Server Blade Summit 2005

[Brigid Fuller]

The fourth-annual Server Blade Summit, the only conference and 
exhibition dedicated to the rapidly growing blade server market, will 
showcase the latest business and technical developments in the white-hot 
market for blade systems. Server Blade Summit 2005 takes place on March 
22-24, 2005 at the Santa Clara Marriott Hotel.

Keynote speakers from AMD, Avocent, IBM and IMEX Research will address 
the rapidly emerging trends in datacenter computing that are now driving 
the rapid adoption of blade systems, management software and modular 
components as this industry emerges into a multi-billion dollar marketplace.

Conference highlights include a special "Venture Capital in the Blade 
Industry" session hosted by IBM with panelists from Goldman Sachs, Dot 
Edu Ventures, American River Ventures, Geneva Venture Partners, 
PacifiCap Group and TPG Ventures. The panel will review one-page 
business plan overviews submitted by conference attendees and present 
awards to the most deserving plans.

IDC industry analysts will update their forecasts for the blade server 
market in a special presentation: "Server Blades - A Platform for Data 
Center Consolidation." IDC forecasts have estimated the blade server 
market to reach $3.7 billion in revenue by 2006. 

For the technically minded, tutorials will cover:

   * An introduction to blade servers as well as best practices for
     blade-based data centers for data center managers, computer and
     network managers, CIOs, hardware and software engineers and others
   * Developing blade applications from a reference platform using
     IBM's eServer
   * BladeCenter, as defined by the Blade Open Specifications (BOS)
   * AdvancedTCA, the standard platform for next-generation
     telecommunications
   * Optimizing deployment and utilization of blade environments for
     large-scale applications such as grid and utility computing
     through consolidation, virtualization, autoprovisioning, fault and
     disaster recovery and load management.

The Blade Systems Alliance (BladeS) Interoperability Demonstration will 
provide a live demonstration of advanced blade and modular computing 
systems, featuring datacenter solutions and technologies such as heat 
reduction through power management, the industry-standard IPMI 
management interface, diskless blades booting from SAN and WAN and 
single image management of servers, storage and networks.  Vendor 
equipment integrated in the BladeS Interop Demo will include blade 
systems and related technologies from 3UP Systems, APCC, Avocent, 
Emulex, IBM, NEXCOM, SharkRack, The Siemon Company, Unisys and XIOtech.

Server Blade Summit's ever-popular Beer and Pizza Shootout will provide 
a spirited  and freewheeling debate: "A Million Blades - Who Needs Them, 
Why, and When?" Avocent and Blade Systems Alliance, the non-profit trade 
organization advocating on behalf of blade systems and modular 
computing, will host a reception for press, analysts and VIP guests.

A full-conference pass to Server Blade Summit 2005 costs $1,195 with an 
early bird rate of $995 available until March 11.   Free "Exhibits Only" 
Registration. Server Blade Summit 2005 information and online 
registration is available at http://www.serverbladesummit.com.

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Brigid Fuller
ZNA Communications
Phone: (831) 425-1581 x202, Fax: (831) 425-1368
412 Cedar Street, Suite A, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 USA