About the Authors

Mark Minasi is a best-selling author, popular technology columnist, commentator, keynote speaker, and IT consultant. He first got the chance to play with a computer at a university class in 1973. At that time, he learned two things:

• First, computers are neat. (People still said “neat” back in 1973. Hey, it was back in the 20th Century.)
• Second, many technical people are very nice folks, but they can sure put you to sleep in an instant while explaining technical things.

Mark transformed those two insights into a career making computers and networking easier and more fun to understand. He’s done that by writing over a thousand computer columns, several dozen best-selling technical books, and explaining operating system and networking planning, installation, maintenance, and repair to crowds from two to two thousand. An independent voice hailed as “Favorite Technical Author” by CertCities four times out of four, Mark has the unusual ability to take even the most technical topics, filter out the hype and explain them in plain English. Perhaps that’s why when TechTarget hired him to deliver a webcast on PC tuning, he drew three times as many attendees as any of their previous webcasts, crashing Yahoo’s servers, and why he’s been hired to deliver keynote addresses at hundreds of techie conferences around the world.

Mark is probably best known for his Mastering Windows Server and Complete PC Upgrade and Maintenance Guide books, both of which have seen more than 12 editions and sold over 1 million copies.

Mark’s humorous, provocative and yet informative style makes him a favorite of audiences around the world. Through his firm, MR&D (www.minasi.com), Mark offers technical seminars, classes, and talks, as well as a technical forum. You can also sign up for Mark’s newsletter.

Kevin Greene, who led the team of authors on this book, is a Microsoft MVP for System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management and has been working in IT since 1999. He is employed as a subject matter expert for System Center at Ergo in Dublin, Ireland. In this role, he works with clients to deliver enterprise-grade solutions with Windows Server and System Center. In the past, he has held such roles as IT administrator, IT engineer, technical team lead, and senior consultant. He has been on the Microsoft certification track since the days of Windows NT 4.0 and holds qualifications that include MCSE, MCSA, MCITP, MCP, and MCTS. Kevin is an active participant in the Windows Server and System Center (WSSC) community through his blog at http://kevingreeneitblog.blogspot.com, and he can also be found hanging around Twitter as @kgreeneit.

He regularly delivers presentations and participates in podcasts on Windows Server and System Center and is a co-author of Mastering System Center 2012 Operations Manager (Sybex, 2012).

Kevin lives in Sallins, Co. Kildare, Ireland, with his wife, Laura, and two sons, Matthew and Dylan. When he’s not working on his laptop, he spends his free time with his family and supporting Manchester United. He also holds a second-degree black belt in freestyle kickboxing, and although not as involved in the sport as he used to be, he’s still an avid follower of the martial arts.

Christian Booth was previously a Microsoft MVP in the System Center: Cloud and Datacenter Management discipline and recently retired his MVP to work fulltime at Microsoft as senior program manager for the System Center team, focusing on the Cloud and Datacenter Management MVP program.

He has worked as a director, lead technical architect, and solutions engineer in the Seattle area for the last 17 years. His experience and focus have always been on the Microsoft platform with specialization in System Center, Windows Server, and virtualization.

Christian has contributed as a subject matter expert, exam item writer, training designer, and technical reviewer on many Microsoft Official Curriculum (MOC) courses. You can find out more about Christian at http://about.me/chbooth.

Robert Butler has been an IT professional for the past 17 years. He works for Affirma Consulting, where he specializes in integrating the various parts of the Microsoft System Center stack into existing environments.

He has been a Microsoft Certified Professional for the last 16 years, and he currently holds many other Microsoft certifications including MCSE PC, MCSA 2012, MCITP EA, and MCTS for SCCM 2012.

Robert lives in Seattle, Washington, with his wife, Nicole, and two children, Alex and Miles. You can find more information on Robert at his System Center blog, http://rbutler.me, or by following him on Twitter at @robert_butler.

John McCabe works for Microsoft as a premier field engineer. Through this role, he gets to work with some of the world’s largest companies supporting various technologies ranging from unified communications to private cloud and everything in between. Before joining Microsoft, he was an MVP for Unified Communications.

John lives in Ireland with his wife, Sharon, and three kids, Sophie, Adam, and Samuel. When not working, he enjoys training in martial arts, namely Bujinkan Budo Taijitsu and when time permits you will find him behind some turntables.

Robert Panek is an independent consultant who has enjoyed a successful career in IT and software development. Since 1995 Robert has worked for companies such as AIG, L-3, Radianse, and IPOSyndicate, where in 2000 his work was awarded Forbes Magazine’s “Best of the Web” for four consecutive quarters. Due to his vast achievements at IPOSyndicate, he advanced to chief technology officer.

Throughout his 19 years working in IT, Robert has achieved qualifications such as MCP, MCSA, MCSE, MCSD – Web Applications, and MCDBA, and his experience along with his mentoring of junior-level IT professionals has brought him to Sybex publishing to further educate and certify students.

Robert is currently living in New Hampshire with his wife, Jeannie.

Michael Rice continues to thrive as a talented and successful datacenter administrator for a Department of Defense contracting company, Intelligent Software Solutions Inc.

He specializes in leading the way for corporate infrastructure in the areas of virtualization, storage, and systems administration. Over the past eight years as an IT professional, he has earned multiple IT certifications such as MCP, MCTS, MCSA, MCSE, VCP 5, and Net + and has received numerous awards for outstanding performance and dedication to excellence.

Michael lives in the beautiful state of Colorado with his wife, Jessica, and his two wonderful children, Kristen and Anthony. He plans to one day become a certified trainer and further differentiate his career by leading the way in technology for other IT professionals around the globe.

Stefan Roth works as a private cloud architect at itnetx gmbh, a consulting and engineering company located in Switzerland, which was awarded Microsoft’s “Partner of the Year – Datacenter” in 2011, 2012, and 2013. He presents at technical events and works closely with his customers and Microsoft to evangelize cloud and datacenter technologies.

Working in IT for the past 13 years, he was previously employed as a systems engineer and consultant for national and international companies, where he gained a great deal of experience in datacenter management. His main focus is Active Directory, System Center Operations Manager, and System Center Orchestrator, and he has achieved certification from Microsoft in the MCITP: Enterprise Administrator and MCSE: Private Cloud disciplines.

You can get more information about Stefan on his System Center Operations Manager blog at http://blog.scomfaq.ch or on Twitter at @scomfaq.