TIP Study Reveals Dramatic Growth in Blade Server Acceptance Among Professionals

TheInfoPro (TIP), NYC based research network for the IT industry, released its latest round of Server Study results. According to over 130 interviews with Fortune 1000 Server Professionals, Blade Servers are becoming more accepted and considered valuable and critical in many cases

August 22, 2006 – (TopHosts News Brief) – TheInfoPro (TIP), released Wave 3 of its Server Study and according to over 130 in-depth interviews with leading Server professionals, Blade Servers are finally gaining acceptance in Enterprise Computing.

In TheInfoPro’s Wave 2 study conducted in Q4 of 2005, 6% had no interest in Blades while 8% reported they were skeptical. In Wave 3 however, conducted in Q2 of 2006, the negative responses decreased to zero. Now over 85% of users report that Blade Servers are “valuable” or “critical” to their long-term server plans.

Users still remain evenly split between “scaling out” (adding processing power through the addition of small units such as Blades) and “scaling up” (adding processing power through virtualizing larger systems). But the Blade option is no longer taking a back seat to virtualization, and many users say they plan to virtualize on Blades.

“User opinion of Blade Servers has shifted from disappointment over unfulfilled promises, to acceptance and understanding of just where Blades fit in the enterprise,” Bob Gill, TIP’s Chief Research Officer, said in a Business Wire release. “As vendors have toned down the hype over Blades, users are increasingly viewing Blades as simply another form factor with unique advantages and disadvantages, rather than some radically new server type.”

To view a preview of the results visit http://www.brainshark.com/theinfopro/Servers_W3_WS.