Acknowledgments

I want to thank my wife, Angela Copeland, for putting up with all the late nights I spent working on this project in my “spare time.” Thank you to my family—Bonnie, Anita, Andy, and Joe—and to Mark and Carla Hilley and Matthew and Elizabeth Jacobs for your support. A big thank you to the Apress team for all of their hard work and long hours. A special thank you to Gwenan Spearing for guiding us from idea to publication. Thank you Melissa Maldonado for keeping us on track and to Gay Schwartz and Thomas LaRock for excellent feedback and great insight to help make this a much better book.

I could not have completed a single page of this book without the support of Keith Olinger, my manager and a great person who supported me with many insightful conversations. Thank you to my fellow authors, Julian Soh, Anthony Puca, Mike Manning, and David Gollob. I am lucky to call you friends, and I could not have completed this book without your skill and dedication.

To Mark Russinovich, thank you for being a friend and for suggesting Microsoft Azure as a topic. I have great appreciation and respect for the amazing work completed by the Microsoft Azure Engineering team.

Thank you to an amazing and supportive account team: Tori Locke, Dean Iacovelli, Steve Finney, Able Cruz, Mark Wernet, Chris Wilch, Steve Kirchoff, Ben Callahan, David Stewart, Brent McCarthy, Tara Larson, and Steven Fiore.

—Marshall Copeland

Undertaking the writing of a book is a demanding but rewarding experience that extends far beyond an author’s personal time. It requires the understanding and support of the important people in the author’s life. As such, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude for the support of my wife Priscilla and daughters Jasmine and Makayla. The times they put up with my absence from family activities in order to complete this book represent a big sacrifice on their part. I would like to thank my dad, Soh Kim Wat, and my mom, Betty, for providing me the opportunity through education to be successful in my chosen career. I am also very grateful to have had the opportunity to continue to work with my co-authors Marshall Copeland, Anthony Puca, Michael Manning, and David Gollob. I am humbled by your professionalism and very thankful for your friendship and partnership. You are truly the best in the industry.

Last but not least, I want to extend my appreciation to the great folks at Microsoft for supporting and helping us with this project, especially Michael Donlan, Tori Locke, John Bunn, Javier Vasquez, Keith Olinger, Dean Iacovelli, Kelly Cooper, Peter Zalkind, Darren Carlsen, Steve Read, Jeff Langford, Scott Wold, Mark Ghazai, David Zarling, Tom Moen, and the extended Microsoft Azure team, Office 365 team, and Account Teams. Without your support and input, this project would not have been successful.

—Julian Soh

Writing a book requires a lot more time and effort than you might imagine. Although it’s fairly easy to write about what you know, it’s quite difficult to cover a topic like Azure that is so large and so broad. We frequently found ourselves thinking that we could write an entire book on what we cover in any single chapter. That level of effort to stay in lockstep with the Microsoft Azure Engineering Team and share what is available today and right around the corner was a large task. I would like to thank my beautiful wife Laura for her patience and for starting many dinners alone throughout my third book project. The compounding of life, work, and loved ones made the little free time I had that much more valuable.

Special thanks to the other authors: Marshall Copeland, Mike Manning, Julian Soh, and David Gollob. Without them, this book would not have been completed. Each one of them stepped up at various times to make sure we stayed on track and kept moving forward. Their unique insights into the various aspects of Microsoft Azure solutions provides an eloquent summary of some very complex technologies. I don’t think anyone has ever said it, so thank you to Marshall for all the “Chapter Status?” e-mails to the team.

Working at Microsoft has exposed me to a large array of clients, the huge pool of challenges they face in their day-to-day business, and some of the brightest and most passionate IT professionals I have ever met. Thank you to Keith Olinger and his Datacenter Specialist team, a talented pool of individuals who continuously keep me and each other on our toes. Thank you to my Account Teams: Mark Starr, Nathan Beckham, Jed Zercher, Will Fahim, Elisa Yaros, Adam Loughran, Todd Strong, Bobby Bliven, and Nicole Deprey, and their manager, Kelly Cooper. This group keeps the customers’ business needs and challenges in the foreground and reminds me of the value these things provide to the customers and public. Finally, a big thank you to Scott Wold for always being a resource I can count on to help me or our customers. Your assistance with many Azure-related items was very appreciated.

—Anthony Puca

When I first started working on this book, I didn’t realize the time commitment I was taking on. A book project is equally challenging and rewarding. Anyone who has worked with the Microsoft Cloud technologies has seen the pace of change that is happening. The time and effort required to keep up with these rapid changes while continuing to meet regular work and family commitments can sometimes be overwhelming.

With that in mind, I would like to thank my wife, Arlene, and my children, Kevin and Nicole, for their understanding and support while I took time away from them to work on this book. Without their patience and support, I would not have been able to complete this project.

I would also like to thank my manager, Stanley Lum, for supporting me as I continued to meet my work commitments while working on this book. Finally, I would like to thank Anthony Puca, David Gollob, Julian Soh, and Marshall Copeland, my co-authors, for their efforts in writing, proofreading, fact-checking, and keeping us on track to complete this project.

—Mike Manning

I want to acknowledge and thank my authoring peers and friends Marshal Copeland, Anthony Puca, Julian Soh, and Mike Manning for inviting me to participate in writing this book. This is my first book, and I could not have asked for a better team to indoctrinate me and show me the ropes. Thanks to my good friend Mike Wilmot for his inspiration and critical thinking around machine-learning topics and business model strategies. I am humbled by the brilliant team of data scientists and engineers who design, develop, and continuously advance Azure machine learning. These people are tireless and incredibly passionate, truly representing the new Microsoft. If it wasn’t for this team, led by Vice President Joseph Sirosh, we wouldn’t have this game-changing platform. I want to thank my manager, Keith Bauer, for his unwavering support and for being an amazing sounding board. I want to thank and express deep gratitude to my brothers Steve and Ken, who always push the limits and challenge me to do the same. And, of course, thanks to my wife and kids for putting up with my late nights while I worked on this book.

—David Gollob