Acknowledgments

The first thank you has to go to the 53 MVPs who penned this book, and to their families for supporting them in the effort.

To my fellow editors, Adam Machanic, Paul S. Randal, Kimberly L. Tripp, Kalen Delaney, and Greg Low, who went beyond the call to pull together their sections and ensure that this is a quality book: thank you.

To Marjan Bace, our publisher, thank you for helping us refine the concept, supporting the project, and partnering with us.

To Michael Stephens, Jeff Bleiel, Andy Carroll, Deepak Vohra, Katie Tennant, Dottie Marsico, Todd Green, Mary Piergies, and the rest of the team at Manning Publications, thanks for believing in this project and enduring with it to the end.

Thanks to Bill Vaughn for taking the group photo at the 2009 MVP Summit.

A hearty thanks to Rod Colledge (SQL guru from Down Under, of www.sqlcrunch.com fame) for contributing his time as the technical editor. Well done!

A thank you to David Fugate of Launch Books for helping us develop the idea and work out the contract.

Many thanks to Ed Lehman, our SQL Server product team MVP Liaison, for his support, the many good times, and all the great swag.

To our MVP leads through the years, Shawn Aebi, Paul Wehland, Stephen Dybing, Ben Miller, Alison Brooks, and Suzanna Moran, and others internationally, thank you for supporting our community efforts.

To everyone in the Microsoft SQL Server product team, our enthusiastic thanks for developing a product worthy of our passion.

A heartfelt thank you to War Child for all you do for the children.

And finally, thank you, readers, for supporting our project and helping us support War Child.

PAUL NIELSEN