Richard Froom, CCIE No. 5102, is an engineering manager for the Data Center Business Unit Customer Operations Group at Cisco Systems. Richard is currently testing Cisco storage solutions with customers and has been involved in customer testing, proof-of-concept testing, and post-sales support of Cisco storage solutions. He has been with Cisco for nine years, previously serving as a support engineer troubleshooting customers’ networks and a technical leader working with Cisco Catalyst products. Richard, being involved with Catalyst product field trials, has been crucial in driving troubleshooting capabilities of Catalyst and MDS products and software. He has also contributed substantially to the Cisco.com LAN Technologies Technical Tips and has written white papers about 802.3 auto-negotiation and HSRP. Richard is also the coauthor of Cisco Catalyst QoS: Quality of Service in Campus Networks (ISBN 1-58705-120-6) from Cisco Press. He attended Clemson University and completed his bachelor of science degree in computer engineering.

Balaji Sivasubramanian, CCNP, is a product manager for the Internet Systems Business Unit (ISBU) at Cisco Systems. He is involved in defining product requirements for the next generation switching products for the Catalyst 6500 Switch Series. Previously, Balaji served as a team leader for the Cisco Systems Technical Assistance Center (TAC) LAN Switching team and as an escalation engineer for the Gigabit Switching Business Unit (GSBU). He has been with Cisco for more than seven years. He was a technical reviewer for the Cisco Press title, Cisco Catalyst QoS: Quality of Service in Campus Networks (ISBN 1-58705-120-6). In addition, Balaji has authored and reviewed many technical white papers on Cisco.com for the LAN Technologies subject area. He has been a presenter at Cisco Networkers and Technical Virtual Chalk Talk seminars for partners. Balaji holds a master of science degree in electronics and computer engineering from the University of Arizona and holds a bachelor of engineering degree in electrical and electronics engineering from Anna University, India.

Erum Frahim, CCIE No. 7549, is a team lead working for the Data Center, Business unit in SAN Test Lab at Cisco Systems. Erum is currently testing SAN solutions for various Cisco customers to aid them in deployment of the Cisco storage technologies. In addition, she is testing new features and products as well as handling crucial customer issues concerning Catalyst switches and Cisco MDS switches. She has been working for Cisco for the past six years and has been involved in early field trial testing of Catalyst products. In addition, Erum has contributed and authored articles on Cisco.com and in Certification Magazine on LAN and SAN technologies. Erum attended the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, where she completed her master of science degree in electrical engineering, and she received her bachelor’s degree from the N.E.D University of Engineering and Technology in Pakistan.

For questions regarding this book, you can contact Richard at [email protected] and Erum at [email protected].