Collectively, we want to thank the following people, without whom this book would not have been possible: Shivakumar (Shiv) Vaithyanathan, Roger Rea, Robert Uleman, James R. Giles, Kevin Foster, Ari Valtanen, Asha Marsh, Nagui Halim, Tina Chen, Cindy Saracco, Vijay R. Bommireddipalli, Stewart Tate, Gary Robinson, Rafael Coss, Anshul Dawra, Andrey Balmin, Manny Corniel, Richard Hale, Bruce Brown, Mike Brule, Jing Wei Liu, Atsushi Tsuchiya, Mark Samson, Douglas McGarrie, Wolfgang Nimfuehr, Richard Hennessy, Daniel Dubriwny, our Research teams, and all the others in our business who make personal sacrifices day in and day out to bring you the IBM Big Data platform.
Rob Thomas and Anjul Bhambhri deserve a special mention because their passion is contagious—thanks to both of you.
We especially want to give a heartfelt thanks to our terrific Distinguished Engineer (DE), Steve Brodsky, and the two lead Senior Technical Staff Members (STSMs) on BigInsights: Shankar Venkataraman, and Bert Van der Linden; without their dedication and efforts, this book would not be possible. IBM is an amazing place to work, and becomes unparalleled when you get to work, day in and day out, beside the kind of brainpower these guys have and their good natured willingness to share it and make us all smarter. We would also be remiss not to thank Steven Sit, who at the last minute came in to be our technical editor (and part-time researcher, though we failed to tell him that when we approached him with the role).
We want to thank (although at times we cursed) Susan Visser and Linda Currie for getting the book in place; an idea is an idea, but it takes people like this to help get that idea off of a Buffalo wings-stained napkin and into your hands without the mess. Our editing team—Sheena Uprety, Patty Mon, Paul Tyler, and Lisa Theobald—all played a key role behind the scenes and we want to extend our thanks for that. Thanks, to our McGraw-Hill guru, Paul Carlstroem—there is a reason why we specifically wanted to work with you. (By the way, the extra week came in handy!)
Finally, to Linda Snow for taking time away from her precious Philadelphia Eagles on “Don’t talk to me it’s football” days and Wendy Lucas, for taking the time out of their busy lives to give the book a read and keep us on the right track. You two are great colleagues and our clients are lucky to have you in the field, working on their success with the passion you each bring to our business.