On Friday, CIO Magazine included us in its “10 Virtualization Companies to Watch in 2008.” Considering that the virtualization movement itself is something to watch in 2008, we couldn’t be happier. So, we know what you are all asking. What can we expect from Marathon in 2008? Well, that’s a topic for another post, but here is what you can expect from the blog in 2008.

1) Marathon Technologies “Are You Available Tonight?” blog will continue to keep you updated on all things Marathon and more. We’ll introduce a few guest bloggers now and again to keep things fresh and stimulate the minds of our readers.

2) We’ll link to Tarry Singh at least a few times because we think Tarry is insightful and we think our readers will like him to. (Read his post on the CIO Article, here)

3) We’ll avoid unnecessary “link love.” Although there are a lot of bloggers we enjoy reading, there is no need to link to them here, here, here and here.

4) Maybe, if you’re good, we’ll add a few pictures to really enhance the experience… but only if you’re good.

5) We’ll take requests… we mean for blog topics, please send your requests for Taylor Hicks to Ryan Seacrest.

So, that’s what you have to look forward to. It’s going to be a big year for the blog and we’re glad to have you aboard. Congratulations to the other 9 companies featured in the CIO article. We’ll be watching.

Over the course of the last few weeks the virtualization industry has really emerged in the market. With VMware’s IPO and Citrix’s acquisition of XenSource, the industry is turning heads, forcing CIOs to rethink their current strategies. Bloggers like Om Malik, who posted this article today and Bob Evans of InformationWeek who wrote an interesting piece yesterday discussing the growing need for virtualization, are among the few caught up in the buzz. Evans highlighted an article where his colleague Charlie Babcock describes what sits over the horizon for the market:

“Server virtualization will be followed by desktop virtualization; storage is already virtualized or is well on its way toward being virtualized; network access, network resource management, is or will be virtualized along with these other developments. As most of the data center resources become virtualized, it will be possible to move to new ways of doing things. Virtualization will cease of be a feature of some elements of the data center. Rather, data centers enjoying a high degree of virtualization will be the standard way of doing business.”

The rise of virtualization demands that CIOs consider the availability implications for their systems. If they introduce virtual environments, are they prepared to ensure their systems are available 24/7?

Gary Philps, CEO of Marathon, is actually going to be discussing the need for high availability in virtual environments September 13 at AppCon 2007 in San Jose for those interested. If you are in town we would like to see you there. If you can’t make it drop us a note here with any questions/thoughts you have.

Dan Kusnetzky had an interesting post last week titled “Virtualization – Trend or Buzzword?” Based on our experiences with customers about virtualized infrastructures, we can relate to Dan’s insights on the subject. In their eagerness to tap into the virtualization trend, companies that are a long way from virtualization solutions are creatively renaming products to get on the virtualization bandwagon.

The mainstream market has yet to fully embrace virtualization technologies, and we suspect that market hype and market jargon may be contributing to this. For mass adoption of virtualization to happen, CIOs need to be comfortable that “virtualization solutions” really are virtualizing, and the language used to describe solution features and functions are clear, concise and credible. After all, they are the ones “signing the checks” and they should know what they’re getting.

Hmmmm…maybe a virtualization glossary might help? Stay tuned…