Cisco UCS Director vs IBM Spectrum Computing comparison

Cisco and IBM are both solutions in the Cloud Management category. Cisco is ranked #20 with an average rating of 7.7, while IBM is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.0. Cisco holds a 1.4% mindshare in CM, compared to IBM’s 1.0% mindshare. Additionally, 73% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 57% of IBM users who would recommend it.

Cisco UCS Director

Read 15 Cisco UCS Director reviews

602 Views
572 Comparison Views

73% willing to recommend

IBM Spectrum Computing

Read 9 IBM Spectrum Computing reviews

528 Views
359 Comparison Views

57% willing to recommend

Cisco UCS Director

IBM Spectrum Computing

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

IBM Spectrum Computing and Cisco UCS Director compete in IT infrastructure management. Cisco UCS Director appears to have the upper hand with its extensive features, while IBM Spectrum Computing is noted for competitive pricing and strong customer support.

Features: IBM Spectrum Computing is valued for its robust workload scheduling, resource allocation, and operational efficiency. Cisco UCS Director offers comprehensive infrastructure management, automation features, and extensive integrations, catering to complex IT environments.

Room for Improvement: IBM Spectrum Computing could enhance its advanced features and integration capabilities. It might also benefit from additional automation options. Cisco UCS Director could improve its deployment process, simplify integration with non-Cisco environments, and reduce initial setup complexity.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Spectrum Computing offers a straightforward deployment process with responsive customer service, ensuring smooth onboarding. Cisco UCS Director provides detailed deployment support, although its setup can be intricate, it remains flexible and robust to meet varied enterprise needs.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Spectrum Computing is linked to lower initial costs and quick ROI due to efficient resource management. Conversely, Cisco UCS Director requires higher upfront investments but delivers substantial long-term ROI, suitable for enterprises eyeing sustained growth.

To learn more, read our detailed Cisco UCS Director vs. IBM Spectrum Computing Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Director vs. IBM Spectrum Computing

September 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 869,760 peers since 2012

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 Director

Ranking in Cloud Management

20th

Average Rating

7.2

Reviews Sentiment

6.7

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

IBM Spectrum Computing

Ranking in Cloud Management

25th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

5.9

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Hadoop (6th)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Director is 1.4%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Spectrum Computing is 1.0%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Cisco UCS Director	1.4%
IBM Spectrum Computing	1.0%
Other	97.6%

Cloud Management

Featured Reviews

Sunny Nair

Solution Architect and Senior Consultant at Keysight Technologies

Good multi-cloud management capability, but third-party and legacy integration needs improvement

Normally, UCS Director is used primarily for orchestration, but when we look at a non-Cisco data infrastructure components, the UCS Director needs a bit more improvement in terms of integration with third-party systems and with existing older systems. I feel that more development or a more integrated road map should be set up so that it becomes a common platform for any infrastructure. In the next release of this solution, I would like to see changes in the navigation controls of UCS Director. That would be helpful. Modifying the icons that are available for use, as well as virtualization aspects.

Read full review

OmarIsmail1

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.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I can manage multiple workloads whether it's on AWS, Azure, or on-premises. They can be managed by using the UCS Director."

"An easy and strong configuration, along with its low cost, are some of the features of the solution."

"The main feature of this solution is the integration with all the Cisco solutions and other vendors."

"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."

"UCS director enables us to be more productive and more agile, and also more self-sufficient because we don't have to depend on anybody else."

"This is a user-friendly solution that is very good and easy to use."

"Cisco UCS Director is straightforward to use, which we greatly appreciate."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the fabric sharing."

More Cisco UCS Director pros

"I have utilized IBM Spectrum Computing's intelligent workload management feature through Insights, which is connected to the cloud."

"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."

"The best features of IBM Spectrum Computing are common across many of their storage products."

"This solution is working for both VTL and tape."

"IBM's ability to cluster compute resources is impressive, with built-in support for scenarios like VR and active-active configurations,"

"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."

