Acknowledgments

A project like this is possible only with the help of family, friends, and colleagues. I'd like to thank them; in particular, the editors at Wiley and Sybex, my coauthors Patrick, Hans, and Damian, and our fellow MVP, Kristian Nese, who was the technical reviewer of this book.

—Aidan Finn

When Aidan Finn told me he was planning a new book on the subject of the Microsoft private cloud with several other MVPs, it took me only 10 seconds to quickly consider and say YES! Of course, I had no idea what it would mean in terms of time and effort, but this was just something I had to do—no matter what happened.

Working with Aidan Finn, Patrick Lownds, and Damian Flynn, three highly respected MVPs in the world of Hyper-V and Microsoft System Center, turned out to be a fantastic experience. I am very proud of delivering this Microsoft private-cloud computing book together with them, acknowledging their deep technical knowledge and real-world experience. In fact, a book with such diverse topics could probably not have been written by only one author. Each and every one donated a significant piece of the puzzle on how to effectively build a Microsoft Private Cloud. Nevertheless, we had to make concessions on what to cover and what to ignore. If we would've had the time and space, the number of pages could have easily doubled.

A special thank-you goes to the editors of Wiley and Sybex for their expert advice. Likewise, big thanks go to Kristian Nese, a very enthusiastic and knowledgeable MVP in the System Center and Private Cloud arena. He kindly accepted our request to review the hundreds of pages we submitted.

I really couldn't have written this book without the generous and supportive people of XS4ALL, a leading ISP in the Netherlands, and in particular Joey Hofstede and Alexander Rijnbeek. We were given access to their research network, HP blade servers, HP storage, and HP Virtual Connect, including plenty of processor, memory, network, and storage resources for us to build a fantastic Microsoft Private Cloud.

There are several other people I'd like to thank for their help and advice: Udo Walberer from NetApp; Greg Cusanza, Program Manager in the VMM product team; Jonathan Cusson for his Microsoft Virtualization Visio template. Finally Maarten Goet, managing consultant and MVP of INOVATIV, who donated time for research and writing.

—Hans Vredevoort

Writing a book takes a lot of dedication and support. It would not be possible without help from family, friends, and colleagues. I would like to thank my wife, Lisa, for helping to keep all the other stuff together, and my children for being patient. A special thanks to the editors at Wiley and Sybex for making the dream a reality; my coauthors Aidan, Damian and Hans; plus our technical reviewer, Kristian. Finally, I would like to also thank Carmen Summers for giving me the opportunity to work with the product during the TAP and for answering those bizarre questions.

—Patrick Lownds

Writing a book can be a long and difficult process; there are many people who help along the way—too many to list individually. I offer my sincere appreciation to you all.

I would like to thank my brilliant and beautiful wife, Breege, for teaching me that great things are born from tiny sparks of inspiration; my coauthors Hans, Patrick, and Aidan, who convinced me that we could write a book; Kristian for his insight; and the editors at Wiley and Sybex.

In addition, a very special thanks to my colleagues at Lionbridge Technologies, especially Oyvind, Steve, and the “Corp IT” Team; and also the System Centre product group in Microsoft, especially Carmen, Kenon, Stephen, Hector, Suveen, Santosh, Travis, and Nigel.

—Damian Flynn