About the Authors

Carlos Pignataro, CCIE certified No. 4619, is a senior engineer on the Escalation Team for Cisco Systems, Inc. In this role he handles difficult and complex escalations, works on critical or stalled defects, and provides input on and tests new products and developmentshelping improve their reliability, availability, and serviceability. He has extensive experience in large-scale IP and ATM deployments, and he works with different development teams. He also is an active speaker at networkers' conventions. He has a BS and MS in electronic engineering. Carlos can be reacxhed at [e-mail].

Ross Kazemi, CCIE certified No. 2742, is a senior engineer on the System Test Team for Cisco Systems, Inc. He develops and executes test cases that simulate QoS usage in large SP MPLS/VPN networks. He also teaches an internal Cisco class to Cisco support engineers. Previously, he worked as an escalation engineer, dealing with networks that use MPLS over Cisco ATM switches. He also worked as a consultant engineer for Cisco's big enterprise customers. He has a BS in electrical engineering. Ross can be reached at [e-mail].

Bil Dry, CCIE certified No. 4191, manages one of Cisco's Advanced Services teams that offers design consulting, escalation support, and best-practice recommendations to service provider packet telephony customers. His work in wide-area, IP, and ATM networks has helped him achieve double CCIE status in Routing and Switching and WAN Switching. Currently, he is focused on packet voice signaling protocols such as MGCP and SIP. He also speaks on troubleshooting WAN protocols at networkers' conventions. He has a BS in electrical engineering. Bil can be reached at [e-mail].