I have been incredibly lucky to have always worked with exceptional people and be given the right opportunities. First, I want to thank Mr. N. Chandrasekaran, CEO of Tata Consultancy Services, who helped me crystallize my thinking on various aspects of technology and management for the past 7 years. Chandra has always encouraged me to think carefully about any subject at hand and do extensive background research. I tried to follow this advice while developing this book.

Next, I want to express my sincerest thanks to Mr. Soren Bjerg, VP and Managing Director, Building Efficiency (Asia), Johnson Controls, and Mr. Swarup Biswas, VP of Asia Lines of Business, Building Efficiency, Johnson Controls for letting me cut my teeth in Big Data initiatives. Without the education and coaching from Mr. Howard Hayes, VP of Data and Analytics and Dr. Youngchoon Park, Director of Data and Analytics, both working for Johnson Controls, all that I know about Big Data would not have been possible. They helped me navigate the complex and evolving world of Big Data and develop many of the frameworks and topics discussed in this book. They introduced me to leading thinkers such as Prof. AnNhai Doan and Prof. Jignesh Patel of University of Wisconsin at Madison who have guided me on many topics that are technical as well as managerial.

I would also like to thank the one whom I consider as my guru in Big Data—Prof. Victor Myer-Scoenberger of University of Oxford; his book on Big Data opened my eyes for the first time and has had the deepest influence on my thinking around Big Data. I thank Joel Makower of GreenBiz for the many interactions we had on the scope of Big Data in energy and sustainability, and for publishing many of my early articles.

Finally, this book would not have been possible without the untiring efforts and patience of my editors Richard Gall and Sweny Sukumaran, project coordinator Venitha Cutinho, and the other people at Packt Publishing who worked through the various stages of this book.