Marcel van den Berg - Managing Microsoft Hybrid Clouds

Marcel van den Berg is an experienced IT professional with 25 years of experience. He is well known in both the VMware and Hyper-V community for his sharing of knowledge, mainly via his blog. He currently works as a consultant for PQR in the Netherlands, deploying many Microsoft solutions such as Microsoft Azure, Windows Server, Hyper-V, System Center, and StorSimple.

His career started in 1990 as a system administrator for Unix systems. As his career progressed, he was later responsible for managing Windows NT to infrastructures based on Windows Server 2008. About 6 years ago, Marcel focused on server virtualization and moved to the role of a consultant. Marcel designed and built numerous infrastructures based on VMware and Hyper-V for midsized and large organizations. He has experience in working with numerous VDI, SBC, backup, and disaster recovery solutions.

Cloud computing is one of the most exciting shifts we have ever seen in how we use IT. Marcel is really keen to understand new developments in cloud computing, especially on Infrastructure as a Service. In his current job, he has designed several infrastructures hosted on Microsoft Azure. By reading this book, you will learn from his experiences and save hours of work by preventing common mistakes.

He shares a lot of his knowledge on his website, http://up2v.nl. Marcel was awarded VMware vExpert for the help he has been giving the community since 2011.

You can follow Marcel on Twitter at @marcelvandenber.

I'd like to thank my family for allowing me to spend so much time on writing this book and being away from them. They have been a great help to make my dream come true. Writing a book is a true challenge and it took me many many hours to write and adjust this book to keep it up to date. Thanks Katja, I love you!

Also, I am grateful to the reviewers of this book. Without them, this book would not have been so good.

V. K. Cody Bumgardner has been in the IT industry for over 20 years. In this time, he has worked in technical, managerial, and sales roles in the areas of IT architecture, software development, networking, research, systems, and security.

Over the last several years, he has focused on researching, implementing, and speaking about cloud computing and computational economics. He is also currently pursuing a PhD in computer science at the University of Kentucky (UK), focusing on computational economics of cloud computing.

He currently serves as the Chief Technology Architect (CTA) and research computing service owner of a large public land-grant university. He is responsible for technology architectures supporting over 40,000 users in academic, research, and health care (academic) divisions.

He is also the author of OpenStack in Action, Manning Publishing .

Xander Oortgiesen has been working in different roles and functions and is currently working for Switch IT Solutions (www.switch.nl) in the Netherlands. Xander also works for his own IT consultancy company called Lorlon (www.lorlon.nl). Before working as a business consultant, he was active in the field as a technical consultant specialized in Microsoft Server, Cloud/Office 365, System Center Technologies, Storage, Virtualization Technologies (Hyper-V, VMware, XenServer), and Citrix.

Xander is a Citrix CCEE, RES RCP, VMware VCP/VCDA, MCSE NT42012 R2, and several Microsoft Specialties (Exchange, Hyper-V, System Center, and so on).

You can follow him on his blog (>).

Vision, purpose, relentless passion for technology, and life of spiritualitythat's what Dr. Rajeev Papneja brings to the table, combined with over 18 years of extensive systems and software experience on an international scale, including more than 9 years of senior management experience in the United States. Prior to affiliating with bodHOST, in collaboration with his global partners, he founded a firm called Artilligence Inc., a well-respected name in Northeast America as a one-stop service center for all IT services ranging from turnkey software development to supplemental staffing. Employees sometimes refer to him as "a COO with a heart", because in the cut-throat war zone of corporate America, he refuses to compromise his humility, simplicity, sincerity, truthfulness, and loyalty to his co-workers. Dr. Papneja also serves as a COO at ESDS Software Solution Pvt. Ltd, a leading organization in the space of managed hosting and data center services.

A believer in a borderless new economy, his business focus is truly global, and that is what he achieved his doctorate in. His longest tenure was with Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, the largest drug manufacturer in the world with its current headquarters in New York, where he spent more than 7 years providing enterprise-class technology solutions and setting up financial processes.

Inspite of obtaining a master's degree in computer science at the age of 20, his zeal for education did not stop. Along with his professional career in the United States, he pursued his PhD in business administration, the highest honors he achieved at the age of 27. He has worked as a senior consultant at major corporations such as United Parcel Services, Ernst & Young, Dun & Bradstreet to name a few, before becoming an entrepreneur.

When he is not at work, he is usually serving the community and seeking spirituality. He believes in the future, loves his extended family of colleagues and associates, and has faith in his organization's ability to be a Fortune 100 company in his lifetime.