Acknowledgments
Graham Bartlett:
Alex Honore deserves a very special mention. Alex originally was an author, but due to work and family commitments became a reviewer. Alex has been a diligent reviewer due to his ability to break complex topics into many simple layers. I want to thank Alex for his patience and the help he has provided. We are honored to have him as a reviewer and he is a great asset to Cisco. I know if Alex ever writes a book himself, it will be, for me, the perfect book.
Olivier Pelerin has been a fantastic reviewer and brought a lot of issues and resolutions to our attention that otherwise we would have missed. Olivier is 100% focused on customers and many of the tips, tricks, and guidance contained within need to be credited to him. Many times I’ve had late-night chats regarding IKEv2 and our implementation. Olivier should also be credited for improving Cisco’s IKEv2 usability, stability, and serviceability, which ultimately has a positive effect on you—the customer.
Thank you both—I treat you as good friends and could not have achieved this without your knowledge and skills.
Frederic Detienne: Fred—thank you for leading the creation of DMVPN, Flex, and IKEv2 on Cisco IOS. FlexVPN was my main motivation for joining Cisco, and it’s now apparent that as VPN Architect you have developed a technology that is unique within the industry. It’s a great pleasure and honor to work with you.
Raffaele Brancaleoni: Raff, thanks for all the help you provided with the development of this book. You’ve been a great mentor and a good friend.
The many great VPN engineers in Cisco TAC: Piotr and the fantastic Krakow crew, Wen, Atri, Jay, Frank, Marcin, Istvan, Nitin, Tom. Xavier and PSIRT. All of the IKEv2 developers that have helped: Sairam, Manish, Balaji, Tapesh. Crypto team: Anthony, David, Scott and Panos.
Richard Gallagher: A great engineer and friend.
All the customers that I work with, who are not just customers of Cisco, but friends. You know who you are.
Thanks for the support of my management team, Francois, Khalid, David and Ashley.
Thanks to all my good friends and colleagues within Cisco and within the industry; you know who you are.
Also thanks for the support and patience of the Cisco Press team, namely Ellie and Brett.
First, I would like to thank God for this opportunity to write a book which I have always wanted to do. Special thanks to my wife, Huzefiya, for being a constant companion in writing this book and her encouragement and support; my children, Sobia, Aleena, Arfa, and Ammar, for their patience and understanding while I spent many of the weekends and holidays writing this book. Thanks to my brother, sisters and family members for their support.
Graham Bartlett—Thank you for launching me onto this journey by offering me the chance to be the co-author. I look forward to continuing this journey with you. Thanks for your patience and all your help, you are a great friend.
Frederic Detienne—Thank you for being my mentor. I have truly enjoyed working with you in designing and implementing the Cisco IOS IKEv2 and FlexVPN solution.
Alex Honore—Thank you for your excellent review. You have been an inspiration and a great friend and guide. I will always cherish our work together on IKEv2 and FlexVPN.
Olivier Pelerin—Thank you for your detailed review comments, most of which were customer focused. I value our work together on FlexVPN scalability.
Thanks to Raffaele Brancaleoni for his review comments and to Yeleshwarapu Sairam, Tapesh Maheshwari, Kalyani Garigipati from the IKEv2 and FlexVPN development team for their input.
Thanks to my management, colleagues, and friends at Cisco for their support.