Robert de Laat is an experienced DBA, working with Oracle products for 12 years, primarily in large, complex environments where high availability is mandatory. With a background as an Unix administrator, he is skilled in system design, high availability, and getting the most out of an environment. Robert has been working with every version of RAC, primarily on Unix/Linux platforms. He has skills in many scripting languages, such as Perl, Python, Shell, and so on. He also knows his way in PL/SQL.

Currently Robert is a senior consultant, working for Ciber in The Netherlands, where he cooperates in many complex projects for large companies where high availability is a key to the customers' success. Ciber (CBR) is an Oracle Platinum Partner and committed to the limit.

Besides spending time with Oracle, Robert enjoys woodworking and jewellery. Creating things gives him great pleasure, in his work and in his personal life. He also maintains his own website at www.dutchdba.nl, where he writes about technical stuff such as Oracle, Linux, Scripting, and so on.

Ann L. R. McKinnell has been an OCP since Oracle 7.3.4, with over eight years experience as a senior technical member of Oracle Global Support, specializing in Database Server technologies. Ann has trained Oracle Support and Consulting personnel from many countries in Database Internals and Problem Solving techniques. She has served as a technical reviewer for Oracle University course material, numerous My Oracle Support (previously Metalink) notes and whitepapers, and various Oracle Database Administration user manuals. Ann is also a co-author of Packt Publishing’s Oracle 11g Streams Implementer’s Guide. With over 16 years in the IT industry, Ann continues to specialize in practical implementation strategies and the development of distributed Oracle database systems, and database architecture, along with software and database design, integration, and engineering.

Fairlie Rego is a senior Oracle Database Consultant with over 10 years of experience in Oracle Database Technologies. He has worked on mission-critical, highly available systems built around the Maximum Availability architecture propounded by Oracle.

He has worked extensively in the financial, telecom, and educational sectors and has been fortunate to work in challenging environments that make use of state-of-the-art technologies.

Ronald Rood is an innovative Oracle DBA with over 20 years of IT experience. He has built and managed cluster databases on about each and every platform that Oracle ever supported, from the famous OPS databases in version 7 to the latest RAC releases, currently being 11g. Ronald is constantly looking for ways to get the most out of the database to make the investment for the customers even more valuable. He has a great knowledge of how to handle the power of the rich Unix environment, which makes him a first class troubleshooter and solution architect. Next to his many spoken languages such as Dutch, English, German, and French, he also writes fluently in many scripting languages.

Currently Ronald is a principal consultant working for Ciber in The Netherlands where he cooperates in many complex projects for large companies where downtime is not an option. Ciber (CBR) is one of the few Oracle Partners on the Diamond level.

Ronald often replies on the Oracle forums, writes his own blog (http://ronr.blogspot.com) called 'from errors we learn', and writes for various Oracle-related magazines. He has also authored a book, Mastering Oracle Scheduler in Oracle 11g Databases, where he fills the gap between the Oracle Documentation and the customers' questions.

Ronald has lots of certifications, among them:

Ronald fills his time with Oracle, his family, sky-diving, radio-controlled model airplane flying, running a scouting group, and having a lot of fun.

His quote is: "a problem is merely a challenge that might take a little time to solve".