Hello all,

My name is Rick Westrate. Aaron Sweemer has been gracious enough to invite me to contribute some I (hopefully) insightful content to his snazzy new site. Now what in the world would qualify me to comment on the world of virtualization you ask? Let’s set the record straight. I certainly do not claim to be the authority on the subject. However, I do believe my 11 years of experience in the enterprise IT industry and my position with my employer, VMware, provides me with an occasional unique perspective on the virtualization industry. Before joining VMware, I worked as a consultant focused on a wide array of datacenter technologies ranging from VMware virtualization, large Citrix PS implementations, (woops, it’s called XenApp these days), and storage arrays implementations (primarily EMC). These days, I work as a Systems Engineer in West Michigan, focused on large Enterprise Accounts. I travel around spending time with customers, listening to their problems, concerns, and needs. I then work with them on walking through and understanding the many game-changing solutions VMware provides. It’s certainly an exciting time to be in the virtualization industry. The pace of innovation, and change is amazing. SO, hello to you all! Hang on tight and stay tuned. I will be publishing some additional content soon. I look forward to interacting with everyone and hearing what you have to say!