well as it does for Cisco CUCM software. TAC has a well-deserved, excellent reputation and I do not hesitate to call them or open a ticket online, because I always know that I will get the help that I need and get it quickly
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    IBM
    Support is usually superb, only occasionally dropping to very good. We participate in some of the CD (Continuous Delivery) aspects of z/OS, IMS, MQ, and DB2.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Cisco
    I would rate the in-person training as excellent. The sessions were well-structured, hands-on, and delivered by knowledgeable instructors who made UCS concepts easy to understand. It greatly improved our team’s confidence in managing the platform.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    Over my 33 years on this platform, I attended many in person courses, conferences, and other training opportunities.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Cisco
    The training materials provided were generally informative and covered the essential aspects of the UCS platform, such as UCS Manager, Service Profiles, and integration with other systems. However, some of the training modules could benefit from being more hands-on and interactive. Additionally, certain advanced topics, like complex network configurations or troubleshooting hardware issues, were not covered in as much depth. Overall, while the training was useful, there’s room for improvement in terms of depth and practical application for more advanced users.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    There are many online courses from both IBM and other vendors. Most are great. All of the documentation is available online.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    We were very satisfied with the implementation of Cisco UCS Series. The deployment was well-structured, Cisco’s support team was highly responsive, and the solution integrated smoothly with our existing infrastructure. The project was completed on time with minimal disruption to operations.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    I do not personally have any key insights regarding implementation of IBM Z Enterprise Servers as that is what our mainframe architects do.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    The Cisco UCS Series systems have far fewer hardware issues than the competition and seem to run longer than what we would be able to. They are also easier to manage from an admin perspective with easy to use tools, the right diagnostic and alerting and remote administration capabilities. They are a great product.
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    IBM
    IBM Z is the best storage solution as it provides the best in class data protection with the cryptographic hardware keys, no loss in data while migration, and a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for develops to understand and has less of a learning curve. This makes it well above the competition.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    Cisco
    Cisco UCS Series provides a highly flexible architecture with service profiles, fabric interconnects, and modular blades/rack servers, allowing organizations to scale compute and network resources across multiple departments and sites efficiently. The only minor limitation is that careful planning is required to maintain consistency at very large scales.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    If you need more processing power, just add more CPU's or memory. The largest system can have close to 200 CPU's and 40 TB of memory. If that is not enough, you can add more physical computers, and connect them using a sysplex
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • I'm going to start with the negative impact. Maybe in order to have the ease of use, you have to get some time to prepare correctly and to correctly to design the correct design. But now that you've done this time, you don't have to take that to get back to this configuration. You are all free. And this is the positive side, it's that when everything is prepared correctly, everything is smooth. So the use of the profiles, the connection of new servers, the decommissioning and the adding of new servers, the modification of configuration, everything is more easy to use and the less we interrupt user access to our service, the more the hospital is working fine and we can achieve a better support to our end users. And then to the patients.
    Incentivized
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    IBM
    • With IBM Z we really feel a different positive impact on our company. A trustworthy and the most powerful place we have ever.
    • A unique computing platform that helps a lot for the progress of our company.
    • It keeps our data save, encrypted.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Cisco UCS Series Screenshots

    Screenshot of Cisco System I/O ControllerScreenshot of Cisco UCS S3260 System I/O ControllerScreenshot of Cisco UCS S3260 Base ChassisScreenshot of Cisco UCS C4200 Series Rack Server ChassisScreenshot of Cisco UCS C125 M5 Rack Server NodeScreenshot of UCSC-C245-M8SX Rack Server