News | March 8, 2007

Storage Virtualization: 2007 Server Blade Summit Focuses On Perfect Marriage Of Blades And Virtualization

Industry's Only Vendor-Neutral Event Combines Two Hottest Topics in IT

With virtualization and blade servers as two of the hottest topics in information technology today, the sixth annual Server Blade Summit, "Blades and Virtualization: A Perfect Marriage," is the first industry conference addressing these solutions together. The conference, set for May 1-3, 2007 at the Anaheim Marriott in Anaheim, CA, aims to educate IT end-users on how to leverage both blades and virtualization to improve IT operations while reducing costs. IDC predicts that the IT consolidation market is expected to grow from $18.1 billion in 2004 to $24.7 billion in 2009, outpacing growth of the overall IT market worldwide. And virtualization software sales will rise from $340 million to $15 billion, almost a 50-fold increase.

These striking trends present significant challenges for IT management to plan and implement these technologies effectively. The 2007 Server Blade Summit on "Blades and Virtualization: the Perfect Marriage" will bring together an unprecedented range of experts in server and desktop virtualization, blade server systems, server consolidation, storage, networking, systems management, power and cooling, and more. The Summit is ideal for IT professionals including data center managers, IT technical staff, resellers, integrators, solution providers and vendors.

"There has been a recent debate in the IT press on the legitimacy of virtualization on blades," said Summit Chairperson Barb Goldworm, President of Focus Consulting and author of the new Wiley book, Blade Servers and Virtualization: Transforming Enterprise Computing while Cutting Costs. "Our research shows that there are significant opportunities for synergy in building more efficient, agile and highly available data centers for the future with these two technologies. As a result, we have leveraged the success of five years of the Server Blade Summit and expanded it this year to deliver three days packed with information on both blades and virtualization that will enable IT managers to realize this potential."

Major topics to be addressed at the Summit include:

  • Server Consolidation – From ROI analysis to technical implementation planning; consolidating with virtualization and blades, reducing costs, saving space, power and time
  • Upgrading the Data Center – Building for the future while minimizing cost and complexity of software and hardware upgrades and expansion (leveraging server virtualization for servers and desktops, implementing modular components, upgrading to hypervisors and Windows Vista as well as multi-core, and server and storage virtualization)
  • Saving Energy – Cost savings and efficiencies in the data center through consolidation, blades and other techniques
  • Managing Resources – Improving systems management for better response to peak loads, outages, errors, new requirements, workload changes, regulatory changes, and security threats

Attendees will learn everything from the basics to in-depth knowledge on these fast changing technologies. They will gain expertise for evaluating, implementing and managing blade systems and virtualization solutions for maximum performance and ROI. The three-day Summit program will be filled with informative sessions in three tracks – IT Strategy & Business, IT Technical Implementation, and Vendor Technical. There will also be open sessions on topics including the latest market research on blades and virtualization, an "Ask the Experts" panel with TechTarget experts, an issues roundtable on managing virtualization and blades, and a shoot-out debate on whether and how blades and virtualization are transforming enterprise computing.

In addition, keynote addresses will be given by IBM, Microsoft and Countrywide Financial, with additional speakers from AMD, APC, Avocent, Broadcom, Brocade, Cisco, Citrix, DMTF, Eaton, Emulex, Ethernet Alliance, Hitachi, LSI Logic, QLogic, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, XenSource , and many other industry leading vendor and end-user companies.

Premier Sponsors for the 2007 Server Blade Summit include Key Information Systems, the Ethernet Alliance,and Tehuti Networks. Media Sponsors include TechTarget (SearchServerVirtualization, SearchDataCenter and SearchWinComputing), Grid Today, HPC Wire and Data Center Journal. Newswire Sponsor is MarketWire. Analyst Sponsors are Coughlin Associates and Focus Consulting.

For further details and registration, visit www.serverbladesummit.com.

About Server Blade Summit
The 6th Annual Server Blade Summit is the only conference in the U.S. focused exclusively on blades and virtualization. It features one-hour and half-day tutorials, business strategy and technical sessions, vendor technical sessions, panel discussions, keynotes, and exhibits. Subjects include server and desktop virtualization, blade server and virtualization implementation, blade and virtualization management, power and cooling issues, server consolidation, networking, storage, standards, best practices, and market research. The Summit will take place May 1-3, 2007 at the Anaheim Marriott in Anaheim, CA. For more information, visit www.serverbladesummit.com.