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Cisco CloudCenter [EOL] vs IBM Spectrum Computing comparison

 

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Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Cisco CloudCenter [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
IBM Spectrum Computing
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Hadoop (6th), Cloud Management (27th)
 

Featured Reviews

ZT
Director Of Technology at a non-profit with 11-50 employees
Useful features for configuring down to ports but extremely expensive
Our company uses the solution's GUI interface to configure and monitor ports. We look at usage and determine if there are any issues.  Cisco is a very qualified company and has been in business for many, many years.  The solution is useful because you can configure all the way down to ports.  You…
OmarIsmail1 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Technical Specialist II at Clicks Group
Senior Technical Specialist appreciates intelligent workload management, strong support, and scalability
The best features of IBM Spectrum Computing are common across many of their storage products. The software is solid, meaning that the code is stable. They take business seriously, which is what IBM stands for - International Business Machines. They always maintain a business-oriented approach in their software development. It's not simply clicking through interfaces; in IBM software, they consider their actions, process flows, and workflows around business processes. It requires understanding IBM and their methodology, as the software operates accordingly. I have utilized IBM Spectrum Computing's intelligent workload management feature. We use Insights, which is connected to the cloud. This provides AI capabilities for analyzing the configuration, offering smart recommendations on new code, warning about bugs in current code, and suggesting configuration improvements through its advisor tool. The predictive analytics feature in IBM Spectrum Computing enables optimal software performance through Insights. However, being a storage administrator requires foundational knowledge and understanding beyond these tools. For troubleshooting, it's efficient in spotting bottlenecks, but understanding the terms and metrics is essential as it provides answers that need interpretation.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"You can scale it easily."
"I can define all components and create a blueprint for consumption across all services."
"The solution is agile and it has APIs for integration."
"Cisco has a lot of published information and documentation that helps users understand the product and its offering very well."
"The initial setup process is straightforward."
"The solution includes a lot of features and is useful because you can configure all the way down to ports."
"The initial setup is fairly straightforward if you have a basic setup."
"Upgrades are very simple as well because they've allowed us to get updates directly in the CloudCenter Suite manager. If you need to do an upgrade to your setup afterward, you just push a button and it rolls out the parts and retires the old ones. It's seamless and very simple compared to what we've done before."
"I have utilized IBM Spectrum Computing's intelligent workload management feature through Insights, which is connected to the cloud."
"IBM's ability to cluster compute resources is impressive, with built-in support for scenarios like VR and active-active configurations,"
"We are satisfied with the technical support, we have no issues."
"The best features of IBM Spectrum Computing are common across many of their storage products."
"This solution is working for both VTL and tape."
"The comparison was challenging, but the IBM Spectrum Scale offered a balanced solution. Our engineers rated itsanalytics capabilities equally high as Pure Storage. For workload management, Spectrum Computing provided effective solutions that met our needs. Workload management is part of a complete solution that uses different tools. There were the cloud and HPC parts; within HPC, there were parts like liquid cooling, simple computing, storage, and orchestration. The orchestration team handled the workload management."
"The most valuable aspect of the product is the policy driving resource management, to optimize the computing across data centers."
"Easy to operate and use."
 

Cons

"You don't get all the solution's benefits if you have older switches."
"The tool should improve its security on the XDR part."
"I'm not a big fan of CloudCenter. I don't have anything against it, however, the on-premise version has been so hard to upgrade and maintain."
"The improvement I would like to see is not one thing particular to CloudCenter. I'd say it's more of a message that the system is still using a lot of the different products and if they would all just fit better together, they all could be faster together."
"The solution needs to be more simple."
"They should provide an entire cloud offering, from architecture to network security features."
"They can add some of those features to make the platform more usable for different backgrounds and developer skills."
"For many clients, the main problem with the solution is the price. Cisco is very expensive. If they could somehow make the pricing more competitive, that would be a big draw."
"SMB storage and HPC is not compatible and it should be supported by IBM Spectrum Computing."
"Spectrum Computing is lagging behind other products, most likely because it hasn't been shifted to the cloud."
"We have not been able to use deduplication."
"We'd like to see some AI model training for machine learning."
"This solution is no longer managing tapes correctly."
"In Pakistan, IBM's disadvantage is the lack of OEM support and presence."
"Lack of sufficient documentation, particularly in Spanish."
"The deduplication software isn't quite up to speed with the market. While IBM has excellent compression technology, specifically on their FlashCore modules, they lag behind competitors such as NetApp in deduplication capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is extremely expensive and has additional fees for things like monitoring."
"The tool's pricing is balanced with the market."
"The tool's pricing is expensive."
"This solution is expensive."
"Spectrum Computing is one of the most expensive products on the market."
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Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Spectrum Computing?
IBM Spectrum Computing consistently offers competitive pricing. When solutioning new implementations, IBM always presents the best solution and price. In a recent comparison with Pure Storage and N...
What needs improvement with IBM Spectrum Computing?
IBM Spectrum Computing had limitations with remote copy services between head office and disaster recovery sites. In the last year, IBM has improved the code by re-engineering it to policy-based re...
What is your primary use case for IBM Spectrum Computing?
The typical use case for IBM Spectrum Computing is that it's an all-rounder. It can be used in various scenarios, such as the retailer I work for that has batch processing. It's on-demand when perf...
 

Also Known As

CliQr, CliQr CloudCenter
IBM Platform Computing
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NTT, Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), CollabNet, Pratt & Miller, PZFlex
London South Bank University, Transvalor, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Genomic
Find out what your peers are saying about Nutanix, Broadcom, IBM and others in Cloud Management. Updated: December 2025.
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