About the Authors

Paul L. Della Maggiora, CCIE #1522, is a Technical Marketing Engineer for Cisco's Performance Design and Verification Center. He has also served as Escalation Engineer and NMS team lead for the TAC and Product Marketing Engineer since joining Cisco in 1994. For the past 10 years, he has worked as a network manager, network engineer, and network designer. Paul has a BS in Computer Science from the University of South Carolina.

Christopher E. Elliott, CCIE #2018, has 25 years experience in the networking industry, starting on the ARPANET. He currently works for the Cisco Systems TAC. For the last eight years he has concentrated on network management, including designing and managing a large network; writing network management applications, including a distributed SNMP polling system; and supporting users of network management applications. He is CCIE re-certified in ATM and LAN switching.

Robert L. Pavone, Jr., CCIE #1265, is a Network Auditor and Tools Consultant in the Net Tools Team at Cisco within the Customer Advocacy organization. He has been in the communications industry for the past 10 years, spending the last 6 years with Cisco. He has dealt with everything from configuring analog modems to troubleshooting complex customer IP networks. He is CCIE re-certified in ATM and LAN switching.

Kent J. Phelps, CCIE #2149, has over 15 years experience with information systems and communication networks. With Cisco Systems since 1996, he has concentrated for the past six years in network management and analysis. Kent has a BS in electrical engineering from the University of Florida.

James M. Thompson, CCIE #1758, has over 20 years experience in data and communications networking from working with the ARPANET and MILNET through support of customer networks with more than 10,000 routers. He is currently a High Availability Network Consultant with Network Supported Accounts at Cisco Systems.