John Kane

About the Lead Authors

Ray Rankins is owner and president of Gotham Consulting Services, Inc. (http://www.gothamconsulting.com), near Saratoga Springs, New York. Ray has been working with Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server for more than 20 years and has experience in database administration, database design, project management, application development, consulting, courseware development, and training. He has worked in a variety of industries, including financial, manufacturing, health care, retail, insurance, communications, public utilities, and state and federal government. His expertise is in database performance and tuning, query analysis, advanced SQL programming and stored procedure development, database design, data architecture, and database application design and development. Ray's presentations on these topics at user group conferences have been very well received. Ray is coauthor of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed (first and second editions), Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 Unleashed (all editions), Sybase SQL Server 11 Unleashed, and Sybase SQL Server 11 DBA Survival Guide, second edition, all published by Sams Publishing. He has also authored a number of articles, white papers, and database-related courses. As an instructor, Ray regularly teaches classes on SQL, advanced SQL programming and optimization, database design, database administration, and database performance and tuning. Ray's ability to bring his real-world experience into the classroom consistently rates very high marks from students in his classes for both his instructional skills and courseware. Ray can be reached at rrankins@gothamconsulting.com.

Paul Bertucci is the founder of Database Architechs (http://www.dbarchitechs.com), a database consulting firm with offices in the United States and Paris, France. He has more than 26 years of experience with database design, data architecture, data replication, performance and tuning, distributed data systems, data integration, high-availability assessments, and systems integration for numerous Fortune 500 companies, including Intel, 3COM, Coca- Cola, Apple, Toshiba, Lockheed, Wells Fargo, Safeway, Texaco, Charles Schwab, Cisco Systems, Sybase, Symantec, Veritas, and Honda, to name a few. He has authored numerous articles, standards, and high-profile courses, such as Sybase's "Performance and Tuning" and "Physical Database Design" courses. Other Sams Publishing books that he has authored include the highly popular Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed, ADO.NET in 24 Hours, and Microsoft SQL Server High Availability. He has deployed numerous systems with Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, DB2, and Oracle database engines, and he has designed/architected several commercially available tools in the database, data modeling, performance and tuning, data integration, and multidimensional planning spaces. Paul's current working arrangement is as Symantec Corporations Chief Data Architect, and he also serves part time as chief technical advisor for a data integration server software company. Paul received his formal education in computer science and electrical engineering from UC Berkeley (Go Bears!). He lives in the great Pacific northwest (Oregon) with his wife, Vilay, and five children, Donny, Juliana, Paul Jr., Marissa, and Nina. Paul can be reached at pbertucci@DBArchitechs.com or Bertucci@Alum.CalBerkeley.Org.

Chris Gallelli is president of CGAL Consulting Services, Inc. His company focuses on consulting services in the areas of database administration, database tuning, and database programming using Visual Basic .NET. Chris has more than 10 years of experience with SQL Server and more than 20 years in the field of Information Technology. He has a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and a Masters in Business Administration from Union College. Chris was also one of the authors of Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed published by Sams Publishing. Chris currently lives near Albany, New York, with his lovely wife, Laura, and two daughters, Rachael and Kayla. You can contact Chris at CGallelli@gmail.com.

Alex T. Silverstein is managing principal and chief architect of the Unified Digital Group, LLC, a consulting and custom software development firm headquartered near Saratoga Springs, New York. He specializes in designing SQL Server and Microsoft .NET-powered solutions using the principles of Agile development and the Rational Unified Process. Alex has more than a decade of experience providing application development, database administration, and training services worldwide to a variety of industries. He was also a contributing author for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Unleashed published by Sams Publishing. You can reach Alex anytimeat alex@unifieddigital.com.

About the Contributing Authors

Tudor Trufinescu joined Microsoft in January 1999, and has since worked on a number of projects and technologies, including Microsoft Metadata services, HTTP-DAV, and SQL Server Reporting Services. He was one of the founding members of the SQL Server reporting services team. His team designed and built the server components of Reporting Services and the report controls included in Visual Studio 2005. Before joining Microsoft, Tudor helped build a number of software solutions, including a workflow and document management application and a real-time production monitoring system. Tudor received his degree in Electronic Engineering and Information Technology from the University of Bucharest, Romania, in 1992. Tudor and his family currently live in Redmond, Washington.