DevOps README

“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

• Novel; Not your typical technical book
• Transformation of Broken Organization towards DevOps Culture
• Quintessential beginning of a DevOps journey
• Pros: Easy to digest, can suggest to executives
• Cons: The implementation details are fuzzy
• Quip: We all know Brent. Help Brent not be Brent.
• URL: The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win

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

• This is one of the most important book related to DevOps
• If an organization or individual is skeptical about DevOps this book provides the ammo needed for a frank discussion
• Pros: Lots of useful, metrics-based insights into DevOps
• Cons: Not a light read but, well worth it
• Quip: The audiobook is highly recommended because Nicole Forsgren reads emojis as words.
• URL: 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

• Handbook full of use cases and helpful examples
• Years of experience poured into one book
• The next step of a DevOps journey
• Pros: Detail oriented, can give to technical staff
• Cons: Not a quick read
• Quip: You’re DevOps’ing if you quote this book.
• URL: The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations

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

• Provides focus for deploying software faster
• Emphasizes automation (you must automate first)
• When people say “shift left” this is what they’re talking about
• Executing earlier in pipelines is described in this book
• Pros: Clear, real-world
• Cons: Sometimes redundant, slightly dated
• Quip: CD for your CTO to improve ROI and EBITDA.
• URL: Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation

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

• Culture centric focus on DevOps
• Discusses collaboration, hiring, team building, etc.
• Great for leaders and managers
• Touches on a wide variety of important topics
• Pros: Culture is hard; this helps
• Cons: Etsy probably isn’t the best example anymore
• Quip: Effectiveness is a good thing!
• URL: Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale

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

• Big picture, business minded change agent
• All phase guide to planning, organizing, implementation, and measurement
• Great for leaders and managers
• Pros: Mindset changing readiness guide
• Cons: None given the scope
• Quip: This is not a weight loss book… Or is it?
• URL: Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale

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

• “Post-accident attribution accident to a ‘root cause’ is fundamentally wrong”
• Re-thinking failure in our systems makes them more robust
• Pros: Makes case that RCA isn’t a solid process
• Cons: None given the scope
• Quip: You’re human so you’re the problem.
• URL: How Complex Systems Fail (Being a Short Treatise on the Nature of Failure; How Failure is Evaluated; How Failure is Attributed to Proximate Cause; and the Resulting New Understanding of Patient Safety)

In Search of Certainty

• Foundation shaking look at future
• Great for individual contributors, leaders, managers
• Pros: Helps manage a world we don’t know
• Cons: Slightly terrifying
• Quip: Death, taxes, and PagerDuty are the only certainties in life.
• URL: In Search of Certainty: The Science of Our Information Infrastructure

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

• Stress isn’t all bad if we learn how to manage it
• Stress can actually make us happier
• Pros: Teaches life improving skills
• Cons: None given the scope
• TED Talk: How to make stress your friend
• Quip: If stress is good for me I’m going to live forever.
• URL: 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

• Slightly controversial take on disaster in modern times
• Recommended to me by John Willis
• Pros: Makes you rethink your feelings
• Cons: Slightly controversial
• URL: 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.

History of DevOps README.md

After DevOpsDays Raleigh 2017 I was going to dinner with friends. Along the way the topic of what’s up next came up. I mentioned I had a talk coming up at All Things Open but had no idea what I was going to discuss. We began batting ideas around and came up with a few good ones. One that we latched on to was creating a curated list of things to read to level up your DevOps skills and knowledge. I had the opportunity to trial run the this as an Ignite Talk at DevOpsDays Detroit 2017.

Watch Now: DevOps README.md — All Things Open 2017

Slides used at the genesis of this list are available here