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Cisco UCS Manager vs DX Spectrum comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 9, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
6.5
Cisco UCS Manager enhances ROI by minimizing hardware failures, downtime, and maintenance, simplifying management, and integrating efficiently with other tools.
Sentiment score
7.1
Organizations experienced significant ROI with DX Spectrum, noting enhanced automation, cost savings, efficiency, and effective integration despite high costs.
I can manage all LAN uplinks and fiber channel storage uplinks directly from UCS Manager.
Cisco UCS Manager provides cost savings by reducing the time support staff spend on long deployments.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco UCS Manager support is praised for expertise and responsiveness, though European support and urgent issues may vary.
Sentiment score
7.1
Customer service excels with high ratings, but technical support varies; Broadcom acquisition raised concerns over response times.
With Intersight, service requests are automatically generated, enhancing the user experience and providing timely resolutions.
For a severity one case, a call ensures immediate assistance and resolution of the matter.
Regarding Cisco tech, they are pretty good.
Broadcom technical support is very good.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco UCS Manager offers scalable infrastructure solutions, though constrained by chassis limits, with largely positive user feedback.
Sentiment score
8.1
DX Spectrum is highly adaptable and scalable, effectively supporting growth in diverse environments from small businesses to large corporations.
I can install the hypervisor, such as VMware, and add the servers into the cluster seamlessly.
I would rate the scalability at nine out of ten, probably.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco UCS Manager is praised for its stability, reliability, and prompt support, often outperforming competitors in overall robustness.
Sentiment score
7.3
DX Spectrum is praised for its stability and reliability, with minor issues usually due to incorrect configurations or updates.
If there's a really complex problem, I would probably give it a ten since it gets escalated quickly.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco UCS Manager needs a streamlined interface, enhanced support, simpler updates, better integration, affordability, and improved monitoring.
DX Spectrum users seek a modern interface, enhanced integration, simplified processes, better analytics, and improved support for device certification.
We would benefit from advancements in AI that offer firmware recommendations automatically, reducing the need for human intervention and vendor communication.
It doesn't work straight out of the UCS, so someone who knows what they're doing is needed immediately, and it can be quite confusing.
While it has been improved from using Java to HTML, simplifying the tabs would enhance user experience.
Currently, they appear as pop-up messages, but I would prefer having alarm messages shown as a scrolling bar at the taskbar for easier visibility.
The event management should have more deduplication and alert correlation and check the bidirectional communication with ServiceNow.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco UCS Manager is seen as expensive but offers competitive value with bundled discounts, quality, and reliability.
DX Spectrum's pricing favors large enterprises, offering flexible but complex licensing, with high costs impacting smaller businesses.
Recently, we acquired an excellent bundle with significant discounts, with offers like buying three servers and getting one free, along with UCSC and fabric included for free.
As long as they can afford it, there is a setup cost involved.
The price of DX Spectrum is not competitive when compared to other solutions, such as SolarWinds.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco UCS Manager offers unified management, easy deployment, flexible configurations, high availability, and cross-infrastructure security compatibility.
DX Spectrum offers comprehensive network monitoring, fault management, scalability, and seamless integration, ideal for managing extensive IT infrastructures.
It supports ease of deployment, allowing for quick mass deployments in the data center, saving time and resources by doing so from a remote location.
Whenever there's a failure of any component, it's very easy to swap because you just disassociate that profile, remove the faulty blade, connect the new blade, and associate that profile, maintaining the same MAC address and worldwide port name.
One of the valuable features is the user interface base, specifically the C user interface.
The interface has the needed configuration for visualization, and it's effective in providing a complete diagram of network links and connections across various stations globally.
DX Spectrum uses an SNMP Trap to accept all the details, especially for device monitoring of faulty devices, allowing me to use Spectrum effectively.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco UCS Manager
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
17th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
DX Spectrum
Ranking in IT Infrastructure Monitoring
20th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
117
Ranking in other categories
Network Management Applications (7th), Network Monitoring Software (21st), Network Troubleshooting (6th), DX NetOps (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the IT Infrastructure Monitoring category, the mindshare of Cisco UCS Manager is 1.4%, down from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of DX Spectrum is 0.8%, down from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
IT Infrastructure Monitoring
 

Featured Reviews

Edwin Mwosa - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced network oversight with rapid issue identification and good efficiency
We mainly use Cisco UCS Manager to integrate and manage our Cisco switches across the building. We also utilize it for network integration. It provides an integrated solution for our Cisco environment, streamlining our operations and managing multiple Cisco devices like switches and routers Cisco…
Umair (Abu Mohaymin) Akhlaque - PeerSpot reviewer
Good for monitoring, covers networks well
If you are looking for the right monitoring tool, Spectrum is one of the best solutions. It covers networks very well. It has all the capabilities that you're looking for when it comes to monitoring. Spectrum is great for root cause analysis. It has excellent correlation event management. Spectrum's stability and scalability are also amazing. If you have a CA Service Desk, then it can be integrated so that if you have open tickets they can be closed automatically. The configuration manager is great as well.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which IT Infrastructure Monitoring solutions are best for your needs.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco UCS Manager?
When one server fails, we can attach the service profile to a new server, which saves a lot of time.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco UCS Manager?
My experience with the pricing of Cisco UCS Manager ( /products/cisco-ucs-manager-reviews ) is that it is reasonable. Recently, we acquired an excellent bundle with significant discounts, with offe...
What needs improvement with Cisco UCS Manager?
For improvements, while the current graphical user interface is satisfactory, it could be further simplified for different tasks. While it has been improved from using Java to HTML, simplifying the...
What do you like most about DX Spectrum?
The solution's most valuable features are its integration with Broadcom tools and scalability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for DX Spectrum?
The price of DX Spectrum is not competitive when compared to other solutions, such as SolarWinds. The high price has caused us to lose many deals.
What needs improvement with DX Spectrum?
I would like to see improvements in making the interface more user-friendly. Many people find it not simple to use. One of the common customer complaints is about the alarm notifications. Currently...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

No data available
CA Spectrum
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Management Science Associates, Peak 10, Virtual Consulting Professionals
National Informatics Centre India, Banese, Olympus, AlphaServe Technologies, Sicredi
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco UCS Manager vs. DX Spectrum and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.