First off - it's worth noting that Google lets you read this entire book for free on their website.
I bought the Kindle version anyways because I spend enough time in front of a backlit screen that it seemed worth it to read something this large using a device that's better on your eyes. Unfortunately the Kindle version is formatted terribly and I wish I'd bought the print version instead. The book is broken up into Parts which are broken up into Chapters which are further broken up into headlined sections. The Kindle version identifies those headlined sections as chapters which is somewhat useless.
Anyways, the first few chapters aren't especially useful unless you work at Google. They mostly discuss what's unique about Google's computing infrastructure. Despite this, they were EASILY my favorite part of the book because the material is so interesting and their approach is so unique. After that, each chapter is written in a way that it can stand on its own if you aren't reading the entire book, or are reading it out of order. This is convenient for people who want to pick and choose what parts they want to read, but means that people who are reading the entire thing wind up getting a lot of the same information multiple times. It's all written by different people too, which on the one hand makes it not quite as repetitive, but on the other hand makes it hard to just skim over the sections with info you already have because you don't recognize it as information you already know until you've processed it.
Overall this is a fantastic book on DevOps, SRE, and current trends in the industry, It's a great read for anyone who wants to apply some "best practices" to their role. I would however say that reading the entire thing is overkill for most people and not necessarily the best use of your time if you have other things you'd like to be learning as well.
Part 1 - Fascinating read. I imagine this would be a good overview if you're about to start at Google and want a sneak peek at how things are done, but I'm only speculating this as an outsider.
Part 2 - Interesting and useful concepts for modern cloud computing.
Part 3 - Some useful info and a lot of stuff that's not really unique to Google in my experience. Read the parts that you think you could use some improvement on, skip the rest.
Part 4 - A condensed view from a managerial perspective of things you already read in Part 3.
Part 5 - Some case studies, comparisons from other businesses, a useless recap, and examples that could be useful to share using the website version of the book if you're trying to explain to your team what new concepts are being implemented.
ISBN-13: 978-1491929124
ISBN-10: 149192912X
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From the brand
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Sharing the knowledge of experts
O'Reilly's mission is to change the world by sharing the knowledge of innovators. For over 40 years, we've inspired companies and individuals to do new things (and do them better) by providing the skills and understanding that are necessary for success.
Our customers are hungry to build the innovations that propel the world forward. And we help them do just that.
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From the Publisher
This book is divided into four sections:
- Introduction—Learn what site reliability engineering is and why it differs from conventional IT industry practices
- Principles—Examine the patterns, behaviors, and areas of concern that influence the work of a site reliability engineer (SRE)
- Practices—Understand the theory and practice of an SRE’s day-to-day work: building and operating large distributed computing systems
- Management—Explore Google's best practices for training, communication, and meetings that your organization can use
How to Read This Book
This book is a series of essays written by members and alumni of Google’s Site Reliability Engineering organization. It’s much more like conference proceedings than it is like a standard book by an author or a small number of authors. Each chapter is intended to be read as a part of a coherent whole, but a good deal can be gained by reading on whatever subject particularly interests you. (If there are other articles that support or inform the text, we reference them so you can follow up accordingly.)
You don’t need to read in any particular order, though we’d suggest at least starting with Chapters 2 and 3, which describe Google’s production environment and outline how SRE approaches risk, respectively. (Risk is, in many ways, the key quality of our profession.) Reading cover-to-cover is, of course, also useful and possible; our chapters are grouped thematically, into Principles (Part II), Practices (Part III), and Management (Part IV). Each has a small introduction that highlights what the individual pieces are about, and references other articles published by Google SREs, covering specific topics in more detail. Additionally, there’s a companion website mentioned in the book that has a number of helpful resources.
We hope this will be at least as useful and interesting to you as putting it together was for us.
— The Editors.
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| Site Reliability Engineering | The Site Reliability Workbook | |
| Explore the book & companion workbook | How Google Runs Production Systems | Practical Ways to Implement SRE |
Customer reviews
The Kindle edition is horribly formatted. Headings, subheadings and call-outs are not visible as such, but appear as normal body text. Unacceptable for such an expensive publication.Additional information: this is on Windows 10, with the Kindle reader app from the Windows Store. Attached screenshot shows how the author and editor credits, as well as a quote, appear as normal body text at the start of a chapter: this problem persists through the entire publication, and is especially annoying for subheadings. All my other Kindle books look fine using the same reader app.
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Top reviews from other countries
dotmit
Why does this have such great reviews?
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 21, 2020JaimieV
Excellent trove of knowledge
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 11, 2016Paul
A must read for those who are in Infrastructure
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 10, 2020Alberto Abián
Interesting reading
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 20, 2018J. Andrews
The book every infrastructure engineer and DevOps person should read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2018
