VMware: a buzzmaker among blade server resources

IT pros scouring our IT directory for resources about blade servers and management applications (i.e. white papers, case studies, Webcasts) are 83 times more likely to download content from VMware than Dell, Fujitsu, or Oracle, according to an analysis of our BT Trax data (see chart.)

IBM, the market leader in the blade server market, was twice as likely to be downloaded as compared to Dell, while HP fared better with 17 times the likelihood.

Why VMware? Well, these days it's not so much the hardware that users are hung up on (blades have been around for years), but rather the technology and software for management and utilization of high-density server environments. VMware’s Improve the Economics of Blades Servers Using VMware Software has been a big hit among our audience in this context with its emphasis on consolidation, virtualization, and provisioning.  This white paper, together with another related title, Making Your Business Disaster Ready with Virtual Infrastructure, received the highest interest ratio (downloads/title) as compared to any other vendor in the category.

There were also other vendors with comparatively high interest ratios. A mixed bag of directory resources associated with blade servers from Microsoft, APC, and RLX Technologies also generated considerably more interest than content from blade producers Dell and Fujitsu. As in the case of VMware, related topics such as cooling your data center, making the case for deployments, and top considerations are more heavily researched than single product evaluator guides.

These findings are based on a comparison of downloads per vendor title in the blade server category among the top overall downloaded vendor resources in that category since January 2005 to the present.