Thomas Erl is a top-selling IT author, founder of Arcitura Education, and series editor of the Prentice Hall Service Technology Series from Thomas Erl. With more than 175,000 copies in print worldwide, his books have become international bestsellers and have been formally endorsed by senior members of major IT organizations, such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Intel, Accenture, IEEE, HL7, MITRE, SAP, CISCO, HP, and many others. As CEO of Arcitura Education Inc., Thomas has led the development of curricula for the internationally recognized Big Data Science Certified Professional (BDSCP), Cloud Certified Professional (CCP) and SOA Certified Professional (SOACP) accreditation programs, which have established a series of formal, vendor-neutral industry certifications obtained by thousands of IT professionals around the world. Thomas has toured more than 20 countries as a speaker and instructor. More than 100 articles and interviews by Thomas have been published in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal and CIO Magazine.