Today marks the one year anniversary of my first post on VMtoday.com, and an exciting year it has been in many ways.  First, some stats:

• VMtoday.com has been visited more than 10,000 times in the past year.  While the number of site visits is far below some of my fellow virtualization bloggers, it is still exciting for me to see that I am making an impact on the community (despite my meager post count).  There are some of you who read my posts through Planet V12n and RSS, which is cool by me.
• Yesterday was the busiest day for the site.  No coincidence that it comes after adding some new content….  I’ll try to be more faithful in publishing regular, relevant content!
• My most popular post to date has been: IBM DS3300 iSCSI Write Performance Solved. I’m glad this has been useful for so many, but I hope that you don’t just apply the workarounds I wrote about. I would rather have you build a “bet the business” iSCSI environment by adding that second controller to your MD3000i or DS3300.
• My least popular post to date has been: VMworld Here I Come. I will try not to be so boring in the future.
• The first link back to my site was from Scott Lowe’s blog.  Thanks for the link, Scott.  Scott wrote a darn fine book: Mastering VMware vSphere 4.  Buy it.
• The site theme, like my Twitter page, is very blue.  I am working on a new theme in all of the spare time that a busy professional and father of two boys can muster.

Along with this site, I have made a concerted effort engage the virtualization community in several ways:

• Twitter keeps me plugged in to the latest news and discussions, and has been a source of help to me (and I would like to think that I have helped some of you as well).  Follow me at http://twitter.com/joshuatownsend.
• I have stepped up into a leadership role with the Washington DC VMware User Group (VMUG).  It has been awesome to meet with and learn from my local colleagues.  I will continue to work with the DC VMUG leadership team to deliver exciting and relevant content and activities (and also some more seating space).  I welcome your feedback and ideas for ways to improve the VMUG.
• VMworld 2009 was a great way to meet many of you while learning some of the hottest new technology on the planet.  My wife came along and enjoyed spending time with some of the other vSpouses (or vWidows?).
• I took a new job early in the year with a VMware Partner in the DC area.  This new job has been both challenging and rewarding, affording me opportunities to more effectively engage customers and spend more time working on virtualization-specific solutions.

I look forward to contributing to the virtualization community as a blogger, VMUG leader, and practitioner.  If you want to learn a bit more about me, check out the About page on this site.  I welcome your feedback and appreciate your reading my work!

- Josh