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Cloud Native DevOps with Kubernetes: Building, Deploying, and Scaling Modern Applications in the Cloud
Kubernetes is the operating system of the cloud native world, providing a reliable and scalable platform for running containerized workloads. In this friendly, pragmatic book, cloud experts John Arundel and Justin Domingus show you what Kubernetes can do―and what you can do with it. You’ll learn all about the Kubernetes ecosystem, and use battle-tested solutions to everyday problems. You’ll build, step by step, an example cloud native application and its supporting infrastructure, along with a development environment and continuous deployment pipeline that you can use for your own applications.
346 pages, Paperback
Published April 16, 2019
122 people are currently reading
640 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews
April 25, 2019
Comprehensive kubernetes book.
Some context: I do not use kubernetes either at home or at work, but I am very curious about this new technology. Before this, I read a book from Brendan Burns (Designing Distributed Systems) which was a disappointment. I also used docker at work, and some docker-compose, but I'm no expert.
This book is suited for people interested in systems architecture in general, as there's a lot of overlap between this general field and architecture of apps running on kubernetes.
The author has prepared a github repo, and introduces a lot of concepts in both a theoretical, and a hand-on way. You'll remember things if you follow along with the examples.
In the later chapters, the author then expands on topics such as:
*Base concepts: pods, containers, deployments, jobs, replicas, services, ingresses, DaemonSets (like deploymenys, but for ensuring 1 pod runs on each node), StatefulSets(like deployments, but starts/stops nodes in defined order, and assign them special DNS names), CronJobs, etc
* Clusters vs namespaces
* How to evaluate whether kubernetes will work for you (with a rough cost estimate as well)
* Different ways to deploy a cluster - on different clouds, with different tools
* All kinds of tooling (graphical and CLI) for kubernetes
* How to debug individual apps (using Docker specific techniques)
* Helm, as a package manager for k8s
* Liveness vs readiness probes for HTTP/tcp and other protocols
* Deployment strategies (rolling vs all-at-once restart) and tweaks
* Roles and permissions
* Tips for estimating the number of nodes needed, and how to best distribute the pods in them
* Pod affinities, antiaffinities node taints and pod tolerations, for better control over where pods run
* The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and their awesome projects
* K8S security
* Backup with Velero
* Configuration and secrets management (this was awesome)
* Tools for writing/generating/converting kubernetes yaml files (draft is worth mentioning here. That tools can generate Dockerfiles and Helm charts for you, if you don't have either - skip the pain of the initial boring boilerplate)
* Observability: how to think about it (think Requests, Errors, Duration - RED - for services and USE - usage, saturation, errors for infrastructure), and what tools to use with it (Prometheus is worth mentioning as an open source tool)
Because of the range and depth of the topics, I think this is an awesome book
Some context: I do not use kubernetes either at home or at work, but I am very curious about this new technology. Before this, I read a book from Brendan Burns (Designing Distributed Systems) which was a disappointment. I also used docker at work, and some docker-compose, but I'm no expert.
This book is suited for people interested in systems architecture in general, as there's a lot of overlap between this general field and architecture of apps running on kubernetes.
The author has prepared a github repo, and introduces a lot of concepts in both a theoretical, and a hand-on way. You'll remember things if you follow along with the examples.
