Cisco UCS Manager vs. SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor (SRM)

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.

Incentivized

SolarWinds Storage Resource Monitor (SRM) is pretty good at forecasting capacity consumption, which was a must for us. If you have LUNs that have high latency in a normal environment (user shares, for instance), you'll need to customize the alerts to tune out the noise. As with all SW modules and most other products, there is a time lag between what is in the console and what's happening now. Data in the console and alerts are typically 5 to 15 minutes old.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Unmasks storage performance metrics and gives a common dashboard for monitoring.
• A simple, intuitive interface for adding supported storage frames.
• Lineage -- "The guest OS is connected to the virtual host and the virtual host is connected to the ... wait, what LUN is that?!?" #SOLVED.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Issues getting SMI working correctly to monitor Compellents through SRM.
• The ability to break down alerts to a more granular level.

Incentivized

It has helped me prove that we need more storage as well as faster storage to management

Incentivized

Easy to set up and start. Out of the box alerts which you can tweak to your needs. Easy to use interfaces as well

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Do not have to contact support for issues often and when i do it is fast to get response and resolve my issues

Incentivized

Easy to use set up wizard went off without a hitch.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We have a full suite of SolarWinds products and did not evaluate other options for a full package. For selective monitoring we log into the devices, but this has made that much easier as we have a dashboard rather than logging into devices one at a time.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Real-time monitoring and alerting to surpass those of native vSphere and in some occasions, better than manufacturer written software.
• Historical monitoring of environment with charts and graphs to assist with ever changing environment loads.

Incentivized