About the Authors

Aidan Finn, MVP, has been working in IT since 1996. He is employed as the Technical Sales Lead by MicroWarehouse, a distributor (and Microsoft Value Added Distributor) in Dublin, Ireland. In this role, he works with Microsoft partners in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, evangelizing Microsoft products such as Windows Server, Hyper-V, Windows client operating systems, Microsoft System Center, and cloud computing. Previously, Aidan worked as a consultant and administrator for the likes of Amdahl DMR, Fujitsu, Barclays, and Hypo Real Estate Bank International, where he dealt with large and complex IT infrastructures. Aidan has worked in the server hosting and outsourcing industry in Ireland, where he focused on server management, including VMware VI3, Hyper-V, and System Center.

Aidan was given the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award in 2008 in the Configuration Manager expertise. He switched to the Virtual Machine expertise in 2009 and has been renewed annually since then. Aidan has worked closely with Microsoft in Ireland and the United Kingdom, including presentations, road shows, online content, podcasts, and launch events. He has also worked in the community around the world, presenting at conferences and participating in podcasts.

When Aidan isn’t at work, he’s out and about with camera in hand, lying in a ditch, wading through a bog, or sitting in a hide, trying to be a wildlife photographer. Aidan was the lead author of Mastering Hyper-V Deployment (Sybex, 2010). He is one of the contributing authors of Microsoft Private Cloud Computing (Sybex, 2012), Mastering Windows Server 2008 R2 (Sybex, 2009), and Mastering Windows 7 Deployment (Sybex, 2011).

Aidan runs a blog at www.aidanfinn.com, where he covers Windows Server, Hyper-V, System Center, desktop management, and associated technologies. Aidan is also on Twitter as @joe_elway.

Patrick Lownds is a senior solution architect at Hewlett Packard’s TS Consulting, EMEA in the Data Center Consulting practice and is based out of London. Patrick is a current Virtual Machine Most Valuable Professional (MVP) and a Microsoft Virtual Technology Solution Professional (v-TSP). Patrick has worked in the IT industry since 1988 and has worked with a number of technologies, including Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center.

In his current role, he works mainly with the most recent versions of Windows Server and System Center and has participated in both the Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 SP1 Technology Adoption Programs.

Patrick has also contributed to Mastering Hyper-V Deployment (Sybex 2010) and Microsoft Private Cloud Computing (Sybex, 2012). He blogs and tweets in his spare time and can be found on Twitter as @patricklownds.

Michel Luescher is a senior consultant in the Consulting Services division at Microsoft Switzerland. Primarily, Michel is focused on datacenter architectures and works with Microsoft’s enterprise customers. In this role, he works mainly with the latest versions of Windows Server and System Center to build datacenter solutions, also known as the Microsoft private cloud. He joined Microsoft in January 2009 and has since been working very closely with the different divisions and communities, including several product groups at Microsoft. Michel has worked with Windows Server 2012 since the first release back in September 2011 and is involved in various rapid deployment programs (RDPs) and technology adoption programs (TAPs), helping Microsoft customers with the early adoption of the pre-released software.

Michel is a well-known virtualization and datacenter specialist and regularly presents at events. On his blog at www.server-talk.eu, Michel writes about Microsoft virtualization and private cloud. On Twitter you will find him as @michelluescher.

Damian Flynn, Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP, is an infrastructure architect at Lionbridge Technology, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Damian, based in Ireland, is responsible for incubating new projects, architecting business infrastructure and services, and sharing knowledge, while leveraging his continuous active participation in multiple Microsoft TAPs with over 18 years IT experience. He blogs at www.damianflynn.com and tweets from time to time as @damian_flynn. He has published numerous technical articles, coauthored Microsoft Private Cloud Computing (Sybex, 2012), presented at various conferences including Microsoft TechEd, and contributes code on CodePlex.