In the later chapters, the author then expands on topics such as:
*Base concepts: pods, containers, deployments, jobs, replicas, services, ingresses, DaemonSets (like deploymenys, but for ensuring 1 pod runs on each node), StatefulSets(like deployments, but starts/stops nodes in defined order, and assign them special DNS names), CronJobs, etc
* Clusters vs namespaces
* How to evaluate whether kubernetes will work for you (with a rough cost estimate as well)
* Different ways to deploy a cluster - on different clouds, with different tools
* All kinds of tooling (graphical and CLI) for kubernetes
* How to debug individual apps (using Docker specific techniques)
* Helm, as a package manager for k8s
* Liveness vs readiness probes for HTTP/tcp and other protocols
* Deployment strategies (rolling vs all-at-once restart) and tweaks
* Roles and permissions
* Tips for estimating the number of nodes needed, and how to best distribute the pods in them
* Pod affinities, antiaffinities node taints and pod tolerations, for better control over where pods run
* The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and their awesome projects
* K8S security
* Backup with Velero
* Configuration and secrets management (this was awesome)
* Tools for writing/generating/converting kubernetes yaml files (draft is worth mentioning here. That tools can generate Dockerfiles and Helm charts for you, if you don't have either - skip the pain of the initial boring boilerplate)
* Observability: how to think about it (think Requests, Errors, Duration - RED - for services and USE - usage, saturation, errors for infrastructure), and what tools to use with it (Prometheus is worth mentioning as an open source tool)
Because of the range and depth of the topics, I think this is an awesome book
December 12, 2019
A nice quick overview of the Kubernetes ecosystem including some external tools. This is not in-depth Kubernetes book or even in-depth DevOps book.
It will not provide enough information to work with Kubernetes fluently, nor it will help understand how this all fits into devops world. But you will be able to use Kubernetes after this book and you will be provided with bunch of nice tips&tricks.
It will not provide enough information to work with Kubernetes fluently, nor it will help understand how this all fits into devops world. But you will be able to use Kubernetes after this book and you will be provided with bunch of nice tips&tricks.
November 24, 2019
This is an amazing book. Since It was so much to say I write a in depth review. This has some spoilers
http://codecorner.balhau.net/cloud-na...
http://codecorner.balhau.net/cloud-na...
July 15, 2019
This book is an introduction on how Kubernetes (k8s) works with an added emphasis on running in production environments and at scale. The beginning pages give a solid baseline on k8s and make a case for it being the "operating system of the cloud".
A few notable chapters stand out, describing tools that interact with k8s. Chapters dedicated to tools, CI/CD, deploying, secrets, observability, metrics and performance are all invaluable pieces of knowledge. The authors clearly has much hands-on experience and they make key distinctions between the various kinds of tools. One example is New Relic and Datadog are mentioned as logging apps that have a paid subscription. Datadog is detailed as a better solution for infrastructure logging, while New Relic is better for application logging. Free solutions are noted as well, and they are all treated with the same manner, which I find admirable.
The book is basically cloud agnostic. Details are given about setup for Google Cloud, AWS and Azure. The author has a preference for Google Cloud, since it’s the most advanced and Kubernetes was initially developed by Google. Although they made a valuable point, if you are set up on the other cloud providers already, it’s not really worth switching They also recommend not to manage your own k8s cluster and describes the likely pitfalls you’ll land yourself in. It’s better to pick an established cloud provider that has a managed Kubernetes orchestration cluster.
The book is a very valuable resource to people looking to learn k8s and cloud deployments. The writing is clear so programmers and ops of different levels will be able to gain from it.
I am thankful to u/8bitwubwubwub of reddit who recommended this book on the DevOps subreddit. This is exactly what I was looking for to get into the topic.
A few notable chapters stand out, describing tools that interact with k8s. Chapters dedicated to tools, CI/CD, deploying, secrets, observability, metrics and performance are all invaluable pieces of knowledge. The authors clearly has much hands-on experience and they make key distinctions between the various kinds of tools. One example is New Relic and Datadog are mentioned as logging apps that have a paid subscription. Datadog is detailed as a better solution for infrastructure logging, while New Relic is better for application logging. Free solutions are noted as well, and they are all treated with the same manner, which I find admirable.
The book is basically cloud agnostic. Details are given about setup for Google Cloud, AWS and Azure. The author has a preference for Google Cloud, since it’s the most advanced and Kubernetes was initially developed by Google. Although they made a valuable point, if you are set up on the other cloud providers already, it’s not really worth switching They also recommend not to manage your own k8s cluster and describes the likely pitfalls you’ll land yourself in. It’s better to pick an established cloud provider that has a managed Kubernetes orchestration cluster.
