About the Reviewers

Benjamin Armstrong is a principal program manager working on Hyper-V at Microsoft. He has spent over a decade working on virtualization technology and is known as the "Virtual PC Guy".

Andreas Baumgarten is a Microsoft MVP and works as an IT Architect with the German IT service provider, H&D International Group. He has been working as an IT professional for more than 20 years. Microsoft technologies have always accompanied him, and he can also look back on more than 14 years' experience as a Microsoft Certified Trainer.

Since 2008, he has been responsible for the field of Microsoft System Center technology consulting, and ever since has taken part in Microsoft System Center Service Manager 2010, 2012, and 2012 R2; additionally, he has participated in the Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 and 2012 R2 technology adoption programs with H&D.

With his in-depth technology know-how and his broad experience across the Microsoft System Center product family and IT management, he now designs and develops private and hybrid cloud solutions for customers all over Germany and Europe.

In October 2012, 2013, and 2014, he was awarded the Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) title for System Center Cloud and Datacenter Management.

Andreas is a co-author of Microsoft System Center 2012 Service Manager Cookbook, Microsoft System Center 2012 Orchestrator Cookbook, and Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 Compliance Management Cookbook, all by Packt Publishing.

Shannon Fritz is a Microsoft MVP for Enterprise Security and is the Cloud Datacenter Solutions Architect and the Team Lead at Concurrency, Inc.; a system integration consulting firm focused entirely on Microsoft solutions. He specializes in Windows Server platform solutions, including Hyper-V, Remote Desktop Services, DirectAccess, and a plethora of other services. Shannon holds an array of Microsoft certifications, including MCP, MCSA, MCITP, and MCSE. An active blogger, Shannon has also been a technical reviewer on other publications, including Microsoft DirectAccess Best Practices and Troubleshooting, Packt Publishing.

On a personal note, I want to thank my wife, Megan, whose incredible patience and encouragement inspires and motivates me. Her expectation of the best in all things reminds me that each decision in life has implications, both short and long term, and keeping focused on your goals will ultimately be rewarded. You are the reason our kids are so amazing. I love you, and thank you! Also, thank you to the wonderful organization Concurrency, Inc. What an amazing group of people that collectively lift each other up. I'm so glad I took that step into consulting with you!

Carlo Mancini has been working as a system administrator for over 15 years and on PowerShell since its first release in 2007.

Over time, he has developed high-level skills and achieved many different certifications, such as VCP5, MCSE, MCDBA, and HP Openview Certified Consultant.

He is one of the winners of the 2013 PowerShell Scripting Games and is currently employed by one of the largest European IT companies where he is in charge of maintaining and administering both the physical and virtual architecture.

He is recognized worldwide, thanks to his involvement in delivering excellent content on many technical forums as well as on his blog, www.happysysadm.com.

Charbel Nemnom is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for Hyper-V and a team leader with IT infrastructure expertise, and has a vast knowledge of a variety of Microsoft technologies. He has over 13 years of professional experience in the IT field and guiding technical teams to optimize performance of mission-critical enterprise systems. He has worked as a system and network engineer, as a senior consultant, and as an IT manager, and has a history of successful enterprise projects in the IT, banking, education, and publishing sectors. He began working with Microsoft Hyper-V Server with version 1 back in 2009, and has focused on Microsoft virtualization ever since. He works for SABIS® Educational Services in the Gulf region as a regional IT technical manager.

He is a Hyper-V geek and also runs his blog at http://charbelnemnom.com, where he blogs frequently about Hyper-V and System Center for the Hyper-V Community.

He is a Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert and holds credentials such as MCP, MCSA, MCTS, MCITP, MCS, and MCSE. You can also follow him on Twitter at @CharbelNemnom.

I would like to dedicate a big thank you to my family, and especially to my wife, Ioana, for her support and patience throughout this project, who is the reason that I can fulfill my dream and follow my passion.

And last but not least, I want to thank the Packt Publishing team for supporting all the authors and reviewers during this project.

Carsten Rachfahl started his IT career in 1988, working as a developer on porting X-Windows to an operating system called OS/9. In 1991, he founded his own company in Germany and has been self-employed ever since. Starting 2001 with Citrix/Terminal server, his focus was on the virtualization space. When Microsoft finally created a "real" hypervisor and brought that to the market, he was all in. His blog, http://www.hyper-v-server.de, is highly recognized and appreciated within the virtualization community. The blog features tutorials, articles, screencasts, video interviews, and podcasts focusing on the Microsoft Private Cloud. Being MCT, he teaches various Microsoft virtualization courses, as well as his own "Hyper-V Powerkurs" course. As the co-founder of the German Hyper-V Community, he regularly organizes events. Carsten is a well-know speaker at conferences in Germany and Europe. His efforts were rewarded with the Microsoft MVP Award for Hyper-V in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.

I want to thank my wife, Kerstin, and my kids, Ian and Ina, for the ongoing support, their understanding, and encouragement. Without you guys, I could not follow my passion.