"We are satisfied with the technical support, we have no issues."

More IBM Spectrum Computing pros

Cons

"It is not easy to add or expand the product."

"The areas where this product can be improved are the integrations and the UI. These features are not as friendly compared to VMware products."

"The product could allow more programmatic opportunities through better development of the API."

"The product's pricing needs to improve."

"I would like to see more integration with other solutions."

"There are a lot of bugs in the solution. This is an area in the solution that can be improved."

"Simplifying the user interface would go a long way to making it more usable."

"Normally, UCS Director is used primarily for orchestration, but when we look at a non-Cisco data infrastructure components, the UCS Director needs a bit more improvement in terms of integration with third-party systems and with existing older systems."

More Cisco UCS Director cons

"Lack of sufficient documentation, particularly in Spanish."

"SMB storage and HPC is not compatible and it should be supported by IBM Spectrum Computing."

"This solution is no longer managing tapes correctly."

"The deduplication software isn't quite up to speed with the market."

"In Pakistan, IBM's disadvantage is the lack of OEM support and presence."

"Spectrum Computing is lagging behind other products, most likely because it hasn't been shifted to the cloud."

"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."

"IBM's sales and support structure can be challenging."

More IBM Spectrum Computing cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate Cisco UCS Director's price a three out of ten. Cisco UCS Director is not an affordable product. With Cisco UCS Director, there is a need to pay an overall price, which consists of the product, software, and support."

"Cisco UCS Director is expensive...I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."

"The budget doesn’t work for the state and local governments."

"The cost of this solution is significant."

"I would rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."

"On a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price and ten is a high price, I rate the pricing around five to six out of ten."

"Spectrum Computing is one of the most expensive products on the market."

"This solution is expensive."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Management solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Comms Service Provider

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	4
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	11

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	3
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	6

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Director?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Director?

While the pricing might be seen as expensive, it provides value for money due to reliable service and excellent technical support.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Director?

It should be more of a cloud-based architecture for Cisco UCS Director, and it should be affordable to small customers as well because the pricing is a major challenge when we talk about Cisco UCS ...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Intersight vs Cisco UCS Director

Compared 35% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs Cisco UCS Director

Compared 28% of the time

Morpheus vs Cisco UCS Director

Compared 13% of the time

IBM Turbonomic vs Cisco UCS Director

Compared 12% of the time

OpenNebula vs Cisco UCS Director

Compared 11% of the time

More Cisco UCS Director Competitors

Flexera Cloud Management Platform (CMP) vs IBM Spectrum Computing

Compared 48% of the time

VMware Aria Automation vs IBM Spectrum Computing

Compared 26% of the time

Cloudera Data Platform vs IBM Spectrum Computing

Compared 26% of the time

More IBM Spectrum Computing Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Director

October 2025

Download Cisco UCS Director product report

Buyer's Guide

Hadoop

September 2025

Download IBM Spectrum Computing product report

Also Known As

No data available

IBM Platform Computing

Overview

Cisco UCS Director enables automated delivery of physical and virtual data center resources, empowering data centers to move at the speed of business.

Cisco

IBM Spectrum Computing uses intelligent workload and policy-driven resource management to optimize resources across the data center, on premises and in the cloud. Now up to 150X faster and scalable to over 160,000 cores, IBM provides you with the latest advances in software-defined infrastructure to help you unleash the power of your distributed mission-critical high performance computing (HPC), analytics and big data applications as well as a new generation open source frameworks such as Hadoop and Spark.

IBM

Sample Customers

Entel, Data#3, Cegal, NESIC, LightEdge

London South Bank University, Transvalor, Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Genomic

Buyer's Guide

Cisco UCS Director vs. IBM Spectrum Computing

September 2025

Free Report: Cisco UCS Director vs. IBM Spectrum Computing

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Director vs. IBM Spectrum Computing and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

869,760 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Cisco UCS Director vs. IBM Spectrum Computing report.

See our list of best Cloud Management vendors.

We monitor all Cloud Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.