Likelihood to Recommend Cisco Intersight is very well suited for doing firmware upgrades across all of your cisco hardware. So far we have had no problems pushing out new firmware. It's also well suited for hardware management. Cisco TAC has the ability to pull logs for the IMC for themselves, which saves you from having to pull the logs yourself and then uploading them to the case. It may or may not be appropriate for upgrading operating systems. I have not been able to test it.
Read full review Puppet is good enough to get the job done, you can use it to automate deployments and maintain files and configurations, if this is all you're looking for it's great. If you're looking for more control over your systems as a whole without having to write your own scripts or install multiple configuration management systems then Puppet is not what you're looking for.
Read full review Pros Ease of implementation of our UCS-X Platforms Ease of Management Cross visibility to our Data Center Infrastructure (Network, Storage, Compute) Ability to Automate our configurations Ability to create profiles for better consistency and standardization Read full review Provides a clear map of how a system is configured Eases the creation of a system in a specific cluster as it is scripted in code Simplifies configuration changes to a cluster or to every system such as rolling out vhost configurations, updating ldap roles, NFS mounts, etc The syntax is very easy to read and carries a lot of fluidity once the language is learned. Read full review Cons Interface is quite slow Interface tree (navigating between server, profile, blade, chassis, FI, etc) is counterintuitive and needs more links in the tree Deploying minor changes takes much longer than in UCSM or UCSC Read full review The setup of Puppet is a nightmare compared to ansible. Anyone watching a youtube video can easily set up ansible with minimal IT knowledge. All one needs is the source IP addresses and we are good to go. Setting up Puppet is a more hands-on task and pushing the puppet agents to all the boxes is another issue. If the installation and setup were simplified like ansible that would attract a lot of people to this platform The syntax of the code for Puppet is not as easy as ansible. Ansible simply follows a YAML format and it's like typing in normal English. Even complicated tasks can be written by just understanding YAML syntax. Perhaps Puppet needs to revisit the lanugage used and try to come up with a much simpler lanugage for writing code. This will make day-to-day usage easier. Read full review Likelihood to Renew We use it every single day and love the ease of it and the integration of all our servers
Read full review Usability Usability of Cisco Intersight is highly dependent on the licensing purchased. The default (free) license level provides a lot of value for the minimal amount of effort to implement. The paid license levels provide additional features (detailed inventory, configuration management and deployment, etc.)
Read full review Support Rating Support for this platform is unmatched. I've used only a couple of other platforms, honestly, but Cisco Intersight's support system really works, and they do a great job. Any issue I've had was solved in a timely manner with a polite representative who cared about helping me and not just plainly reading off of a script that doesn't actually help. I rate it well.
Read full review Puppet has top class support. You can simply mail them with their query and they will respond to your query in a timely manner. We do have enterprise license for puppet. Also there is a vibrant community for puppet out there. So even if you dont purchase a premium support option you can simply google your queries and get answers
Read full review Alternatives Considered I personally think that Cisco Intersight Infrastructure Service is at the top of its class when it comes to managing data center hardware. The cloud-connected design feels very modern and easy to use. The mobile app is something I wouldn't expect to get in a server management tool. The way it can update, monitor, and manage our servers is very nice. Overall, we are very happy with it.
Read full review HPSA is a licensed product and incurs significant upfront investment costs due to COTS licensing. Puppet Data Center Automation has a significantly lower upfront investment and product documentation is more readily available. Chef is a very similar offering, however, at the time our decision was considered, the adoption of Chef vs. Puppet was significantly less in the community.
Read full review Return on Investment It is positive for a few people being able to manage a lot of hardware It does put the management in the cloud, which some could argue is a security vulnerability. It is difficult to move hardware from Intersign managed to standalone. Read full review Cut deployment times down to around 1 hour from 4-5 hours. Allows us to get a fully running system up from scratch in around 30 minutes. Allows for a more clear view of what is required to get a host running. Read full review ScreenShots Cisco Intersight Screenshots