Acknowledgments

Although the cover of this book exhibits a single author, the many months of writing would be fruitless without the support of an entire network of relatives, friends, and professionals who are acknowledged here.

First, I would like to thank my sister Raquel and brother André for the family support during this book writing.

I would also like to express my gratitude to my friend and trusted advisor Alexandre M. S. P. Moraes, who has always shared with me his invaluable insights and experiences as a technical author.

Many thanks to Andrey Lee for the wonderful illustrations in Chapters 1 and 14.

Sincere thanks to my manager, Renier Souza, for actively helping me coordinate my professional life and this writing.

My thanks to the technical reviewers Adilson Silva and Fernando Almeida for their outstanding contributions and focus to make this work more effective for its targeted readership.

A personal thanks to the data center tiger team at Cisco Brazil, which has always served as my treasured “brain trust” for best practices and innovative ideas.

I am also very grateful to Simon Richards, Gordon Hirst, and all professionals behind Cisco Demo Cloud (dCloud), which was an inestimable tool for this book development.

Thanks to all the Pearson production team, especially Ellie Bru, Mandie Frank, and Bill McManus who helped me to create the final version of this book.

I will always be grateful to Mary Beth Ray and Anand Sundaram for giving me the unique opportunity of becoming a Cisco Press author back in 2012.

A very special thank you goes to Denise Lincoln, for trusting me with the honor of writing this book and for the amazing support during its development.