DevOps for the Desperate: A Hands-On Survival Guide

by Bradley Smith

DevOps for the Desperate is a hands-on, no-nonsense guide for those who land in a DevOps environment and need to get up and running quickly.

This book introduces fundamental concepts software developers need to know to flourish in a modern DevOps environment including infrastructure as code, configuration management, security, containerization and orchestration, monitoring and alerting, and troubleshooting. Readers will follow along with hands-on examples to learn how to tackle common DevOps tasks.

The book begins with an exploration of DevOps concepts using Vagrant and Ansible to build systems with repeatable and predictable states, including configuring a host with user-based security. Next up is a crash course on containerization, orchestration, and delivery using Docker, Kubernetes, and a CI/CDpipeline. The book concludes with a primer in monitoring and alerting with tips for troubleshootingcommon host and application issues.

You'll learn how

Genres: Programming, Technology, Nonfiction, Technical

176 pages, Paperback

Published July 12, 2022

Reviews

[Jeeya]

Dropped this book halfway through. Guess I'm just not desperate enough

[Fotis Koutoulakis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every now and then you come across a book that finds you at the right time and at the right mental state to make most of it.

This is such a book for me: I'm at a point in my career where I do have considerable development experience, but most of it has been within a desktop/client context (compilers...). I'm now transitioning to working in a cloud services company, so I'm in need of something to give me the basic run down of how to deploy/monitor/scale distributed systems apps, but just a basic intro so that I'm not completely blank while at the job (I expect to fill in the gaps with actual experience in the workplace, so long as I'm not seeing things first time ever).

I'm also pleased to say that at the time of reading this (2024) the examples and code worked marvellously on my atypical setup (Apple Silicon), which is not usually the case with a lot of computing books. Minor adjustments where needed, but outside of that everything worked fine.

[Carol Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Getting through DevOps for the Desperate feels like sitting down with a battle-hardened mentor who’s seen it all. The way it breaks down chaos into manageable strategies makes it a must-have for anyone thrown into the deep end of DevOps. Midway through my own project, I turned to a DevOps development company like https://artjoker.net/ , and their real-world support mirrored many of the lessons in this book. It’s one thing to read about systems thinking—another to watch it in action. This guide doesn’t just teach survival; it gives you the tools to lead under pressure. Highly recommend it.

[Tetiana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid book, the last chapter about troubleshooting was really interesting.

[Osiel Nava · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good intro to get up and running with basic DevOps day-to-day tasks.

[Dang-Khoa Le Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Mykal · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want a condensed intro to ansible, docker, kubernetes, and Linux this is probably a great place to start. It provides a solid intro to the concepts you'd need to work as a developer, or jr. SRE/sysadmin. It provides examples with a companion GitHub repo, and expects you to work while reading the book. If you have some significant experience with these tools it might even be worth the read for a few tidbits, new tools, and some tips; which is mostly what I came away with.

My biggest issues is that the pacing feels a bit off at times. For example, the book provides a relatively quick summary of docker containers and then throws you right into the deep-end of Kubernetes. That said, it does a great job at covering the general surface area and providing further reading or resources if you're interested; just don't expect this book to be at all comprehensive.

I'll definitely be recommending to others looking to get started in working with and managing applications hosted on Linux or in Linux containers as it provides some solid fundamentals.