vExpert

While I was waiting in the airport last night to catch a flight back from Nashua, NH, where I’d been working with VPLEX at the EMC lab facility there, I received confirmation that I had been awarded a VMware vExpert 2010 award. I am humbled and honored by the award. Wow—thank you!

It is a tremendous honor to be included among those that VMware feels have (quoting from the vExpert landing page) “significantly contributed to the community of VMware users over the past year” and who “have gone above and beyond their day jobs to share their technical expertise”. I’m not so sure I’ve met those criteria, but I’m glad that VMware feels I have!

Looking at this year’s group of vExperts, I am truly honored to be included in their midst. There are some very gifted, very talented people who have been given a vExpert award this year. My heartfelt congratulations go to everyone who was bestowed a VMware vExpert award this year, and my sincere thanks and gratitude go to VMware and the VMware community for esteeming me so highly. I will do my best to continue to earn that respect and esteem in the coming year.

Today, VMware awarded their vExpert Awards, an award intended to highlight those IT professionals who have supported the VMware community through user groups, blogs, forums, tools, and other means. Quoting from John Troyer’s official announcement on the VMTN Blog:

Email went out tonight informing around 300 hard-working bloggers, user group leaders, and virtualization evangelists of all types that they had received a VMware vExpert Award. VMware vExperts were chosen on the basis of the contributions they had made to the community of VMware and virtualization users in 2008.

I am honored to announce that I was one of the recipients of a 2008 VMware vExpert award for my community contributions during 2008. I thank everyone in the community for their nominations and their support, and I hope to be able to continue to support the community moving forward in the future as well. Thanks to everyone!

More information about the VMware vExperts can be found on the vExpert landing page.

While a number of other blogs broke the news about the name for this program earlier today—VMware vExpert—the official announcement is now available on the VMTN Blog. You can also get to the official nomination form, where you can nominate yourself or someone else (cough, cough, me) for a VMware vExpert award.

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock and aren’t familiar with this program, here’s more information:

VMware is very proud to introduce the VMware vExpert Awards. The VMware vExpert Awards will be given to individuals who have significantly contributed to the overall community of VMware users over the past year, either online or offline. You might be contributing online to blogs, forums, wikis, or other online sites. You might be organizing VMUG meetings or otherwise getting the word out to local IT professionals. You’re helping spread the word about virtualization and making people successful in deploying this game-changing technology. We want to thank you.

So, if you know of someone that is worthy of a VMware vExpert award (cough, cough, me), go now and nominate them! Nominations will be accepted through midnight PST, Friday, February 6, 2009.