Gavin Powell is an experienced professional database subject matter expert after spending thirty years as an IT professional, doing interesting things like database architecture, DBA work, performance tuning, trouble shooting and even development. Around the end of the DOT Com era, Gavin added technical writing to his many activities and now has over twenty titles published in print and online. Gavin has worked in leadership, operational and functional development roles, including complex OLTP and warehouse/Big data installations. Gavin has worked extensively with multiple relational, Big data and object databases, including Oracle, Hadoop, MySQL, PostgreSQL, Netezza, and quite a few more. Gavin has a BSc in Computer Science, has almost completed a leadership MBA, is a semiprofessional songwriter, a Berklee trained vocalist and performer; but is also an average downhill skier and is only vaguely useful as a speed-skater.