Interest in global optimization has been ever increasing over the last decade due to the increasing areas of its application such robotics, chemical engineering, safety verification, and worst case scenario analysis. This book is intended as a short introduction to modeling and solving global optimization problems. Divided into two parts, the first introducing theoretical aspects, the book continues by introducing the open solver platform for such problems, the COCONUT environment. Suitable for graduate students, the book provides a practical user's guide to the subject.