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Cisco UCS B-Series vs Cisco UCS X-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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 UCS B-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
74
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco UCS X-Series
Ranking in Blade Servers
23rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Rack Servers (23rd)
 

Featured Reviews

MB
Head of IT Operations at NCC BANK LIMITED
Efficient server management reduces costs and supports seamless operations
Cisco UCS B-Series has reliably sustained smooth operations without the need for significant maintenance. Its administration capabilities provide easy access to performance reports, logs, and utilization data, which are essential for effective server management. Additionally, the integration capabilities are seamless, and the power consumption and heat generation are low, resulting in reduced cooling costs and increased financial benefits.
reviewer2847909 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Systems Administrator at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Centralized profiles have simplified host deployments and have reduced configuration errors
I would say a form factor could improve Cisco UCS X-Series. We are in a life cycle replacement phase, and we face a situation where we have to upgrade the hardware, but to get to the next series, you have to upgrade all of it. The chassis, the backbone components, including fabric interconnect components that provide the networking, all have to be replaced at the same time. You cannot mix and match things. So you get to a situation in your life cycle replacement that you need to upgrade, but it does not make sense economically to just buy a newer blade when the whole life cycle replacement is on the horizon, and you are forced to just replace it all top-down. I would say a form factor that is more universal and is not going to require an overall hardware refresh would be beneficial.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Faster deployments of new and replacement hardware compact footprint saves valuable space on the rack."
"I like that it's very manageable very easy to use and configure; I am not an expert, but the graphic user interface is quite simple, very easy to use, and it's a complete solution."
"The scalability and easy management of the lifecycle, upgrades, and hardware failures are valuable."
"Customers and organizations are benefited by its scalability, flexibility, and the fact it takes less time to deploy."
"Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) provides unified, embedded management of all software and hardware components in the Cisco UCS, is scalable, and controls multiple chassis while managing resources for thousands of virtual machines."
"If we could get more reference architecture available on the portal, it would be helpful in making decisions"
"The most valuable feature is definitely the service profile."
"The solution is stable...The solution is scalable."
"The features I appreciate most with Cisco UCS X-Series are profile, profile deployment, and the ability to orchestrate configurations across all of the compute."
"Cisco UCS X-Series scales with the growing needs of my organization very well, as much as you need it to with no issues whatsoever, and it scales whenever we need it to."
 

Cons

"Pricing with Cisco is very high. The price is very inefficient."
"Cisco is behind as far as SSD qualifications and options allowed, relative to other vendors, but that is in keeping with their philosophy of a stateless working environment."
"The license is expensive. Cisco should decrease the delay in the delivery of their products."
"HTML5 interface is a much needed improvement over the old Java interface, but still needs a little work."
"The price of this product is too high. They should work to make it more affordable."
"This product uses a converged network adapter because it is the only way to provide flexibility with both fiber and ethernet connections."
"The aggregation in the data center is beneficial."
"The integration is an area where Cisco UCS B-Series needs to provide users with more details."
"Cisco UCS X-Series can be improved with a longer lifespan. The products go end-of-support and end-of-life quicker than I would prefer."
"We are in a life cycle replacement phase, and we face a situation where we have to upgrade the hardware, but to get to the next series, you have to upgrade all of it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco UCS B-Series is an expensive solution."
"The product is expensive."
"The price of this solution compared to others is fair."
"The cost of the Cisco UCS B-Series is comparable to HP solutions but higher than Dell solutions."
"This is a premium device and our clients are not as concerned about the reasonableness of the price compared to satisfaction with their productivity."
"It is highly-priced."
"Cisco UCS B-Series is not a cheap solution."
"It is expensive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Marketing Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise41
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS B-Series?
Comparing Cisco UCS B-Series with traditional servers, while its initial cost may be slightly higher, it is not as expensive as Oracle Exadata, making it a worthwhile investment. It pays off in the...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS B-Series?
There is a need for Cisco UCS B-Series to evolve and scale vertically, particularly with the increasing data demands and the integration of AI, ensuring the solution remains certified and capable u...
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS B-Series?
The Cisco UCS B-Series servers are used to run backend databases ranging from small, medium, to large, running different versions of RDBMS such as Oracle, SQL, MySQL. It also includes cloud databas...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS X-Series?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing all seems fair. It is handled by a different group in the organization, but when I compare it to other companies, Cisco is always cheaper.
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS X-Series?
Cisco UCS X-Series can be improved with a longer lifespan. The products go end-of-support and end-of-life quicker than I would prefer.
What is your primary use case for Cisco UCS X-Series?
My main use of Cisco UCS X-Series is all for collaboration: setting up CallManager, Unity Connection, CER, Contact Center Express, and all of that.
 

Also Known As

UCS B-Series, Unified Computing System B-Series
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, Anilana Hotels and Resorts, Anonymous Banking Group, Artoni Transporti, Bellevue, BH Telecom, Bowling Green State University, Children's Hospital Colorado, City of Biel, Dimension Data, Dualtec Cloud Builders, Hertz, Houston Methodist, Kuwait Petroleum Italia, Lufthansa Systems GmbH & Co.KG, Outscale, Sony Corporation, Talbots
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS B-Series vs. Cisco UCS X-Series and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.