CHRIS DATE is an independent author, lecturer, researcher, and consultant specializing in relational database systems. He was one of the first people anywhere to recognize the fundamental importance of Ted Codd’s pioneering work on the relational model. He was also involved in technical planning for the IBM products SQL/DS and DB2 at the IBM Santa Teresa Laboratory in San Jose, California. He is best known for his books—in particular An Introduction to Database Systems, Eighth Edition (Addison-Wesley, 2003), the standard text in the field, which has sold nearly three quarters of a million copies worldwide—and (with Hugh Darwen and Nikos A. Lorentzos) Temporal Data and the Relational Model (Morgan Kaufmann, 2002).

CARY MILLSAP is the principal author of Optimizing Oracle Performance (O’Reilly, 2003) and the lead designer and developer of the Hotsos PD101 course. Prior to cofounding Hotsos in 1999, he served for ten years at Oracle Corp. as one of the company’s leading system performance experts. At Oracle, he also founded and served as vice president of the 80-person System Performance Group. He has educated thousands of Oracle consultants, support analysts, developers, and customers in the optimal use of Oracle technology through his commitment to writing, teaching, and speaking at public events.