The Practice of Cloud System Administration

This is the Rough Cut version of the printed book.

“There’s an incredible amount of depth and thinking in the practicesdescribed here, and it’s impressive to see it all in one place.”

–Win Treese, coauthor of Designing Systems for Internet Commerce

The Practice of Cloud System Administration, Volume 2, focuses on “distributed” or “cloud” computing and brings a DevOps/SRE sensibility to the practice of system administration. Unsatisfied with books that cover either design or operations in isolation, the authors created this authoritative reference centered on a comprehensive approach.

Case studies and examples from Google, Etsy, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon, and other industry giants are explained in practical ways that are useful to all enterprises. The new companion to the best-selling first volume, The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition, this guide offers expert coverage of the following and many other crucial topics:

Designing and building modern web and distributed systems
Fundamentals of large system designUnderstand the new software engineering implications of cloud administrationMake systems that are resilient to failure and grow and scale dynamicallyImplement DevOps principles and cultural changesIaaS/PaaS/SaaS and virtual platform selection
Operating and running systems using the latest DevOps/SRE strategies
Upgrade production systems with zero down-timeWhat and how to automate; how to decide what not to automateOn-call best practices that improve uptimeWhy distributed systems require fundamentally different system administration techniquesIdentify and resolve resiliency problems before they surprise you
Assessing and evaluating your team’s operational effectiveness
Manage the scientific process of continuous improvementA forty-page, pain-free assessment system you can start using today