Joe Dissmeyer - SolarWinds Orion Network Performance Monitor

There are so many people that I want to thank for their support in writing this book. Without their skills, forethought, support, and expertise I would never have been able to write this book on my own.

I would like to thank my beautiful wife Tasha and our three children, Lauren, Cameron, and Jocelyn, my parents Fred and Sandra and step-parents Mitch and Dora. I also wish to thank Carl, Jennifer, and Megan. But most of all, I want to thank Tim, Lisa and Ashley for putting up with me, helping me watch my kids, and helping me find the time to write this book. To everyone, I could not have done this without youall of you! I love you all!

I also want to thank all of my colleagues and friends. There are too many to name, but I wish to thank; Stacey F., Mason G., Dave "DJ" M., David S., Ernst S., Jim K., Derek M., Steve M, Jacques A, Joe M, Joe P, Rhys R, Debbie W, Brian Z, every member of the SpiceCorps of Central Florida, and the entire Packt Publishing team. I know that I missed a bunch of you, but you know who you are!

For my brothers in Christ; Daniel Hopper, Glenn Stewart, Phillip Kochanski, and Milan Thaker. Thank so much for loaning me equipment and giving me advice on some of the topics in this book. Also, a special shout-out to Dan Williams at Meraki. May God bless you and your families!

But above all, I thank our almighty God. He has given me a gift to share with the world so that I can glorify only Him. None of the knowledge and none of the skills that I have been blessed with come from myself. They all are a gift from God! It is my desire to serve only Him, the Everlasting one, the most High, and the most holy. Amen!

"...so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." Colossians 2: 2, 3 (NIV)

Richard Jones manages the EU regional IT infrastructure for a leading global manufacturing business, and also works closely with the global team to provide best in class systems and support to the business. Richard's certifications and specialties include Network Management Systems, Cisco technology, and VMware.

Dave Shield has worked as part of the technical support team for the Department of Computer Science at the University of Liverpool for more than twenty years. For most of that time, he has also been one of the core developers for the Net-SNMP project helping it grow from a one-man fork to become one of the world's leading open source network management products.

Both of these environments draw heavily on the open source ethos, and typically involve the use of ad-hoc, in-house developed systems. Seeing how things look from the perspective of a commercial software solution has been a fascinating experience, and has helped clarify some of the advantages and limitations of the open source approach.

Stephen Stack has 15 years of industry experience and is currently the Network Team Leader for an International Financial Services company and Application Service Provider (ASP) with offices in more than 50 countries worldwide. His current role includes responsibility for the company's international MPLS-based WAN, client ASP connectivity and data centers, and managing core data center technologies including security, virtualization and network management solutions.

Stephen has extensive experience in the ISP and SME markets also and his certifications include CCNP, CCDP, MCSE, and SolarWinds Certified Professional (SCP) to name a few. He also has a number of SolarWinds NPM, APM, and NCM deployments under his belt.

A keen golfer, Stephen lives in the picturesque village of Ballycotton located in County Cork, Ireland with his wife Orla and son Ran. Stephen's professional profile and be found on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/ststack/.