About the Authors

Felix Frank has used and programmed computers for most of his life. During and after working on his computer science diploma, he gained experience on the job as a systems administrator, server operator, and open source software developer. He spent 6 years of his 11-year career as a Puppet power user. In parallel, he spent about two years intensifying his studies through ongoing source code contributions and active participation in several conferences.

For making this title possible in the first place, and for their ongoing support, I'd like to thank my editors, Nadeem Bagban and Arwa Manasawala. Also, this book would not be what it is without the amazing feedback from my reviewers.

For their kind feedback and ongoing support, I'd also like to thank a number of Puppet Labs employees: Michael Smith, Peter Huene, Josh Cooper, Andrew Parker, Adrien Thebo, Dawn Foster, Kara Sowles, Joshua Partlow, Henrik Lindberg, Charlie Sharpsteen, Nigel Kersten, Kylo Ginsberg, Ethan Brown, Rob Reynolds, Jeff McCune, and Eric Sorenson. Special thanks to Luke Kanies for creating Puppet and dedicating so many resources to this amazing community.

Further thanks go to Waltraut Niepraschk and the whole datacenter staff at DESY Zeuthen for getting me on track with the central management of UNIX servers. Thanks also to mpex for giving me the opportunity to learn a lot about Puppet, and ultimately, write this very book.

Martin Alfke is co-founder and CEO of example42 GmbH. He is a Puppet and automation enthusiast since 2007. In the past, he would have said he is a "system administrator". Nowadays, he likes the term "infrastructure engineer". The big difference is that system administrators sshs into systems to fix them, whereas infrastructure engineers fix their automation.

Martin is serving as a Puppet Labs' training partner in Germany since 2011, conducting official Puppet training. In his spare time, he likes reading books and visiting interesting locations.