There are many people whom I had the privilege to meet during my career, and who had a great impact not only on my work but also this book and without whom this would not have been possible. This list of people grows and grows every year. All of them are indirectly helped shaping this book, which I immensely appreciate.

There are a few friends who had a direct impact on this book and whom I particularly want to thank.

Kirk Pepperdine, for his tireless aspiration to myth-bust the world of software performance and for the permission to use jPDM. His invaluable experience not only vastly improved the quality of this book but also greatly educated me personally.

Melissa McKay, for her tireless reviews, being eager (and crazy) enough to review this whole book, what greatly improved the quality, for sharing her experience in Enterprise Java, and not least for inspiration and motivation.

David Blevins, for sharing the passion in the topic of Java EE and writing the foreword to this book.

Andy Gumbrecht, for help not only in the topic of enterprise testing but also the English language.

Markus Eisele, for igniting the spark of this work.

Philipp Brunenberg, for creating constructive inspiration and not least, tons of motivation through weeks of writing.