No book is complete without an initial dedication and a thanks to all. I would like to dedicate this book to Lord Shri Ganesha, who is India's favorite deity – the Lord of Beginnings (every Start is dedicated to Him) and the Remover of obstacles. I pray for His Blessings on this work of mine, may it be a Success.

I also dedicate this book to a great revered saint of my Zoroastrian religion, Sant Dasturji Jamshedji Sorabji Kukadaru Saheb, who worked various miracles in his lifetime and to whom all of my Parsi community prays, when they need divine help. I pray for His Blessings on this work of mine, may it be a Success.

I would also like to dedicate this book to my dear departed father, Shri Homi Maneckji Havewala, who was a great unpublished writer of the English language and who imparted his love of English, as well as all things spiritual, to me as his only son. I pray for his Blessings on this work of mine, may it be a Success.

I would like to thank everyone involved in the book, especially my readers who have stood by me on the internet, making my Enterprise Manager articles on OTN quite popular over the years. It is for the readers that a writer writes, even a technical writer, and I have been blessed with excellent readers who have appreciated my enthusiasm for the product.

Most importantly, I would like to thank Havovi, my beloved wife who has helped and supported me throughout the writing of this book.

As always, I would like to thank my ex-manager, David Russell, who lives and works in Australia. I was the Lead Database Architect for Enterprise Manager under his corporate database technologies team for many years, and it is there that I started working with Enterprise Manager Grid Control 10g. Our company was the first production site for this version of Enterprise Manager. It is indeed true that a good manager can actually make a person's career, and David has done this with his continual appreciation and encouragement, and I thank him for it.

I would like to thank all the editorial staff at Packt Publishing for helping out with the publication and editing of this book through all the versions and chapters.

Thanks are also due to my management at Oracle Corporation for their encouragement and support in writing the book, and to the Oracle Legal team for allowing the use of screenshots of the product from various sources.

Of course, the views and opinions expressed in this book are entirely my own, and do not represent the views and position of Oracle Corporation.