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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
21st
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
15
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 September 2025, in the Cloud Management category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Director is 1.3%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of VMware Aria Operations is 6.8%, down from 9.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
VMware Aria Operations6.8%
Cisco UCS Director1.3%
Other91.9%
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

"Feature-wise, the solution helps one to add multiple environments in one place...It is a scalable product."
"A product that really aids in systems management without complexity."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I can manage multiple workloads whether it's on AWS, Azure, or on-premises. They can be managed by using the UCS Director."
"The solution is helpful for centralized management."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the fabric sharing."
"The product is flexible and compact. It has a lot of features."
"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."
"I'd like to see the streamlining of more wizards, more tasks that are canned. And it would also be good to see some more features around building the Blueprints, just to make it a little easier."
"It has increased the speed of VM deployment. A normal server request would come in, it could take anywhere from three to four days to deploy and now within 15 minutes they can click and have something up and running. IT support for developers is nice as well because they are able to manage the environment themselves."
"Can be customized according to customer requirements."
"The initial setup is very straightforward. It is very intuitive to install."
"We are not constantly having to babysit or troubleshoot it. It does what it is designed to do, and it does a very good job of it."
"The most valuable feature is the insight into how our infrastructure is actually working and the kind of performance that when users either say there is an issue, it gives some insight into finding out what's going wrong with it. I think its cause we have it mainly based on our production units."
"It visualizes stuff better, so we can pinpoint or see problems"
"The most valuable features of VMware Aria Operations include monitoring CPU, memory, and storage."
 

Cons

"The product could allow more programmatic opportunities through better development of the API."
"There are a lot of bugs in the solution. This is an area in the solution that can be improved."
"We cannot depend on this solution to manage all of the data center's infrastructure."
"It is not easy to add or expand the product."
"There aren’t any areas of improvement that immediately come to mind."
"Currently, Cisco UCS Director is unable to integrate with another product or with a server from another brand."
"The tool should be a lot more intuitive and make it easy for us to understand and migrate."
"The product's pricing needs to improve."
"If it could help with calculating on-prem costs, based on their experience, it would help customers determine whether to remain on-prem or move to the cloud."
"VMware Aria Operations is considered overpriced. Customers have commented on the pricing issues, noting that doubling the price is not normal. They are reviewing other options due to this pricing concern."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"I would like to have more documentation, in the form of knowledge bases, that better explain the technology, related products, and what the capabilities are."
"In the next release, vROps should add integration with Apache OpenStack."
"I would like to see them get a holistic view of the organization, not just focusing on the server and the state that it's running on but to widen that out from the end user all the way through. It's a key critical part but actually, it needs to bring outside of that, then to the networking elements and the inter-dependencies that are in hospital solutions."
"The solution could improve by having more APIs, customized alerts, and documentation."
"If Aria could send alerts when a specific system or VM is using excessive resources, we could consult the storage team to address the problem proactively."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost of this solution is significant."
"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."
"The budget doesn’t work for the state and local governments."
"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."
"Cisco UCS Director is expensive...I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"I would rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."
"When we last did a comparison of solutions, the pricing was equal or similar."
"We have seen ROI in performance. It used to be our company was giving out eight CPUs to all servers. That was bad performance-wise. People were seeing slow compute times for their applications."
"The solution requires an annual license which is very expensive."
"We have licenses on a three year basis. Licensing costs are much higher, but given the stability of the solution, it is a reasonable price."
"We did an enterprise license agreement with our VMware partner and put this in our bundle. We tried it and loved it, so we use it now."
"There's a smaller category that stands out due to its affordability, especially for recent versions, which I rate as four or five in terms of value. However, if you're looking for a vCenter with older, more advanced features, it comes at a significantly higher cost, and I would rate it around ten. They provide us with a choice between a recent version and one integrated, and I lean towards the former."
"It was cost effective, because it fixed our problems."
"I have reduced the time to troubleshoot for my customers."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
20%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business62
Midsize Enterprise62
Large Enterprise278
 

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?
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 ...
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: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.