The book is a very valuable resource to people looking to learn k8s and cloud deployments. The writing is clear so programmers and ops of different levels will be able to gain from it.
I am thankful to u/8bitwubwubwub of reddit who recommended this book on the DevOps subreddit. This is exactly what I was looking for to get into the topic.
September 17, 2020
Easy to follow, small enough to have an insight about Kubernetes. I am a programmer and this book fits a lot for me.
May 10, 2020
I think this is a very good book for software engineers and aspiring DevOps engineers to read. DevOps is part and parcel of software engineering and to be able to deploy an application with availability and scalability is expected of a software engineer. While this book focuses a lot on the tools and techniques used for DevOps, the methodologies used to do DevOps are similar to that of software engineering - when in doubt, Google and StackOverflow ;) Jokes aside, DevOps is not that hard if you have an inkling of the arsenal of tools you have on hand. This book does that, it introduces the core concepts of building a good scalable system and the tools you may use to aid you in doing the former.
Although this book is fairly technical as it touches a lot on the writing of the Kubernetes configuration files, an open minded reader could possibly approach this book with caution. On the other hand, there is no point in reading this book if you just want to have an idea of what DevOps is about. You could be better off reading blogs writing about DevOps than spending time reading this book. That being said, the chapter one of this book did a great job talking about the role of DevOps in the entire software development lifecycle. This book is more for software engineers and DevOps engineers to strengthen their understanding of the topic. Thanks to this book, I now know more tools to use pertaining to DevOps. Great read!
Although this book is fairly technical as it touches a lot on the writing of the Kubernetes configuration files, an open minded reader could possibly approach this book with caution. On the other hand, there is no point in reading this book if you just want to have an idea of what DevOps is about. You could be better off reading blogs writing about DevOps than spending time reading this book. That being said, the chapter one of this book did a great job talking about the role of DevOps in the entire software development lifecycle. This book is more for software engineers and DevOps engineers to strengthen their understanding of the topic. Thanks to this book, I now know more tools to use pertaining to DevOps. Great read!
March 13, 2021
Za wartość intelektualną książki pewnie dałbym maksymalną ilość gwiazdek. Ale, niestety tłumaczenie daje wiele do życzenia. Kto to widział, żeby tłumaczyć nazwy własne? "Cockroach labs" zostało przetłumaczone jako "Karaluch Labs"(???) Inna z niedociągłości to mieszanie języka polskiego z angielskim. Przywykłem już do słowa "development" czegoś, ale połączenie słów jak poniżej jest co najmniej dziwne.
"liczba procesow/watków/goroutines"
Ostatni rozdział o metrykach trochę mnie zdziwił. Nie wiem, może i się mówi metryki, ale ja całe życie słyszałem o wykresach.
Ogólnie książka jest dobra, ale po przeczytaniu rozdziału, tam gdzie są przykłady, polecam ćwiczyć. Wtedy zobaczysz, co działa, a o co nie. Kiedyś książki IT czytałem szybko, byle zaliczyć, ale to nie było dobre. Większość już nie pamiętam. A z praktyką się więcej nauczysz.
"liczba procesow/watków/goroutines"
Ostatni rozdział o metrykach trochę mnie zdziwił. Nie wiem, może i się mówi metryki, ale ja całe życie słyszałem o wykresach.
Ogólnie książka jest dobra, ale po przeczytaniu rozdziału, tam gdzie są przykłady, polecam ćwiczyć. Wtedy zobaczysz, co działa, a o co nie. Kiedyś książki IT czytałem szybko, byle zaliczyć, ale to nie było dobre. Większość już nie pamiętam. A z praktyką się więcej nauczysz.
