Best DevOps books
DevOps is revolutionizing the IT sector. If you currently work (or want to work) in the IT or software development industry, you’ve likely heard of DevOps already. DevOps is a cutting-edge way of delivering IT and software solutions. Many big names, such as Netflix, Amazon, Sony, and Facebook, have had fantastic results by adopting DevOps culture.
With all the hype surrounding DevOps, we thought it would be helpful to create a list of the top DevOps books. This list has books for everyone – whether you’re new to DevOps or a bit more experienced.
We hope you find a DevOps book to suit you. After reading this list, you might also want to check out our accredited DevOps training course.
10: DevOps: A Software Architect’s Perspective
- Author(s): Ingo M. Weber, Len Bass, and Liming Zhu
- Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional, 2015
- Pages: 352
- ISBN: 013404987X, 9780134049878
Written by three leading software academics, this book examines DevOps from a software architect’s perspective. As such, it’s a great guide for software architects working in a DevOps team.
The book gives some background to DevOps principles before delving into the finer details of DevOps software architecture. It helps software architects define the decisions to be taken to reach DevOps goals, as well as helping architects understand how the rest of the team impacts the architect’s work.
It covers everything a DevOps software architect needs to know and includes three case studies to aid understanding. Essential reading if you’re a DevOps software architect.
9: Building a DevOps Culture
- Author(s): Mandi Walls
- Publisher: O’Reilly Media, 2013
- Pages: 23
- ASIN: B00CBM1WFC
So, you’ve decided to adopt a DevOps culture at your organisation. But how do you go about doing it? This short-and-sweet DevOps book explains how. It explores exactly what DevOps culture is and explains how to make the transition.
It was written by Mandi Walls, a Senior Consultant at Chef, one of the essential DevOps automation tools, so you are receiving expert advice here.
The perfect book if you’re looking to adopt DevOps in your organisation.
8: Effective DevOps: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale
- Author(s): Jennifer Davis, Katherine Daniels
- Publisher: O’Reilly Media, 2016
- Pages: 300
- ISBN: 1491926309, 978-1491926307
This DevOps book also deals with the subject of adopting DevOps culture. However, it approaches the issue in more detail. You’ll learn how to increase collaboration and affinity, select the right tools and troubleshoot common DevOps problems. It provides detailed case studies to illustrate how DevOps ideas work in practice.
The book is packed with tried-and-tested techniques, examples and advice. Having worked at Etsy and Chef, the authors both have practical working knowledge of DevOps, and they provide some great examples from these workplaces.
Great reading if you want to adopt DevOps and are facing challenges about teamwork and which tools to use.
7: Practical DevOps
- Author(s): Joakim Verona
- Publisher: Packt Publishing, 2016
- Pages: 240
- ISBN: 1785882872, 978-1785882876
As the title suggests, this is a very practical DevOps book! It teaches the practical coding skills used in DevOps environments, and introduces some of the key tools you’ll need.
This book is aimed at developers, operations staff and testers currently using DevOps or aspiring to use it. Because this book is aimed at a technical audience there are multiple coding examples included, so ensure you read this sat at your development machine.
A really helpful book full of real-life coding techniques. It’s ideal if you’re technical DevOps staff, either working in development or operations.
6: The DevOps Adoption Playbook A Guide to Adopting DevOps in a Multi-Speed IT Enterprise
- Author(s): Sanjeev Sharma
- Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2017
- Pages: 416
- ISBN: 1119308747, 978-1119308744
The author is a well-known thought leader in the world of DevOps, having worked at IBM as Chief Technical Officer for DevOps adoption. He helps organisations adopt DevOps, so has a wealth of experience and advice to offer.
The book introduces patterns to consider when teams adopt DevOps. He offers a number of ‘plays’ for different DevOps scenarios to help you implement DevOps successfully.
Perfect if you want to adopt DevOps and need real-life examples, rather than just read the theory.
5: A Field Guide To Continuous Delivery
- Author(s): Scott Mason, Chris Blackburn et al.
- Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016
- Pages: 72
- ISBN: 1530121418, 978-1530121410
Although not strictly about DevOps, this book explores an essential DevOps concept: continuous delivery. It takes one part of the DevOps culture and explores it in-depth. It was written by the team at MadeTech, a company which help organisations adopt agile ways of working. The expert advice in this DevOps book covers the benefits of continuous delivery, how to get your team prepared for it, the tools you’ll need and the challenges you’ll face.
The simplicity of this DevOps book makes it ideal for anyone newly in charge of a DevOps team.
4: Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation
- Author(s): Sanjeev Sharma, Bernie Coyne
- Publisher: Addison Wesley, 2010
- Pages: 512
- ISBN: 0321601912, 978-0321601919
This detailed DevOps book won Dr Dobb’s Jolt Excellence Award in 2011 and has been widely praised by professionals and academics.
It covers how to continuously deliver using the DevOps ‘code, test and deploy’ cycle, with plenty of scenarios and coding examples. This DevOps book also discusses the best DevOps tools, how to implement strategies (such as testing and risk management strategies), the importance of cloud computing and how to manage data.
This book is ideal if you’re involved in delivering DevOps projects, whether you’re a developer, tester, manager or sys admin. However, the emphasis on how to keep everything managed properly makes it perfect for managers or senior DevOps staff.
3: The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
- Author(s): Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
- Publisher: IT Revolution Press, 2016
- Pages: 382
- ISBN: 0988262509, 978-0988262508
Yes, this is a novel about DevOps! The novel focuses on Bill, an IT manager who must deliver a project called the Phoenix Project. The thing is, this project is behind schedule and over budget. So, he uses DevOps principles to get the job done.
This isn’t an award-winning novel, but it brilliantly illustrates how well DevOps works in practice. In fact, this book is so good, we include it on the reading list for our DevOps Foundation course. It serves as a great introduction to DevOps for those considering using it.
2: DevOps for Dummies
- Author(s): Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
- Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2014
- Pages: 38
- ISBN: 978-1-118-73470-4
This book is free to download as an ebook from the IBM website. Recommended by our very own DevOps trainer Jumoke, DevOps for Dummies is perfect for DevOps beginners. This book is also from Sanjeev Sharma. It expels many of the myths surrounding DevOps, which is helpful if you find that your team is resisting change.
This is a great book if you want to learn the basics of how to adopt DevOps, the right tools to use, and how IBM used DevOps successfully.
1: The Devops Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations
- Author(s): Gene Kim, Patrick Debois, John Willis
- Publisher: Trade Select, 2016
- Pages: 250
- ISBN: 1942788002, 978-1942788003
Our favourite book is the DevOps Handbook. This essential book was written by four famous names in the DevOps movement, including Patrick Debois, who many consider to be the father of DevOps.
The DevOps Handbook is often referenced in DevOps articles, and we include it on our DevOps course reading list. It prescribes DevOps as a cure to many of the problems found in IT organisations, and explains how to adopt DevOps culture.
Every person working in IT either on the development or operations sides should own a copy!
