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Cisco UCS Series

Score9.3 out of 10

210 Reviews and Ratings

What is Cisco UCS Series?

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 streaming, and content distribution.

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Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of Cisco System I/O Controller
Screenshot of Cisco UCS S3260 System I/O Controller
Screenshot of Cisco UCS S3260 Base Chassis
Screenshot of Cisco UCS C4200 Series Rack Server Chassis
Screenshot of Cisco UCS C125 M5 Rack Server Node
Screenshot of UCSC-C245-M8SX Rack Server
Screenshot of UCS C480 ML M5 Server, Bezel On
Screenshot of UCS C480 ML M5 Server, Bezel On
Screenshot of UCS C480 ML M5 Server
Screenshot of UCS C480 ML M5 Server
Screenshot of UCSX-210C-M6-U Compute Node
Screenshot of UCSX-9508-U Modular Chassis
Screenshot of UCSX-9508-U Modular Chassis
Screenshot of UCS 9108 25G Fabric Module
Screenshot of Cisco UCS 5108 Chassis with Cisco 6324 Fabric Interconnect
Screenshot of Cisco UCS C220/C240 M8 Rack Server
Screenshot of UCS Blade and Rack Server Family
Screenshot of Unified Computing System Chassis, Blade and Rack Server Family

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Screenshot of Cisco System I/O Controller

Who Buys & Uses Cisco UCS Series

Pros

  • High reliability and stability for consistent performance and availability
  • Centralized management streamlines operations and configuration
  • Scalability for easy expansion of compute and memory resources

Cons

  • Challenges with integration and interoperability with non-Cisco or third-party tools
  • Specific Intersight management aspects (configuration, policy, templating) could be improved
  • High initial capital expenditure (CAPEX) for deployment

Cisco UCS X-Series

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In our organization, we use Cisco UCS X-Series for Deploying LLMs (large language model)

Pros

  • Deploy LLM (large language model) for Inference is done well in Cisco UCS X-Series
  • Deploy LLM for RAG (retrieval augmented generation) is done well in Cisco UCS X-Series
  • Deploy LLM for AI Agents is done well in Cisco UCS X-Series
  • Deploy LLM for Agentic AI (artificial intelligence) is done well in Cisco UCS X-Series
  • Deploy LLM for Training is done well in Cisco UCS X-Series

Return on Investment

  • Good ROI

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Nexus 9000 Series Switches and Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller

Other Software Used

Cisco Intersight, Cisco Nexus Dashboard

Cisco UCS Series

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

In our organization, we are a Cisco UCS Series Reseller

Pros

  • Orchestration
  • Form Factor (X Series)
  • Stability

Cons

  • Lead times and memory pricing
  • Memory pricing is consistently higher than competition

Return on Investment

  • The impact Cisco UCS Series has on our organization's overall business objectives is we are Abel to rapidly deploy host due to templating
  • Another impact Cisco UCS Series has on our organization's overall business objectives is that the RMA (return material authorization) process is great due to profiles being saved.

Alternatives Considered

Dell PowerEdge

Other Software Used

Cisco Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller

Scalable Enterprise Computer with Strong Centralized Management

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cisco UCS X-Series replaced our existing UCS hardware in our primary and secondary data centers. They run the entire organization.

Pros

  • reliability
  • stability
  • ease of management
  • piece of mind

Cons

  • make the intersight licensing model simpler
  • expanded supported GPU, storage and pcie
  • easier migration from classic UCS

Return on Investment

  • improved infrastructure agility and faster deployment
  • operational efficiency and better lifecycle management
  • positive ROI when used as a strategic platform

Alternatives Considered

Dell PowerEdge, Cisco UCS Series and HPE BladeSystem

Other Software Used

VMware ESXi, Microsoft 365, Azure Application Gateway

Good Experience

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I am Data center engineer and I am interested in learning more

Pros

  • Storage
  • Managing the devices
  • Manage the servers
  • Database

Cons

  • I think there is room for improvement in Cisco UCS X-Series to be More user friendly
  • In my experience, the Configuration details in Cisco UCS X-Series have room for improvement
  • In my opinion, Policy has room for improvement in Cisco UCS X-Series
  • I think Security has room for improvement in Cisco UCS X-Series

Return on Investment

  • Scaling
  • Security
  • Centralized management

Stable Reliable and high dense.

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using it for mission-critical workloads, as we are a cloud service provider, which enables high performance, high reliability, and scalability. It is also great for management, with easy profile creation and policy implementation. I highly recommend it to all companies that have mission-critical solutions.

Pros

  • Performance.
  • Scalability.
  • Reliability.
  • Easy management.

Cons

  • Integrate ACI with UCS-X to be fully managed.
  • Have GA for more platforms and products, such as Nutanix Cloud Management.

Return on Investment

  • Easy operation.
  • Reduce failure.
  • Strong support.

Alternatives Considered

Dell VxRail

Other Software Used

Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (Cisco ACI), Cisco Catalyst Center, Cisco UCS Manager