Acknowledgments

This book is dedicated to the many consumers of storage technology with whom I have had the pleasure to meet and speak over the past four years. You have challenged me to move into the role of an active consumer advocate and provided positive and negative feedback on my positions over the years that have helped me to learn and grow. I hope that this dialogue will continue and will expand until your voice is clearly heard and understood by those who develop technology in the Wild West domain of data storage.

I also thank the many "fellow travelers" within the vendor community who have secretly encouraged this book, ventured "off-the-record" views and opinions , and occasionally provided hard information to the author in order to steer me toward a more informed perspective of what is really going on inside the industry. There are many good and honest people working within the development shops of storage vendors and they are laboring in earnest to redress customer problems with effective technology solutions. My criticisms of product shortcomings and hypocritical "marketecture" should not be taken to heart by these good people. Their very existence should give us all hope that the issues raised in this book are not intractable and that there is reason to hope that they will eventually be resolved.

I would also like to single out for appreciation my readers and advisors on this project, including Dean Morash, Randy Chalfant, Mike and July Linett, Michael Alvarado, Bruce Nelson, Deborah Jagoe, in Brazil, Oscar Ernst, and in Europe, Jean-Michel Guillou and Peter Martin: Thank you all for your valuable advice and feedback.

Russ Hall and Tim Moore, and later, John Vacca and Jeffrey Pepper, who together comprised the formal reader/editor contingent at Prentice Hall PTR, are also owed a debt of gratitude for their faith in this project and their helpful commentary on chapter content.

Additionally, I would like to thank the Quantum Corporation Network Storage University staff, Megan McGill, Anna Gough, Saret Britz and the rest of the folks of Terrapinn Party Limited in Australia and South Africa, Jennifer Sioteco and Lenny Heymann of Key3Media, Fritz Nelson and Kevin Cooke of CMP Publications, and the speaker selection folks at TechTarget, marcusevans, Storage Networking World, Storage World Conference, and Forum Stockage, for providing to me many opportunities to speak out over the years on the issues contained in this book.

Finally, I wish to thank my mother-in-law, Loretta "Hobby" Romao for her tireless assistance in keeping our toddlers, Isabella, Carrie Loretta, Vincent, and Mercedes, distracted long enough so Mom and Dad could finish the artwork and the text of this manuscript. Thanks also to my teenagers, Alexandra and Maximilian, for not getting into any of the trouble for which teenagers are notorious while this book was being written.

This book is dedicated to data managers everywhere.