October 6, 2022
Good overview of Kubernetes ecosystem and how to manage it.
It covers some basic k8s terminology in an easy to understand words.
It covers some basic k8s terminology in an easy to understand words.
November 25, 2024
Second edition review (paperback), read in 2024:
Still good but needs a 3rd edition with updated tool recommendations.
First edition review (ebook), read in 2020:
This is a good introduction to Kubernetes and the related tools and DevOps environment. Well done for dedicating more than a chapter to security. I recommend it, unlike Kubernetes: Up and Running.
Still good but needs a 3rd edition with updated tool recommendations.
First edition review (ebook), read in 2020:
This is a good introduction to Kubernetes and the related tools and DevOps environment. Well done for dedicating more than a chapter to security. I recommend it, unlike Kubernetes: Up and Running.
August 30, 2022
This book serves as a great extension for people who already know "just a little bit" about Kubernetes. I read this book while being familiar with most of the mentioned topics and advanced in some of them, but I still got some value out of reading it.
Good points
- Covers a lot of Cloud Native area, not just how to run a deployment, but also what to use for observability, backups, CI/CD and others.
- Because of the above, the book is an excellent reference regarding where to look deeper when looking for Kubernetes solutions.
Bad points
- Some of the descriptions of the mentioned projects are really vague.
- Not an ideal starting point for people totally new for Kubernetes, felt like some of the basic concepts around Kubernetes were explained briefly.
Bonus
I read the book in Polish and some of the translations for given names of Kubernetes resources/mechanisms were really weird which might be confusing for newcomers.
Good points
- Covers a lot of Cloud Native area, not just how to run a deployment, but also what to use for observability, backups, CI/CD and others.
- Because of the above, the book is an excellent reference regarding where to look deeper when looking for Kubernetes solutions.
Bad points
- Some of the descriptions of the mentioned projects are really vague.
- Not an ideal starting point for people totally new for Kubernetes, felt like some of the basic concepts around Kubernetes were explained briefly.
Bonus
I read the book in Polish and some of the translations for given names of Kubernetes resources/mechanisms were really weird which might be confusing for newcomers.
May 19, 2020
Currently I am moving from Software Engineering role to a Site Reliability Engineering role in my company and the foundation is based on Kubernetes.
The book gave a solid background about Kubernetes and the whole ecosystem around it. I felt confident in my day job, because I built a mental model which helped me to reason about the things happening.
One of the main advantages of the book in my opinion is, that it is short and precise. You will learn enough, hear about some things which maybe will be important, maybe not.
Somethings are already outdated due to the fast pace development of this community. But still I got so much out of this book, that I can totally recommend it to every Kubernetes beginner.
The book gave a solid background about Kubernetes and the whole ecosystem around it. I felt confident in my day job, because I built a mental model which helped me to reason about the things happening.
One of the main advantages of the book in my opinion is, that it is short and precise. You will learn enough, hear about some things which maybe will be important, maybe not.
Somethings are already outdated due to the fast pace development of this community. But still I got so much out of this book, that I can totally recommend it to every Kubernetes beginner.
April 4, 2021
It takes about a *million dollars* in engineer salary to get Kubernetes up and running in production configuration from scratch (“And you still might not get there”).
And if you are planning something like that, I definitely recommend this book. Well structured, comprehensive and practical (“Nines don't matter if users are not happy.”) it will set you on the right path and will point where to look next.
And if you are planning something like that, I definitely recommend this book. Well structured, comprehensive and practical (“Nines don't matter if users are not happy.”) it will set you on the right path and will point where to look next.
September 29, 2021
A super clear and informative read, covering all the details without compromising readability. Authors cover all the major aspects of deploying, configuring, and operating Kubernetes and the best practices for developing and running applications on it.
This isn’t a book about Kubernetes internals. Book shows you what Kubernetes can do, and bring you quickly to the point where you can run real workloads in production.
