Acknowledgments

My thanks go out to Jason Perlow for the use of his basement data center. He spent many long hours setting up infrastructure so that I would have access to VMware ESXi and Microsoft’s Hyper-V. Without Jason’s help, this book wouldn’t exist.

Thank you to Amy Newman who graciously agreed to coauthor this book. She made it better with her fresh perspective and many years of experience in the virtualization space. She was a major force in making it a reality and taking it to completion.

To my mom, whose passing ten years ago makes me wish I hadn’t been such a late bloomer.

I wish to thank my children for putting up with me during the stresses and strains of another book. I’m sorry for the endless hours and loss of quality time that accompanied this project. But now that it’s over, Daddy’s back.

Thanks to my wife for her patience when I didn’t have any, her honesty when I needed it, and her prodding when I didn’t want it. Hi, honey, I’m home—finally.

—Kenneth Hess

Many thanks to:

Kenneth Hess, for believing in me enough to take an unknown entity on board. It’s been quite a ride, and I’m grateful for every bump in the road this opportunity has hit. In this case, what happened in Vegas certainly didn’t stay there!

Dan Muse, who nudged me to step up on the soapbox five years ago and allowed me to stay there when I finally started enjoying it.

Wesley Baker, Ryan Makamson, Buddy Newton, Jameel Syeed, and the companies they represent, for agreeing to be part of the book and sharing with me their experiences with virtualization.

Cirba, Emulex, and VMware, for allowing us to use their figures to better illustrate our prose.

Michael Hall and Paul Shread, who allowed me to pick their brains about network and storage—both virtual and otherwise.

Richard Panchyk and Diane Merians, for being mentors and friends who were always there with sage advice when needed and an ear to lend at other times.

My dad, who talked telecom at the dinner table all those years and tried to spark my interest in routers and LANs. I was (half) listening back then, really.

My mom, who insisted I stick it out in the after-school computer science class, even though I was the only girl fighting for a seat in front of one of three Commodore PETs and claimed to have little interest in being there.

Jakob and Rebecca, it’s been a long year. I love you both. I am grateful for your patience and impatience during this time. Looking forward to watching more soccer games, hosting more playdates, and more leisurely evenings and weekends together.

Eric, who still makes me laugh like no one else can and who almost always knows just what to say when everything seems wrong. Without your patience, support, understanding, and most of all confidence in me and my abilities, this undertaking would not have been possible.

—Amy Newman

There are also several people whom Kenneth and Amy would like to jointly thank:

Thank you Joe Brockmeier, Eli Dow, Jesse Keating, John Kennedy, Jeanna Matthews, and Jim Owens for your peer review of the manuscript, and Songlin Qiu, for making sure everything flowed properly and logically within the correct format. All of you challenged us, frustrated us, and at times even irritated us, but it was all for a good cause and in the end, we came away with a better book.

Thanks go out to Michael Hall for reading the manuscript in close to one swoop to ensure there were no inadvertent contradictions or inconsistencies.

Finally, our thanks go out to our editor, Debra Williams Cauley, for always being two steps ahead with what we needed, whether it was space, prodding, or encouragement, and keeping us moving forward all the while.