From Ted Grevers, Jr.:

Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.

—Jane Howard

This work could not have been completed without the support of my family. My wife, Kathleen, daughter Ella, and sons Teddy III and Garon each had their evenings and weekends without me, supporting the completion of this work.

To my wife, Kathleen, you were instrumental in creating focus time opportunities for me. Without your love and support, I would have gone insane trying to find a balance between family, work, and writing time. Thank you for being there for me. Without you, Chapter 1 would still be a blinking cursor on a blank page, and the kids would be running the house.

Ella, “Baby E,” and Teddy, “Mein Theo,” we have a lot of catch-up time ahead of us at the playground. Who wants to be the line leader? “Monsieur Garon,” although you will be just a year old when this work is published, you’ve been kind to Kathleen and I during my many late nights of writing. Who would have thought that 4 hours of sleep would be such a wonderful thing? Thank you, babies.

If I were to choose one word to describe Joel Christner during the process of co-authoring this book, it would be “dedicated.” I’ve never worked with anyone at Cisco as dedicated as you, Joel. Your dedication and commitment to excellence made co-authoring this book a joy. Joel, you are a rock star.

From Joel Christner:

I would like to first thank my wife, Christina. Christina, you have been patient, supportive, and loving through this entire process, and I cannot find the words or expressions to thank you enough.

I would also like to give special thanks to you, the reader, for purchasing and reading this book. Ted and I both hope you find it to be of value to you, and look forward to your feedback and comments on improving it.

I’d also like to give thanks to a few teams within Cisco. To the team within ADBU, you are all a blessing, and it has been an honor and a privilege to work with such an amazing, aggressive, quality-oriented, and customer-focused team. To the Data Center and Application Networking Services advanced technology teams, I thank each of you for doing an outstanding job and helping position Cisco as a leader in application networking services.

Numerous thanks to each of the technical reviewers, Steve Wasko, Zach Seils, and Jim French, for their countless hours in reviewing this book and helping me and Ted improve its quality, accuracy, and readability. You are all three a pleasure to work with, brilliantly insightful, and we appreciate everything you do and have done.

A tremendous thank you to the production team, Dayna Isley, Karen Gettman, Kristin Weinberger, and Christopher Cleveland. Thank you for helping to “shape the experience.” Working with you has been great, and I look forward to doing it again very soon!

Last, and certainly not least, I’d like to thank my co-author Ted Grevers, Jr. Ted, working with you on this project has been great. I thank you for being a good friend, a mentor, and for giving me the opportunity to join ADBU and work under your guidance.