This isn’t a book about Kubernetes internals. Book shows you what Kubernetes can do, and bring you quickly to the point where you can run real workloads in production.
September 8, 2022
Nice book when you are new to K8s or worked with it as dev non-systematically. It guides you through a main concepts and things of Kubernetes and allows you to have a overall understanding.
As the minus is that some code examples are obsolete because of API changes, so I did a corrections by pencil for next readers of my copy)
As the minus is that some code examples are obsolete because of API changes, so I did a corrections by pencil for next readers of my copy)
July 12, 2023
The focus of this book was clearly on concepts rather than the technical side, and that was a good thing. As a person with notable prior experience with Kubernetes, I still felt that reading the book was a very good use of my time.
With that said: if you are looking for a complete introduction to Kubernetes or devops, you should probably look elsewhere.
With that said: if you are looking for a complete introduction to Kubernetes or devops, you should probably look elsewhere.
May 9, 2020
It's no doubt one of the best books with practical advice and should be used as a standard reference.
As expected some of the commands and programs are outdated and you have to put a bit extra effort to make those run.
Worth every minute you spend in going through it.
As expected some of the commands and programs are outdated and you have to put a bit extra effort to make those run.
Worth every minute you spend in going through it.
August 20, 2020
Great book for introduction to Kubernetes and it's ecosystem. Great example with great resources where to find more information. Loved this line: "Real learning comes from failures, and from trying to figure out what's wrong and fix them."
April 3, 2021
Nội dung mang tính tổng quan, liệt kê các vấn đề cần đối mặt khi triển khai devops với kubernetes (k8s). Sách không đi quá sâu nội dung nào, mô tả problems, solutions hiện có và tools để giải quyết là chính. Phù hợp những bạn đọc muốn triển khai devops với k8s nhưng chưa biết nên bắt đầu từ đâu.
June 24, 2022
Truly great book. Buy it ― or even better, read it.
There's no dense pages to go over. Crucial things are put simple, and that's cool. Almost all DevOps major ideas lurk within this book: meaning, cloud, k8s and so on.
There's no dense pages to go over. Crucial things are put simple, and that's cool. Almost all DevOps major ideas lurk within this book: meaning, cloud, k8s and so on.
May 17, 2019
Excellent book with a lot of interesting tips! Must read!
June 13, 2019
Good understanding overview about best practices running applications at scale in kubernetes
June 11, 2020
The book doesn't dive deep and covers a a lot of topics, but nevertheless I really enjoyed it.
October 12, 2020
A good start for those who'd like to get familiar with Kubernetes, short, concise and straightforward. Contains descriptions of many cloud-related tools.
March 28, 2021
Covers the breadth required for developing, hosting and operating cloud-native services for Kubernetes. Sufficient depth on a tool per topic might have been more helpful
May 7, 2021
Very informative
November 7, 2021
Прекрасное введение в k8s на уровне "основные понятия и сопутствующие инструменты", глава про мониторинг не совсем про кубернетис, но полезна и сама по себе
October 17, 2022
Pretty good. I would have liked to see more examples in the observability and monitoring chapters though.
April 23, 2023
Good start for learning k8s
January 8, 2026
I read the early release which is much shorter than this version, still I got a clear idea about kubernetes and the cloud native environment, such a good read for beginners.
April 7, 2019
Great intro to Kuberenetes, DevOps and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS).
It pretty much explains everything you need to know for practical management of deployment for Cloud-Native apps.
The thing I think was missing was an extra deep dive into Kubernetes internals (though this books contains some explanations in high level of what Kubernetes is doing in some situations which is more than enough for most of Kubernetes users)
It pretty much explains everything you need to know for practical management of deployment for Cloud-Native apps.
The thing I think was missing was an extra deep dive into Kubernetes internals (though this books contains some explanations in high level of what Kubernetes is doing in some situations which is more than enough for most of Kubernetes users)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 34 reviews