Cisco UCS Series vs. IBM Power servers

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco UCS Series
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
The 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 Power servers
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
The IBM Power product line is a family of servers.N/A
Pricing
Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Power servers
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Power servers
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Power servers
Considered Both Products
Cisco UCS Series

No answer on this topic

IBM Power servers
Chose IBM Power servers
IBM Power servers are the best server available in the market mainly due to the secure environment they provide, easy deployment with no downtime, AI support, powerful processor for extended workloads and high performance with fewer servers. These all features make it an easy …
Chose IBM Power servers
IBM Power System S924 comes highly recommended in my opinion for large companies that deal with a lot of data. There is a lot of processing power in the IBM Power System S924. Oracle databases and significant application workloads are no problem for this offering, which …
Chose IBM Power servers
In terms of performance, the S914 surpasses all of its predecessors. The new IBM Power 9 S914 system cost less than the preceding systems in terms of money. The footprint of the system in the rack is significantly reduced. Compared to prior versions, the power usage is reduced. …
Chose IBM Power servers
Large databases and applications requiring high system performance and the ability to handle a big workload are ideal candidates for the IBM Power System. Configuration of the IBM Power System from HMC is straightforward, and we have immediate access to all system resources.
Top Pros

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Top Cons

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Best Alternatives
Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Power servers
Small Businesses
Dell PowerEdge R
Dell PowerEdge R
Score 8.5 out of 10
Dell PowerEdge R
Dell PowerEdge R
Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
HPE ProLiant DL
HPE ProLiant DL
Score 7.5 out of 10
HPE ProLiant DL
HPE ProLiant DL
Score 7.5 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 SeriesIBM Power servers
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(46 ratings)
9.1
(210 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.1
(1 ratings)
8.6
(7 ratings)
Usability
7.8
(7 ratings)
9.6
(4 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(10 ratings)
9.1
(8 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco UCS SeriesIBM Power servers
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Cisco UCS blades are very well suited if you want to have dense and easily managed environment that is flexible (server profiles). its perfect if you have a need for business critical applications that requires whole blade to run. in case of any hardware failure you can simply swap its profile with standby node and power your application server back up very quickly, not something you could do with a standard rackmount
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IBM
I'd strongly recommend IBM Power servers to anyone who has the budget for it. A Power Virtual Machine, what is generally called FlexTB VM, can support as many small VM of 256GB, and scale up to 32TB on the fly. If IBM recommended architecture is combined with your organizational reference architecture, then forget about running into unplanned downtimes.
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Pros
Cisco
  • When used with VMWare, firmware changes cause minimal disruption.
  • Simple system software updates using all-inclusive firmware bundles covering the individual parts.
  • UCS, in contrast to other Cisco products, is stable and reliable, with relatively few hardware failures during its lengthy lifespan.
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IBM
  • I love how it supports a mix of operating systems
  • protection of our sensitive energy data and ensuring compliance with industry regulations.
  • It provides a flexibility that ensures that we can accommodate increased workloads without a complete overhaul of our infrastructure.
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Cons
Cisco
  • Some issues with the operating system were present in Memory's memory for some time. A few DIMMS had to be replaced before the current firmware stabilized the problem
  • Although some of the templating is a little difficult to understand, this is typical of most Cisco products
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IBM
  • 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
Cisco
We are All satisfied with the value and Performance of the UCS servers
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IBM
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
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.
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IBM
They are very easy to set up and use once you re knowledgeable enough to deal with it. They are continuously enhance the user experience on the HMC and operations on the systems. Once setup it's like a beast, going on and on. I have experience with servers that are not being rebooted for more than 1000 days
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
IBM
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
Cisco
No answers on this topic
IBM
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
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
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
Cisco
No answers on this topic
IBM
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
Cisco
Easier to integrate and to use after that. It gives a better feeling as a server and it is better in performance also it is more durable. Offers a variety of use cases and also it is a very scalable server. Offers a great redundancy (has already [been] integrated) and also [gives] you easy access from terminal or GUI.
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IBM
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
Cisco
No answers on this topic
IBM
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
Cisco
  • Life cycle of new hardware. We were able to refresh 40 existing servers with new ones in under a day
  • When having to move chassis around, having to only move 4 cables instead of the 16 that would have been required for rack-mount servers
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IBM
  • In the event of a crash, IBM Power servers offer a variety of simple options to recover the operating system.
  • With the flexibility offered by IBM Power servers, the production business can be improved by making the most of its physical servers.
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ScreenShots