Confession: The photo embedded in this post is inspired by a Jason Boche's 'tweet'.

It's been a wonderful year full of great news and developments in the virtualization space. The lunch of vSphere was by far the most exciting event for me personally, and I couldn't find any better idea to close of the year with, other than this photo:

These were the best books I managed to get since the lunch of the product back in May 2009, and in fact, that's pretty much everything that was published with the "vSphere" name in the title.

Speaking of which, the book titles – in no specific order – are as follows:

• Mastering VMware vSphere 4 by Scott Lowe
• VMware vSphere 4 Administration Instant Reference by Scott Lowe, Jason W. McCarty, and Matthew K. Johnson
• VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing the Virtual Environment by Edward L. Haletky
• VMware VI and vSphere SDK: Managing the VMware Infrastructure and vSphere by Steve Jin
• VMware vSphere 4: Install, Configure and Manage (Student Manual P1&2)
• vSphere 4.0 Quick Start Guide: Shortcuts down the path of Virtualization by Duncan Epping, Alan Renouf, Bernie Baker, and Thomas Bryant

Now, I'm not going to make the horrible mistake that everyone would normally do by pointing out my favorite book (seriously, why would anyone do something like that?!), but I'll give you some hints instead:

• It's the smallest in size.
• It's the longest in title.
• It's the fewest in pages.
• It's the brightest in contrast.
• It's the lightest in weight.
• It's the yellow'est in color.
• It's .. dammit .. the 'vSphere Quick Start Guide'.

Goodbye 2009 – it's been an incredible year of knowledge and experience. Hello 2010 – it's going to be .. well, that is something to look forward to.

Happy holidays, everyone!