Paul C. Zikopoulos, B.A., M.B.A., is the Director of Technical Professionals for IBM Software Group's Information Management division. In this role, he has executive responsibilities for the vitality of its client-facing technical professional community and ensuring they're among the most technically skilled personnel in the marketplace. Paul has written more than 300 magazine articles and 14 books on DB2, including Break Free with DB2: A Tour of Cost Saving Features; Information on Demand: Introduction to DB2 9.5 New Features; DB2 Fundamentals Certification for Dummies; DB2 for Dummies and more. Paul is a DB2 Certified Solutions Expert (BI and DBA).Matt Huras, B.ASc., M.Eng., is an IBM… Distinguished Engineer, and a senior architect for the DB2 on the Linux, UNIX, and Windows platform. He focuses on database kernel, which includes the data management, index management, locking, concurrency, and other protocols. Matt's most recent project role was the lead architect of DB2 pureScale--a new feature focusing on delivering new levels of scalability and availability.Paul Awad, B.Sc., is an IBM Project Manager whose main focus is DB2 pureScale. Paul has held several leadership positions at IBM, including roles in support, the Project Office, and the Collaboration Center. Paul is currently the DB2 pureScale Product Manager, and in this role he has influence over the DB2 pureScale product, customer, and market feedback channels for the offering as well as enabling the product to market.Aamer Sachedina, B.Eng., P.Eng., is a Senior Technical Staff Member and IBM Master Inventer at the IBM Toronto Lab. Over the years, he contributed to the design of the DB2 kernel, was the architect of DB2's Automatic Storage, and most recently headed the active-active availability effort as HA architect on the DB2 pureScale project.