vExpert 2011

It’s an awesome feeling to be humbly rewarded for something you would likely do in your free time, whether you were getting paid for it or not.

A few years ago, I found my true passion:  Virtualization and NetApp storage.

This ultimately led to me getting hired by NetApp, to build solutions around virtualization, and has now led to me being elected a vExpert.  While I might be a little late to the party, I’m extremely humbled to receive this exclusive honor, and to be among such a strong group of smart and talented people.

Reflecting on some things that I’ve done in the past year, I’ve made a commitment to blog more, participate in more discussions online via Twitter, and be more active in the VMware Communities podcasts every week.  This has definitely helped me become more visible to both my peers, and, now that I’m an employee of a major storage vendor, to our customers, as we become more and more social in our efforts to provide strong solutions for datacenters.

To @jtroyer and the others at VMware in charge of electing me, Thank you!

To my readers, thank you for continuing to read and discuss and support my efforts.  You are the one’s that motivate me to continue, and are ultimately responsible for me receiving this honor.  Thank you!

If you and I haven’t interacted yet, reach out and say hello!  Also, I’ll be presenting and participating in the Hands on Labs, as well as spending a significant amount of time in the NetApp booth at VMworld in Vegas later this year, as well as in Copenhagen.

I look forward to meeting and interacting with all of you, and as always, if you need help developing VMware solutions on NetApp storage, WE ARE HERE!  USE US!

I’d also like to congratulate my fellow NetApp’ers for also being selected:

Vaughn Stewart
@vStewed
blogs.netapp.com/Virtualstorageguy

Chris “Dr. Desktop” Gebhardt
@chrisgeb
blogs.netapp.com/Virtualization

Scott Baker
@lilbaker83
blogs.netapp.com/VirtualUtopia

-Nick