This is just a short post to say “Thanks Very Much” to all of you who nominated me for a VMware vExpert 2010 award.  I am happy to say that those nominations paid off and I have been fortunate enough to be given the vExpert title for yet another year!  Being awarded with this title means a lot to me, so thanks to all of you. Though of course, vExpert award or no vExpert award I would keep blogging as writing technical (and sometimes not so technical) posts, chatting to and assisting my readers is what I enjoy doing and is the purpose of TechHead Before continuing, I’d like to give a big shot out to John Troyer (Twitter: @jtroyer) for all his hard work in making the VMware Community run smoothly and nurturing such a positive and fun community to be part of.

Whilst I’m on a roll writing this post I thought I’d give you all a quick update on where I’m at and what has been happening for me over the past couple of months.  As you may, or may not, know I started a new job at EMC (UK) as a vSpecialist which was a fantastic opportunity and one not to be passed up.  I’ve been onboard for about 6 weeks now and the analogy of “you’ll feel like you’re trying to drink from a fire hose for the first few months”, relating to the amount of information I would be expected to assimilate couldn’t be more true.  This definitely isn’t a job that you could do if you weren’t passionate about Enterprise level IT and in particular virtualization. 

I’m currently over in Cork after a week over in Boston with a number of my fellow vSpecialist newbies learning about the various aspects of the Vblock range and the associated products and technologies.  Intensive training but great fun and a fantastic team to be part of!

Another exciting thing I’ve also been up to is writing a couple of chapters for Eric Siebert’s new book, ‘Maximum vSphere: Tips, How-Tos, and Best Practices for Working with VMware vSphere 4’.  This proved to be good fun and working with Eric was excellent.  The release date for the book is mid-August’ish, it’ll be available in both book and Kindle formats.  I ended up contributing the chapters on vSphere performance and vSphere labs, being two subject areas I really enjoy and find interesting.  To give you an idea on what the book will cover here is the excerpt from the back:

Maximum vSphere is the comprehensive, up-to-the-minute, working reference for everyone who plans, implements, or administers VMware virtual infrastructure. Authored by top VMware consultants, it brings together proven best practices, tips, and solutions for achieving outstanding performance and reliability in your production environment.

This book brings together crucial knowledge you won’t find anywhere else, including powerful new vSphere 4 techniques drawn from the experiences of dozens of advanced practitioners. You’ll find sophisticated, expert coverage of virtual machines, vCenter Server, networking, storage, backups, vMotion, fault tolerance, vSphere management, installation, upgrades, security, and much more.

Author Eric Siebert takes the same hands-on approach that made his VMware^® VI3 Implementation and Administration so popular with working professionals. Whether you’re implementing or managing vSphere 4, upgrading from older virtualization technologies, or taking new responsibilities in any VMware environment, you’ll find this book indispensable.

Coverage includes

• Understanding how key vSphere 4 changes affect production environments
• Working with ESX and ESXi hosts and host profiles
• Getting “under the hood” with vSphere 4 virtual machines
• Making the most of vCenter Server and plug-ins
• Choosing and configuring storage for maximum efficiency
• vSphere Networking: physical/virtual NICs, standard/distributed vSwitches, Cisco Nexus 1000V, and more
• Monitoring and troubleshooting vSphere performance: CPU, memory, disk/storage, and other issues
• Backing up and recovering VMware environments
• Using advanced features, including High Availability (HA), Distributed Resource, Distributed Power Management (DPM) and Vmotion
• Managing vSphere through the client, Web access, command line, Management Assistant, Powershell, ESX Service Console, and third-party tools
• Building your own vSphere 4 lab
• Performing more efficient installations and upgrades

I haven’t seen a final copy of the book though am really looking forward to getting my hands on a copy. 

Things will no doubt continue to be busy for a while yet though I am hoping to start to get a little more time to spend on writing some new posts from the long list of ideas I have.

As always thanks for reading TechHead and let me know of any ideas on ways to improve the site.