Acknowledgments

IT projects are never done on time, and this book is no exception. It is hard to believe now, but back in March of 2013, I expected it to be small, 450-page book completed within 7 months. Now, 14 months and almost 900 pages of manuscript later, I can say that it was a very hard but exciting journey, which I would not have been able to travel alone without the help of others.

I am very grateful to my technical reviewers—Tom LaRock and Victor Isakov—for their enormous contribution to the project. Their suggestions and advice helped me shape the book into its current form and dramatically improve its quality.

The same applies to the entire Apress team and especially to Kevin Shea, Jon Hassell, and Gary Schwartz who put a lot of effort into the project. At the very least, they succeeded in the challenging task of keeping me organized and making my English sound plausible.

I would like to thank my friend Maxim Alexeyev for his help with Chapter 16. Maxim lives in Tampa, FL and works as a System Architect in Actsoft, Inc. He blogs at: http://discoveringdotnet.alexeyev.org.

Of course, I would not be able to finish this book without the help of my family and friends who supported me throughout the process, patiently waiting for the work to be completed.

Thank you very much! It was a pleasure to work with all of you!