Best of VMworld 2014 Awards: Rules and criteria
Read the official Best of VMworld Awards rules and find out how to nominate products.
The Best of VMworld Awards recognize the most exceptional products on display at VMware's annual user conference.
TechTarget's SearchServerVirtualization.com will accept nominations through Friday, Aug. 1 and announce winners Tuesday, Aug. 26 on the VMworld 2014 show floor. Before nominating a product, please read the official rules and awards criteria:
A team of expert judges -- consisting of editors, independent analysts, users and consultants -- will evaluate the nominated products and select winners in the following categories:
- Desktop virtualization and end-user computing
- Networking and virtualization
- Private cloud computing
- Public and hybrid cloud computing
- Security/compliance and virtualization
- Storage and backup for virtualized environments
- Virtualization management
- New technology
(See the full category descriptions and judging criteria below.)
The Best of Show winner will be selected from the individual category winners; nomination forms should not be submitted for this category. If you submit multiple products, complete one form for each product. The same product may not be entered in multiple categories.
Only products that have shipped between September 2013 and August 2014 and are generally available will be considered for categories other than New Technology. Products due to ship between September 2014 and December 2014 are eligible for the New Technology category.
All products must be available on the show floor should a judge request a demo. Not all nominees will be contacted directly by judges or interviewed in person.
Questions about the Best of VMworld Awards nomination process? Email [email protected].
Best of VMworld Awards judging criteria
Judges will evaluate products in each category in the following areas:
Innovation: Does the product introduce new capabilities or significant improvements? Does it break new ground?
Performance: Does the product perform to the degree that it could improve overall data center operation?
Ease of integration into environment: How easily does the product integrate with other products? Can the product operate effectively in heterogeneous environments?
Ease of use and manageability: Is the product easy to install? Are the product's functions clear and easy to learn and run? Will the product scale to accommodate growth?
Functionality: Does the product deliver as promised? Does it provide greater or more useful functionality than others in its category?
Value: Does the product represent a cost-effective solution? Can its ROI be easily justified?
Fills a market gap: What needs does the product uniquely meet? What problems does it solve?
Best of VMworld Awards categories
Please review the category descriptions carefully before nominating products.
Storage and backup for virtualized environments: Legitimate entrants are software and/or hardware products that are designed to back up, restore and replicate data and/or achieve fault tolerance, or that support the storage needs of a virtual server infrastructure. Open to physical, virtualized and cloud-based storage technologies.
Security/compliance and virtualization: Legitimate entrants monitor and protect hypervisors, guest OSes, and virtual networks and enforce security and compliance best practices.
Virtualization management: Legitimate entrants monitor, track and troubleshoot virtual machine (VM) availability and performance problems, migrate files, manage VM lifecycles, configure and provision VMs or provide other VM management functions.
Networking and virtualization: Legitimate entrants are hardware and/or software technologies that enhance networking in virtual infrastructures and/or enable and optimize virtualized networks.
Desktop virtualization and end-user computing: Legitimate entrants are software and/or hardware platforms that deliver or enhance the delivery of desktops and applications to various endpoints. Examples include desktop virtualization software, client devices, connection brokers, mobile application management software and enterprise app stores.
Private cloud computing: Legitimate entrants are those that use virtualization to enable private cloud infrastructures. A private cloud is operated solely for one organization, is typically managed by that organization and is on-premises.
Public and hybrid cloud computing: Legitimate entrants are those that use virtualization to enable cloud infrastructure that is made available to the general public and is owned by an organization selling cloud services. Hybrid clouds are a composition of private and public clouds that remain unique entities but are bound together by standardized or proprietary technology that enables data and application portability between clouds.
New technology: Legitimate entrants are new technologies in the previously listed categories that have not shipped but that will be available by the end of 2014.
