Cisco UCS X-Series vs. IBM Power

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco UCS X-Series
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
The Cisco UCS X-Series is a modular system designed for adaptability to simplify IT processes and speed innovation. The system provides users with the right-size infrastructure for the workload and enables operations with the efficiency and predictable TCO needed.N/A
IBM Power
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
The IBM Power product line is a family of servers.N/A
Pricing
Cisco UCS X-SeriesIBM Power
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco UCS X-SeriesIBM Power
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco UCS X-SeriesIBM Power
Best Alternatives
Cisco UCS X-SeriesIBM Power
Small Businesses
Dell PowerEdge
Dell PowerEdge
Score 10.0 out of 10
Dell PowerEdge
Dell PowerEdge
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
HPE ProLiant DL
HPE ProLiant DL
Score 5.9 out of 10
HPE ProLiant DL
HPE ProLiant DL
Score 5.9 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM Z
IBM Z
Score 9.3 out of 10
IBM Z
IBM Z
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco UCS X-SeriesIBM Power
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.4
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco UCS X-SeriesIBM Power
Likelihood to Recommend
The Cisco UCS X-Series is well suited for anyone who currently is using UCS. While the recommended management via Intersight takes time to get used to it is a vast improvement over UCSM in terms of complexity. The ability to pair GPUs with blades now also helps to reduce the requirement for rack servers and their associated switch ports helping to increase ROI.
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Large-scale data centers that place a premium on high performance, dependability, and scalability benefit greatly from IBM Power servers. They are perfect for hosting vital databases, virtualized workloads, and applications. Organizations like ours dealing with big data analytics, data warehousing, and AI/machine learning workloads benefit from Power servers' ability to process and analyze vast datasets efficiently.
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Pros
  • Cisco Provide the Centralized management to collect all information.
  • Easy User Interface to use and execute the daily routine operation.
  • Performance and stability are much better.
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  • The systems are physically able to keep the systems operating and producing.
  • The AIX operating system is stable and secure both Firmware and Software.
  • IBM Power servers support many applications for the customer re: Oracle, DB2, and many Power grid systems.
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Cons
  • Config on the hardware specification of each server. E.g. bios, cpu power etc.
  • FI edit of configuration can't be done
  • Minimum # of psu
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  • A solid IDE for editing programs. SEU was simple and solid. Then it became outdated and support for it ended as the language continued to evolve. That's fine. But RDi is expensive and shaky at best, and VS Code, while free, is severely lacking even the modicum of features RDi has.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
This is one of the best systems on the market. You can have Flash/Copy which created another LPAR to look like the system you are copying. This takes seconds and not minutes. Then you can use BRNS to do full system backups nightly with no downtime. I am ready for us to upgrade to a Power 10.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
IBM Power allows us to host and scale up to 32TB of Virtual Machine (VM). We were earlier limited to 12TB per single VM, and could only scale-out (or horizontally). Since some of our solutions are extensively memory intensive, we wanted to host larger VM.We are SAP only shop, given some SAP solutions are memory intensive and some industries need to exploit 'memory intensive' IBM Power was the only choice to scale architecture beyond 12TB memory with support for High Availability design as well! This has drastically improved the time we had to spend on optimizing the applications, solution and database.
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
In all of the years I have used various Power System, I have never had any problems at all. Even when hackers were attacking our email servers and many users PCs, the IBM Power System came out completely unscathed. I haven't even had any application errors that were able to take the system down. Nor have I ever experienced an unplanned outage
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Performance
No answers on this topic
The IBM Power System is built for integration. It supports multiple operating systems and you can run multiple OS's on the same box with no problems at all. It also supports a number of open source languages such as PHP, Java, Python, and Perl which helps you continue to grow and integrate with lots of other systems.
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Support Rating
No answers on this topic
On large-scale systems, the rating would have been 10. However, I have seen some cases in more rural areas where the IBM onsite support is not as available or of the highest quality as in the past. For software support, there are sometimes instances of language barriers.
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
Systems are robust and you need to know exactly what your are going to do with them. There are multiple configurations possible and you need to gather your requirements first, before going on with the implementation. Tuning is a must before migrating production systems
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Alternatives Considered
I have not worked with similar product in our company though we have been satisfied by great services offered by Cisco UCS X-series. It has modern applications that have equips our applications with technological power to work on enterprise workloads. The cloud operated infrastructure helps us to work on secure data and offer backup system that minimizes data lose. It has the power to deal with any volume of data using cloud-native applications.
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Power server do not need a stack of software for viruses, spam and others... Power server do not need to have release often power server are much more strong then other manufacturer Power server do not need to restart offen
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Scalability
No answers on this topic
This system can work in a small factory with a few users and easily scale out to thousands of users. It is truly amazing on how much you can throw at this box and it will just keep humming. It is great for use across multiple departments and even across multiple corporations. I worked at one company where we were hosting multiple corporations on just one large Power System and had ZERO problems.
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Return on Investment
  • We have been able to rapidly grow and deploy additional compute, as well as replace when needed
  • The requirement for additional subscriptions/licenses for some of the automation should be baked in to the cost of hardware
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  • IBM Powers servers have consistently delivered uninterrupted operation in our datacenters. They have redundancy and fault tolerance feature ensuring maximum uptime and minimal disruptions.
  • They can handle computationally intensive workloads efficiently, reducing simulation times and enabling faster decision making.
  • They are energy efficient, helping us reduce carbon footprint while delivering top-notch performance.
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ScreenShots

IBM Power Screenshots

Screenshot of IBM Power E1180Screenshot of IBM Power E1150Screenshot of IBM Power S1124Screenshot of IBM Power S1122