Cisco UCS Manager vs. Dynatrace

It [Cisco UCS Manager] is extremely well suited to large virtual infrastructure environments with resource dense blades. This solution is also great if you want to consolidate a large number of servers (if they are servers that need to stay physical, but can fit in the profile of a blade) - this would reduce data center space utilization as well as power and cooling. Cisco UCS Manager is also great if you're looking for centralized management of a larger number of servers. This would not be a great solution if you have a very small shop - it's not cheap and probably wouldn't give you a ROI if you only have a couple dozen servers total. I'd say it would be overkill for small shops, but if you have the money and don't care, you'll still like it.

Incentivized

Dynatrace is well suited to a number of tasks. It is important to determine who the end users are and gather good information to tailor their experience accordingly. For instance, business/marketing should not have access to some of the more technical data, and business metrics can be a distraction for IT operations personnel.

Incentivized

• It is very all inclusive for management of every part our our Cisco blade center.
• It allows us to directly connect to a hardware-based server in the blade center as though we were physically at the console.
• It allows us to monitor the entire system for faults.
• It lets us manage connectivity.
• It is set to alert us via email if a fault occurs.

Incentivized

• We loved Dynatrace's ability to show the data flow - from the front end points through the back end points straight to the database and various API's. It was advanced in its data visualization. This is useful for debugging - showing when/where the errors are. It can even enable non-technical individuals in the corporation to help debug
• Dynatrace has some great highly customizable integration options as well as monitoring. You can configure your layout & integration options to create custom monitoring alerts for your applications performance. Further you can increase the extensibility of using a REST API on your architecture.
• Some advanced dev-ops systems are utilizing Kubernetes/docker aswell as Node.JS - Dynatrace was able to log and help understand all of our dev-ops needs. It gave us native alerts based off of deviations from the baseline that we set during initial configuration. These metrics are priceless.

Incentivized

• Automation: There is a simple power-shell CMD lets, but it leaves more to be desired.
• Navigation: Navigating the interface can be confusing.
• Integration: Integration with ESXi hosts while doing FW upgrades would be hugely beneficial without the need for additional tools.

Incentivized

• Dynatrace does not monitor easily on AIX OS.
• Dynatrace does not monitor easily on a C-based application.
• The way DPGR is addressed by Dynatrace is not very complete, and not clear. One thing is to mask the IP and request attributes but is not enough, the replay session feature is great but raises serious questions about user tracking.

Incentivized

Cisco UCS Manager allows for integrated management of all UCS components, streamlining processes like server provisioning, networking, and storage configuration

Incentivized

We have got tremendous support and response from the dynatrace support team as well as the larger community. We still have issues like the lack of role based administration, but we are told that it may be coming in a future release. The team is very supportive and has assisted us in several tough situations.

Incentivized

The automation capabilities of Cisco UCS Manager help streamline tasks such as provisioning, configuration, and monitoring, leading to increased efficiency

Incentivized

Dynatrace is great to use once you understand how to use it correctly and get used to the layout of it. While I do not actively use it every day, whenever I do use it, I do have to get refamiliarized with it. However, once you have your dashboards setup correctly with the data that you want to see when you first login to Dynatrace, it's amazing.

Incentivized

Our environment, it never goes down therefore is always available.

Incentivized

We have not seen where it does slow down an application.

Incentivized

Cisco UCSM Support has been very quick to reply and address our concerns, issues, and questions. We have found that Cisco's documentation is clear and concise and fairly easy to find. With Cisco support's help, we are able to quickly and safely meet the demands of our end-users, consistently.

Incentivized

I wish I could have given the ten points but based on my experience in past I am reducing by two points as the penalty. But I am sure that it will have improved in the past few months. They need some improvement on ticket handling. Overall I appreciate some of the support folks who responded quickly and also were ready to jump on the Webex and get the problem understood to fix it.

Incentivized

We did both online and in house training - they used our system so it made more sense.

Incentivized

The training was done on our time and with our system.

Incentivized

Using Dynatrace support services to assist (and lead) the implementation was extremely important.

Incentivized

I think UCS Manager would be able very comparable to other vendors offerings when it comes to server configuration. I think Cisco did a good job in giving you full access to many options that you might not see with Dell or HPE. Every manufacturer would need a similar tool to control their server environment, but I think what Cisco has built into their Manager is a little better than others I've used. You can just see and change so many settings. I would say that is also a bit of a negative by a little bit because sometimes it is hard to dig in and find what you need to change and often might need to reach out to TAC or take a training course to understand all of the interface.

Incentivized

Like I mentioned earlier, Dynatrace is a great tool but comes with a heavy price tag. On the other hand, Foglight offers a slightly lower level of expertise in application monitoring but fulfils almost all the requirements you would commonly have. The only major feature lacking in Foglight is the predictive monitoring feature. If you are an SME struggling with budgets, then predictive monitoring is something you can certainly live without.

Incentivized

Dynatrace can be used to monitor may software tools

Incentivized

• The positive is I was able to consolidate my small server infrastructure from 3 racks to one rack giving me space back and much power savings
• The negative would be it could feel a little daunting to manage as there are many tabs and pieces to the interface.

Incentivized

• Thanks to Dynatrace we have been able to effectively challenge and collaborate with service providers and outsourced IT teams.
• Thanks to Dynatrace we have reduced MTTR on troubleshooting by a magnitude of four.
• The performance analyses our team has done with Dynatrace earned us trust among management, business teams, and IT teams.