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Cisco UCS Director vs VMware Aria Operations comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 17, 2024

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
22nd
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
VMware Aria Operations
Ranking in Cloud Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
375
Ranking in other categories
Virtualization Management Tools (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Director is 1.3%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations is 7.7%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management
 

Featured Reviews

Sunny Nair - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Amar Sorro - PeerSpot reviewer
Manage and monitor crucial banking operations with deep logging and efficient alerting
The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations include its excellent monitoring capabilities. It allows me to perform deep monitoring and logging of the entire environment, providing a quick alarm and warning system through email. These features help me in efficiently managing virtual machines. The solution also offers easy access to VMware KB articles for problem resolution, ensuring quick access to troubleshooting information.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"An easy and strong configuration, along with its low cost, are some of the features of the solution."
"Feature-wise, the solution helps one to add multiple environments in one place...It is a scalable product."
"Cisco's knowledge base is extensive."
"The product is flexible and compact. It has a lot of features."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The reason we went with Cisco is that it comes at a very negligible cost as part of the BOQ. Compared to the competition's products, which are incredibly expensive, UCS Director is low-cost."
"A product that really aids in systems management without complexity."
"The solution is helpful for centralized management."
"It gives us a pane of glass to troubleshoot all our VMware technologies in one place."
"The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations include its excellent monitoring capabilities."
"The most valuable feature is it's pre-warning. We get to know ahead of time when systems are starting to have problems. We can pay attention to the alerts and know right away that there's an issue developing at some point. We also use it to monitor poorly configured VMs: over-configured, under-configured."
"I would rate this solution a seven. We don't use it enough for me to give it a ten. There's a lot of value to it but we don't fully exercise it. It's a great product depending on what everyone's needs are."
"It has enhanced our ability to troubleshoot and effectively manage our solutions to understand what clusters are having issues and diagnose those programs right away, so we can be proactive."
"We went from using industry standard KPIs to going to a complete on-demand model based on the algorithms from vRealize Operations. It has enabled us to drive more utilization out of our existing compute infrastructure to the point where, for a period of six months, we didn't purchase a single server or any additional compute. We were able to continue to sweat our existing assets."
"The value from vROps, from a traditional sense that we had, is the visibility into the back-end, to know when we are having issues with VMs before it actually becomes an end user issue."
"It has also definitely reduced the time to troubleshoot issues. The fact that it gives us that single pane of glass to look for stuff, that's the first stop whenever we start troubleshooting."
 

Cons

"Currently, Cisco UCS Director is unable to integrate with another product or with a server from another brand."
"There could be an improvement with the integration with the newest solutions from other vendors' technologies."
"I would like to see more integration with other solutions."
"We cannot depend on this solution to manage all of the data center's infrastructure."
"Simplifying the user interface would go a long way to making it more usable."
"The product's pricing needs to improve."
"The product could allow more programmatic opportunities through better development of the API."
"There aren’t any areas of improvement that immediately come to mind."
"We would like to have monitoring for containers."
"Sometimes what a customer sees as a need for improvement could be incorrect sizing or a result of a specific deployment. So usually, the things we want are a more frequent sampling of the various metrics and the like."
"Sometimes it's difficult to find some features like they were in previous versions."
"I rated this solution a nine because I haven't had any issues with it and it has been intuitive and easy to use. I don't know it well enough to give it a ten."
"I haven't had to use technical support for this version but I have had to use them in the past with other versions. There have been some challenges with them. It's hard to get through to the right person and resolving issues in previous versions was hard."
"I would like to go back in history on the performance data and blank out some of that performance data so that it isn't used in calculations."
"Your range of use will be restricted by the license level you have chosen."
"We have started to do containers and I would like to see a feature to monitor our container infrastructure. If we can do our monitoring and performance troubleshooting of them through this tool, that would be a nice-to-have."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The budget doesn’t work for the state and local governments."
"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."
"The cost of this solution is significant."
"Cisco UCS Director is expensive...I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"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."
"Bundle it in with your license rather than buying it as a separate product. It saves a lot of money that way."
"vROps is a bit expensive and that's a reason that small clients say, 'No, I don't think we need this.' From a pricing perspective, it is quite steep. But 'expensive' is relative, depending on what you need. Others might say, 'It is expensive, but I think we can use it to better our environment.'"
"I would like to see a free offering. Cost is always a factor in any sort of line. Obviously, the value added is there and it's worth it."
"Every VMware product is a licensing challenge. It's always costly. It's based on processors. From a technical side, the product is very good. The challenging part is always the licensing. They should have some kind of alternate pricing models."
"The solution is slightly expensive."
"There has been a bit of cost savings in that we could decide to move workloads around a bit better."
"The pricing is a little bit expensive. Licensing is an issue because there are always changes, and by that I mean cost increases. And that's not only for vROps but for VMware, vSphere, and all the products that are involved."
"We have seen good ROI results. It has made our lives easier."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
28%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Director?
Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
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.
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Director?
There aren’t any areas of improvement that immediately come to mind.
What's the difference between VMware vRA (automation) and vROps (operations)?
vROP is a virtualization management solution from VMWare. It is efficient and easy to manage. You can find anything you need from the software interface. It provides complete visibility over applic...
Is VMware Aria Operations a user friendly solution?
In terms of user-friendliness, VMware Aria Operations is one of the best solutions out there. It is not overly complex to set up and you can rely on the technical support to provide you with assis...
What is the most useful new feature of VMware Aria Operations?
For me, the alerts features are the most unique part of this product, no matter the current name it uses. When they introduced the new version of VMware Aria Operations, they also introduced more a...
 

Also Known As

No data available
VMware vRealize Operations (vROps), vCenter Operations Manager (VCOPS)
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Entel, Data#3, Cegal, NESIC, LightEdge
Science Applications International Corporation, Tribune Media, Heartland Payment Systems, Telkom Indonesia, Columbia Sportswear, iGATE, CSS Corp, Angel Broking, Adira Finance, Hipskind, Beiersdorf Shared Services, Innovate Mas Indonesia, Adobe, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi , Join Experience S.A, Borusan Holdings, Department of Transport - Abu Dhabi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Director vs. VMware Aria Operations and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.