Those of us who have spent much of our IT careers wrapped up inside of a nice, warm cocoon of virtualization were fortunate to have front row seats to another great year, as virtualization technologies continued to flourish in 2013. Virtualization remained a key component in the modern data center, and cloud computing continued to grow in importance -- both of which helped take all things virtual in a number of interesting directions.

In 2013, we witnessed big news around some of the usual suspects and brought attention to a number of new players hoping to make a name for themselves. If you're a fan or student of this technology, last year did not disappoint.

To spotlight a few of the events that took place in 2013, here is a list of 10 virtualization and cloud news stories that grabbed my attention.

1. VMware acquires, then kills virtual storage company Virsto

Back in February, VMware announced the acquisition of virtual storage company Virsto Software, rounding out the company's software-defined data center strategy.

At the time of the acquisition, John Gilmartin, VMware vice president of storage and availability, said this of the company: "Virsto has developed a VM-centric storage management model that accelerates I/O performance for any block-based storage system while providing efficient data services like VM snapshots and clones." According to Gilmartin, VMware planned to continue to offer Virsto's virtual appliance as a stand-alone product, as well as integrate it into VMware's solution stack.

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