Cisco UCS Manager vs NetApp ONTAP System Manager

Likelihood to Recommend

It [Cisco UCS Manager] is extremely well suited to large virtual infrastructure environments with resource dense blades. This solution is also great if you want to consolidate a large number of servers (if they are servers that need to stay physical, but can fit in the profile of a blade) - this would reduce data center space utilization as well as power and cooling. Cisco UCS Manager is also great if you're looking for centralized management of a larger number of servers. This would not be a great solution if you have a very small shop - it's not cheap and probably wouldn't give you a ROI if you only have a couple dozen servers total. I'd say it would be overkill for small shops, but if you have the money and don't care, you'll still like it.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 5001-10,000 employees

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ONTAP System Manager is feature rich and all inclusive. It can work with multiple storage protocols and for various functionalities. It will replace your File Servers and your SAN and put them into one storage appliance. NFS, iSCSI, Fibre Channel, NVMe are all options. Snapshots and Offsite replication (Snapmirror) are all great. I can't think of a scenario where a NetApp wouldn't be a good fit.

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Steve Davis

Solutions Architect

Virgin OrbitInformation Technology and Services, 501-1000 employees

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Pros

It is very all inclusive for management of every part our our Cisco blade center.
It allows us to directly connect to a hardware-based server in the blade center as though we were physically at the console.
It allows us to monitor the entire system for faults.
It lets us manage connectivity.
It is set to alert us via email if a fault occurs.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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System Manager is extremely good at resizing volumes, changing snapshot policies and making day-to-day changes.
The Dashboard and the Hardware and Diagnostics tabs are a great window into the health of your filer and Cluster. You can immediately see any issues like volumes that are nearly full or errors in the event logs.

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Brandon Burch

Coordinator of Network and Technical Services

Hudson Falls Central School DistrictEducation Management, 201-500 employees

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Cons

Automation: There is a simple power-shell CMD lets, but it leaves more to be desired.
Navigation: Navigating the interface can be confusing.
Integration: Integration with ESXi hosts while doing FW upgrades would be hugely beneficial without the need for additional tools.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Banking Company, 201-500 employees

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Not necessarily a dislike of OnCommand per se but I do dislike that you have to still use different flavors of this tool to get a holistic view of every aspect of your NetApp - System Manager, Performance Manager, Unified Manager etc
The initial process to connect to a filer probably could do with a little more friendly documentation as the format for filer name (or IP) and whether and SNMP string is required etc is not clear.
The ability for more complete search capability within the logs (so therefore not having to extract them to work with them) would be an advantage for the timely resolution of faults.

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Joe Cairns

Lead Database Administrator

FraedomInformation Technology and Services, 201-500 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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Support Rating

Cisco UCS Manager 9.0

Based on 4 answers

Cisco UCSM Support has been very quick to reply and address our concerns, issues, and questions. We have found that Cisco's documentation is clear and concise and fairly easy to find. With Cisco support's help, we are able to quickly and safely meet the demands of our end-users, consistently.

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Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Education Management Company, 51-200 employees

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NetApp ONTAP System Manager 10.0

Based on 3 answers

Support is great. Our account managers and system engineers regularly contact us and check in on us. Provide free training on various topics. Our team is readily available to answer any questions. Support tickets are generated automatically if anything goes wrong such as a disk going bad and a new one is sent out immediately. Very happy with support.

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Steve Davis

Solutions Architect

Virgin OrbitInformation Technology and Services, 501-1000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

I think UCS Manager would be able very comparable to other vendors offerings when it comes to server configuration. I think Cisco did a good job in giving you full access to many options that you might not see with Dell or HPE. Every manufacturer would need a similar tool to control their server environment, but I think what Cisco has built into their Manager is a little better than others I've used. You can just see and change so many settings. I would say that is also a bit of a negative by a little bit because sometimes it is hard to dig in and find what you need to change and often might need to reach out to TAC or take a training course to understand all of the interface.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Mining & Metals Company, 501-1000 employees

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I've used NetApp systems for the last 12 years. The only alternative I have used is the old OnCommand system. This is a drastic improvement over what was available in the past. The ability to use this software from anywhere inside your network is huge. If you were to combine this with VPN access you could easily monitor and configure your NetApp from anywhere in the world

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Brandon Burch

Coordinator of Network and Technical Services

Hudson Falls Central School DistrictEducation Management, 201-500 employees

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Return on Investment

The positive is I was able to consolidate my small server infrastructure from 3 racks to one rack giving me space back and much power savings
The negative would be it could feel a little daunting to manage as there are many tabs and pieces to the interface.

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Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 501-1000 employees

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Previously were were running with just locally attached storage across all of our estate. With this tool we are not able to simplify the management of storage saving on resource usage across our Ops teams allowing us to focus on "more important" tasks.

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Joe Cairns

Lead Database Administrator

FraedomInformation Technology and Services, 201-500 employees

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Cisco UCS Manager vs NetApp ONTAP System Manager