ServerWatch Product Excellence Awards Nomination Period Opens

From the smallest SMB to the largest of the Fortune 500, IT keeps businesses in business. The server room, housing everything from hardware to applications, is a vital part of the IT backbone of every organization. Purchasing decisions are rarely made lightly.

Make Your Nominations

From midrange servers to virtualization and storage applications, now is the time to let the world in on your server room favorites: Nominate them for 2008 ServerWatch Product Excellence Awards.

We at ServerWatch spend our days following the trends and tracking the market leaders. From the large OEMs to the niche open source communities, we’re constantly taking the industry’s pulse. But even following the industry intently pales in comparison to actually deploying and using servers and management tools. That’s where we’re hoping you, our readers, can help.

Today, we kick off our third annual ServerWatch Product Excellence Awards. As in years past, we’ve come up with 10 categories we believe encompass the most vital aspects of today’s data center. Now, we’re counting on you to tell us what you think are the best-of-breed solutions in these categories.

What midrange server works particularly well for you? What operating system keeps your applications running seamlessly? Which automation or compliance tool enables your CTO to sleep soundly at night? What product best meets your storage needs? We’re eager to hear from you about these categories and others.

We welcome recommendations on any products you’ve bought, leased, or subscribed to that made a difference in your organization and others.

Products must be in the following categories:

• Small Business Server
• Midrange Server
• High-End Server or Mainframe
• Storage System
• Blade Server
• Operating System
• Virtualization Platform
• Virtualization Tool
• Automation or Compliance Tool
• Green Initiative

To be eligible, the products must have been either released or significantly upgraded between March 2, 2007 and March 1, 2008. Although you need not make nominations in every category, we encourage nominations in as many categories as you feel comfortable making.

The nomination process will remain open until April 18. On April 29, we’ll post a list of finalists and switch to voting mode. Voting will close on May 23, and On June 3, we’ll announce the winners.