September has been a whirlwind of activity for the Virtualization and High Availability space…

• The success of VMworld (which saw attendance increase to 11,000 from 7,000 last year according to Allesandro Perilli at Virtualization.Info)
• AppCon 2007 to discuss the needs of mid-market IT Professionals responsible for assuring high availability and disaster recovery of business-critical applications
• And more importantly, the glamorous stuff that comes with a growing industry… Like TV Appearances (Gary Phillips on NECN) and Magazine Interviews (Steve Keilen in Processor Magazine)

It’s been a great month in terms of connecting with the best and brightest and discussing the future of the Industry. Every day we encounter news coverage and blog postings that provide an inside look into how the space is evolving and the opportunities that exist to improve the way we all do business.

For example, David Marshall’s post on VMblog discussing IDC’s report on the migration to next generation platforms in Asia/Pacific and Japan. As Virtualization grows in popularity and adoption levels increase, priorities will change based on the size of the organization, technological needs, and geographic region to name just a few.

We’re all continuing to learn what’s important and why when adopting Virtualization technology. That’s why these events, conversations and the activity this month are so important… it’s not just about the TV and Magazine coverage.

VMworld 2007 has come and gone leaving us with many positive insights for the future of the industry. Michael Bilancieri, our Director of Products, attended the event and was rather impressed with the turnout as well as the growth in the “virtual eco system.”

As like last year, the business continuity, disaster recovery and high-availability protection-related sessions were well over sold and left many people unable to attend, indicating that this is one of the most prolific topics on the minds of customers.

The folks at VMware demo’d their R&D continuous availability project which was met with oohs and aahs from the audience clearly validating the need for solutions like this in the market. Continuous availability, or more specifically fault-tolerant availability in a virtual environment in Marathons’ case, is no small feat.

Interestingly enough Michael did have a conversation with an end-user industry veteran that stopped by our booth (seen below). He had been perusing the show and said that the everRun technology showcase was the most innovative thing that he’s seen in quite some time. He went on to say that in the availability/data protection space, innovation is typically incremental and is relegated to status quo paradigm views of the world.

Other insights come from our friends at XenSource who have done an incredible job enabling the ecosystem as evidenced by the number of software vendors supporting or soon to support XenSource. All in all we want to say kudos to VMware for building this market and opening up this event to all the virtualization players.

Next up: VMworld Europe in Cannes, France

The results are finally in and we are pleased to announce that Marathon has been chosen as the winner of the “Best of VMworld Award” in the New Technology Category. Tech Target’s SearchServerVirtualization.com selected from more than 100 exhibitors offering new products and innovations.

Below is the complete list of winners:

Category: New Technology
Winner: Onaro Inc. – VM Insight
Winner: Marathon Technologies Corp. – everRun FT for XenEnterprise
Winner: InovaWave Inc. – InovaWave VirtualOctane for ESX Server

Category: Capacity planning, consolidation software
Gold: CiRBA Inc. – CiRBA Data Center Intelligence 4.4
Finalist: 3Leaf Systems – V-8000 Virtual I/O Server

Category: Performance Monitoring and Optimization
Gold: Akorri – Akorri BalancePoint 1.7
Finalist: B-hive – B-hive Conductor
Finalist: Netuitive Inc. – Netuitive SI for VMware

Category: Migration Tools
Gold: PlateSpin Ltd. – PlateSpin PowerConvert 6.6
Finalist: Leostream Corp. – Leostream P>V 4.0

Category: Data Protection and Security
Gold: Symantec Corp. (NASDAQ: SYMC) – NetBackup 6.5
Finalist: Blue Lane Technologies Inc. – VirtualShield
Finalist: LeftHand Networks – Virtual SAN Appliance

Category: Utilities
Gold: Veeam Software – Veeam Reporter 2.0 VMware
Finalist: ThinPrint GmbH – .print Virtual Desktop Engine

Category: Desktop virtualization software
Gold: ClearCube Technology Inc. – Sentral 5.6
Finalist: VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) – VMware Workstation
Finalist: VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) – VMware ACE 2

Category: Green Computing
Winner: 3PAR Inc. – 3PAR Utility Storage
Winner: Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NYSE: AMD) – AMD’s quad-core processor technology

Category: Best of Show
Winner: IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM) and VMware Inc. (NYSE: VMW) – IBM System x 3950 M2 with VMware ESX Server 3i