DevOps README

DevOps README


DevOps README.md

You are either building a learning organization or you will be losing to someone who is.” –Andrew Clay Shafer

What is DevOps

  • Provides a high-level defintion of DevOps
  • Attempts to balance the needs of operations, development, and organizations
  • A foundation from which to build a better definition
  • Pros: Valiant effort with feedback from a few well know DevOps professionals
  • Cons: It only defines the principle of DevOps, it does not show how it is done
  • Quip: It’s better than nothing
  • URL: What is DevOps

DevOps For Dummies

  • Foundational knowledge you will need for every DevOps journey
  • “DevOps For Dummies provides a guidebook for those on the development or operations side in need of a primer on this way of working.”
  • Pros: This is a must read
  • Cons: None
  • Quip: When I heard Emily was writing a “for Dummies” book I was perplexed as she’s one of the smartest people I know.
  • URL: DevOps For Dummies

The Phoenix Project

Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations

Beyond the Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution of DevOps

  • I think listening to the audio version of this book is more useful than The DevOps Handbook
  • Years of research sources and use cases are poured over
  • Gene Kim and John Willis have a wonderful banter
  • Pros: Lightweight and fun
  • Cons: I’m sad this didn’t come out sooner
  • Quip: Listening to this is like throwing a sticker on a car thinking it’ll go faster. Make sure you do the homework too.
  • URL: Beyond the Phoenix Project: The Origins and Evolution of DevOps

The DevOps Handbook

The Twelve-Factor App

  • https://12factor.net/
  • De facto standard for implementing software
  • Good design principles for refactors and green field
  • Pros: Free; Up-to-date; Roadmap
  • Cons: State has to exist somewhere; lightly addressed
  • Quip: If apps only had 12 factors…

Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software

  • Developer centric cases and examples for releasing
  • First edition out of print; second edition is released! 😉
  • Technical af
  • Pros: Looks at the SDLC holistically
  • Cons: Maybe too high level
  • Quip: Release early and often unlike this book 😉
  • URL: Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software

Continuous Delivery

Site Reliability Engineering

  • A collection of essays from Google SREs about how things are done at Google
  • A fantastic reference for various functions like on-call, onboarding, delivery, etc.
  • Pros: Free; solid examples of how to do things
  • Cons: You are not Google; embrace with caution
  • Quip: Google SRE is proof setting a pile of money on fire is a viable solution to engineering problems.
  • URL: Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems

The Art of Monitoring

  • Opinionated HOWTO implementation guide to monitoring at scale
  • Incredibly thorough book
  • Pros: Explicit; Detailed
  • Cons: Opinionated; Long; Perhaps too specific
  • Quip: If a book’s art worthiness is measured by weight then we have a winner (767 pages).
  • URL: The Art of Monitoring

Effective DevOps

Enterprise DevOps Playbook

  • Roadmap for building a successful DevOps org
  • Addresses hiring, culture, and learning
  • Pros: Suggests tuning in your current organization
  • Cons: Missing some pieces to the puzzle
  • Quip: Yes! Enterprise and DevOps can work together… Somehow.
  • URL: Enterprise DevOps Playbook

The Open Organization Guide to IT Culture Change

  • Community-produced companion to Jim Whitehurst’s 2015 book, The Open Organization
  • Like SRE book, a collection of essays
  • Focus on principles and practices of culture
  • Pros: Easy to read; diverse authors; inspirational
  • Cons: Not all pieces apply to everyone
  • Quip: “Being positive is sometimes difficult to do.” I wrote that? Wow. I had no idea.
  • URL: The Open Organization Guide to IT Culture Change

Lean Enterprise

Beyond Blame

  • Failure happens; Beyond Blame is a HOWTO in making postmortems blameless
  • Great for individual contributors, leaders, managers
  • Pros: Guides you towards blamelessness
  • Cons: Emotions are hard, this isn’t a psychiatrist
  • Quip: I blame this book for your blame problems.
  • URL: Beyond Blame: Learning From Failure and Success

How Complex Systems Fail

In Search of Certainty

The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It

The End of Heaven: Disaster and Suffering in a Scientific Age

The Art of War

  • In DevOps you SHOULD NOT have adversaries
  • I am willing to bet that anyone worth their salt has read this though
  • Tactics from this work should be used sensibly
  • “Know thy enemy”
  • Pros: Well known work studied in business, military
  • Cons: Not an easy read; multiple differing translations
  • URL: The Art of War

DevOps Newsletters

Continuous learning is a critical part of DevOps. Staying current is imperative.

DevOps Newsletters provides links to DevOps newsletters of note from several well regarded DevOps leaders.

Kubernetes README

As Kubernetes starts to democratize compute in ways we all didn’t think possible, it’s worthwhile to familiarize yourself with Kubernetes.

Kubernetes README: Books, tutorials, or other assets that would be useful to folks using Kubernetes.