I extend my sincere thanks to my parents, my wife Sandhya, and my kids Anup and Stuthi, for their patience and support over many a weekend that I spent writing this book.

I also thank my management chain at Oracle—Richard Sarwal, Ali Siddiqui, Rajiv Maheshwari, and Rahul Goyal for extending their fullest support towards this book.

I would also like to thank my colleagues and friends—Sundar Ramaswami, Priya Ulaganathan, Rajesh Polavarapu, and Arvind Maheshwari who helped and supported us at various stages while writing this book.

I also thank the team at Packt Publishing including Kerry George, Zainab Bagasrawala, Susmita Panda, Merwine Machado, and Azharuddin Shaikh who patiently worked with us and helped the book see the light of day.

Many thanks to the technical reviewers—William Vambenepe, Hari Rao, and Eric Bowman for taking the time to read the drafts and providing us with valuable inputs that helped elevate the standard of the content.

Last but not least, this book would not have become a reality without the passion, dedication and hard work of my co-author Govinda Raj Sambamurthy. I thank him whole heartedly for making this journey worthwhile.

I thank my mother Padma who has been an inspiration all through my life, for her immense support and continuous encouragement. I would like to extend thanks to my wife Nithya, for her patience and support in letting me use precious family time over weekends to work on this book.

I also thank my management chain at Oracle—Hari Rao, Frank Radichel, and Hasan Rizvi for allowing me to fit this book into my schedule, and for their constant encouragement.

I also thank my colleagues Rahul Goyal, Arvind Maheshwari, Chandrasekhar Atla, Rama Vijjapurapu, Sreekanth Chintala, and Venkatesh Yadalam for their help at various stages of this book.

I also thank the team at Packt Publishing including Kerry George, Zainab Bagasrawala, Susmita Panda, Merwine Machado, Azharuddin Shaikh and others from the publishing team for all their support.

A special thanks to our technical reviewers—Hari Rao, William Vambenepe, and Eric Bowman who took time off their busy schedules to read the drafts and provided us with technical inputs.

Last but not least, the commitment, resolve and efforts of my co-author Ashwin Kumar Karkala were essential in planning and executing this with the finesse of a project delivery. I thank him whole heartedly for ensuring this a success.