Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

BigPanda vs Cisco UCS Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.7
BigPanda optimizes operations with significant savings and efficiency for managing over 10,000 weekly events, outperforming tools like Netcool.
Sentiment score
6.5
Cisco UCS Manager enhances ROI by minimizing hardware failures, downtime, and maintenance, simplifying management, and integrating efficiently with other tools.
BigPanda offers significant time-saving, cost-saving, and resource-saving benefits.
BigPanda saves time with its advanced features and manages large environments while requiring fewer resources compared to our previous tool, Netcool.
There's no need for an extra management device or virtual machine, as everything runs within the fabric interconnect.
Cisco UCS Manager provides cost savings by reducing the time support staff spend on long deployments.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.6
BigPanda's customer service is usually responsive and effective, though communication delays and variability in experiences are noted.
Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco UCS Manager support is praised for expertise and responsiveness, though European support and urgent issues may vary.
If BigPanda can consistently provide such competent contacts, I would rate the support ten out of ten, otherwise, it is an eight out of ten.
For technical support, we have only had to address password resets and alert mismatching.
Their collaboration was good, and I would rate them nine out of ten.
For a severity one case, a call ensures immediate assistance and resolution of the matter.
With Intersight, service requests are automatically generated, enhancing the user experience and providing timely resolutions.
Regarding Cisco tech, they are pretty good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
BigPanda is praised for scalability and integration, with minor licensing concerns and varied experiences with server management.
Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco UCS Manager offers scalable infrastructure solutions, though constrained by chassis limits, with largely positive user feedback.
It handles large volumes of alerts without limitations.
We manage a large environment with over 50,000 servers and various monitoring tools like Dynatrace, New Relic, Splunk, Nagios, and Datadog.
I rate the scalability of BigPanda at eight.
Adding new chassis and extra blades is streamlined.
I would rate the scalability at nine out of ten, probably.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
BigPanda is highly stable with minimal issues, reliable alerts, and efficient incident management, despite occasional slowdowns during heavy traffic.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco UCS Manager is praised for its stability, reliability, and prompt support, often outperforming competitors in overall robustness.
BigPanda is now stable.
I would rate the availability of BigPanda at nine because it's almost 99.99% available.
However, when handling critical traffic, the BigPanda site can slow down, which we manage with a load balancer.
If there's a really complex problem, I would probably give it a ten since it gets escalated quickly.
 

Room For Improvement

BigPanda requires enhancement in AI integration, interface design, reporting, observability, and automation to improve user experience and reduce costs.
Cisco UCS Manager needs a streamlined interface, enhanced support, simpler updates, better integration, affordability, and improved monitoring.
A 'deep dive' analysis feature would be appreciated to give detailed insights such as CPU usage and disk space analysis.
It would be beneficial if BigPanda leveraged AI to solve critical issues related to editing and sending alerts based on enrichment mapping files.
If BigPanda could integrate AI, it would enhance the platform significantly by offering chatbot functionality within the BigPanda UI.
We would benefit from advancements in AI that offer firmware recommendations automatically, reducing the need for human intervention and vendor communication.
It doesn't work straight out of the UCS, so someone who knows what they're doing is needed immediately, and it can be quite confusing.
While it has been improved from using Java to HTML, simplifying the tabs would enhance user experience.
 

Setup Cost

BigPanda offers flexible pricing appealing to enterprises with mid-range costs, seen as more affordable than competitors.
Cisco UCS Manager is seen as expensive but offers competitive value with bundled discounts, quality, and reliability.
The pricing for BigPanda is reasonable compared to other event management tools, given its advantages.
Recently, we acquired an excellent bundle with significant discounts, with offers like buying three servers and getting one free, along with UCSC and fabric included for free.
As long as they can afford it, there is a setup cost involved.
 

Valuable Features

BigPanda enhances incident response with alert deduplication, platform integration, AI/ML, and custom dashboards for improved service reliability.
Cisco UCS Manager offers unified management, easy deployment, flexible configurations, high availability, and cross-infrastructure security compatibility.
Its automation has significantly improved incident response times, reducing the process to within one minute.
It can correlate multiple issues within a single device, create a single incident, and thus reduce noise and provide faster resolution.
BigPanda improves service reliability with instant resolution, increased uptime, and reduced mean time to resolution, thus enhancing service quality.
It supports ease of deployment, allowing for quick mass deployments in the data center, saving time and resources by doing so from a remote location.
Whenever there's a failure of any component, it's very easy to swap because you just disassociate that profile, remove the faulty blade, connect the new blade, and associate that profile, maintaining the same MAC address and worldwide port name.
One of the valuable features is the user interface base, specifically the C user interface.
 

Categories and Ranking

BigPanda
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
26th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
IT Alerting and Incident Management (8th), AIOps (6th)
Cisco UCS Manager
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
16th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of BigPanda is 0.9%, down from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.4%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Ankit-Mathur - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers comprehensive alert monitoring and a user-friendly interface but requires manual validation to provide accurate alerts
For new users, I would advise using BigPanda for its comprehensive alert monitoring and integration with ServiceNow. Its mapping capabilities and user-friendly interface make it valuable for incident analysis and prioritization. As users become more familiar with the tool, its full potential will become apparent, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness over time. It is easy for someone to learn to use BigPanda for the first time. We start with basic examples that everyone can understand, then provide verbal introductions followed by hands-on training over two weeks. We encourage making mistakes and asking questions to ensure understanding. It depends on the trainer's approach, but with proper guidance, anyone can learn effectively. Overall, I would rate BigPanda as a five out of ten. For it to be a perfect ten, it would need to consistently provide accurate alerts without requiring manual validation. This means it should effectively suppress similar incidents, eliminating the need for constant monitoring. Once it reaches this level of reliability, BigPanda would be exceptional.
Edwin Mwosa - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced network oversight with rapid issue identification and good efficiency
We mainly use Cisco UCS Manager to integrate and manage our Cisco switches across the building. We also utilize it for network integration. It provides an integrated solution for our Cisco environment, streamlining our operations and managing multiple Cisco devices like switches and routers Cisco…
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
854,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
24%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
25%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Any advice about APM solutions?
There are many factors and we know little about your requirements (size of org, technology stack, management systems, the scope of implementation). Our goal was to consolidate APM and infra monitor...
What do you like most about BigPanda?
One of the most valuable features of BigPanda is its user-friendly interface.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for BigPanda?
The pricing for BigPanda is reasonable compared to other event management tools, given its advantages.
What do you like most about Cisco UCS Manager?
When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Manager?
My experience with the pricing of Cisco UCS Manager ( /products/cisco-ucs-manager-reviews ) is that it is reasonable. Recently, we acquired an excellent bundle with significant discounts, with offe...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Manager?
For improvements, while the current graphical user interface is satisfactory, it could be further simplified for different tasks. While it has been improved from using Java to HTML, simplifying the...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Nagios, ServiceNow, ITSM, NOC, CMDB Evolved, RemedyIncident Management Process
Management Science Associates, Peak 10, Virtual Consulting Professionals
Find out what your peers are saying about BigPanda vs. Cisco UCS Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
854,338 professionals have used our research since 2012.