This is my first book. I was excited to create something unique, but that goal required a lot of people to put a lot of trust in me and my wacky idea of illustrated explanations for technically complex Google Cloud concepts.

Greg Wilson, Reto Meier, Colt McAnlis, and the entire Google Cloud team believed in the idea and encouraged me to pursue it, and I am very grateful to them for that.

I also want to acknowledge Don Ulinski and Sean Carey from HD Interactive, without whom the illustrations in this book would not have been the same, as well as Jack Wilber, who tirelessly provided edits and recommendations for most of the chapters.

Further, this book would not have been possible without my technical reviewers, including Eric Brewer, who made themselves available to read early versions and those who reviewed the entire book and individual chapters.

• Chapter 1: Brian Dorsey, Chelsie Czop (Peterson), Praveen Rajasekar, Steren Giannini, Matt Larkin, Vinod Ramachandran, Ken Drachnik, Kyle Meggs, Jason Polites, Jaisen Mathai, and Drew Bradstock.
• Chapter 2: Geoffrey Noer, Ash Ahluwalia, Tad Hunt, Rahul Venkatraj, Lindsay Majane, Sean Derrington, Abhishek Lal, and Ajitesh Abhishek.
• Chapter 3: Gabe Weiss, Vaibhav Govil, Minh Nguyen, Ron Pantofaro, Gopal Ashok, Anita Kibunguchy-Grant, and Michael Crutcher.
• Chapter 4: Kir Titievsky, Zoltan Arato, Shan Kulandaivel, Susheel Kaushik, Soleil Kelley, Chaitanya (Chai) Pydimukkala, George Verghese, Filip Knapik, Etai Margolin, and Leigha Jarett.
• Chapter 5: Richard Seroter, Wade Holmes, Arun Ananthampalayam, Nikhil Kaul, Kris Braun, Shikha Chetal, Lital Levy, David Feuer, and John Day.
• Chapter 6: Ryan Przybyl, Adam Michelson, Kerry Takenaka, Tony Sarathchandra, Karthik Balakrishnan, Babi Seal, Tracy Jiang, Irene Abezgauz, Gautam Kulkarni, and Abhijeet Kalyan.
• Chapter 7: Sara Robinson, Polong Lin, Karl Weinmeister, Sarah Weldon, Anu Srivastava, Logan Vadivelu, Marc Cohen, Shana Matthews, Shantanu Misra, Josh Porter, Calum Barnes, Lewis Liu, Zack Akil, Lee Boonstra, Arjun Rattan, and Mallika Iyer.
• Chapter 8: Robert Sadowski, Max Saltonstall, Scott Ellis, and Jordanna Chord.

I also extend my deepest gratitude to:

• The entire Wiley team, who embraced the challenge of publishing this wacky idea as a book. I remember having my first conversation with Jim Minatel; my own excitement grew when I saw that he was immediately excited about this idea. Then while working further on the editorial process, Pete Gaughan and Kelly Talbot encouraged me constantly to stay on track with a solid deadline plan, without which the entire effort would not be possible. Pete even mentioned that this book is about to become a reference for other authors who want to share their technical thoughts in a visual format, and that really gave me a boost when I needed it!
• Shashank, my husband, for his constant support while I was working on this project over many weekends and evenings.
• Mom and Dad, for their lifelong support and for being understanding when I could not return their calls because I was immersed in the book.
• And…YOU for placing your trust in me and providing me with feedback, which ultimately made me pursue the idea of turning these sketches into a reference guide.

Thank you for everything!