The Practice of System and Network Administration

Book excerpt: With 28 new chapters, the third edition of The Practice of System and Network Administration innovates yet again! Revised with thousands of updates and clarifications based on reader feedback, this new edition also incorporates DevOps strategies even for non-DevOps environments. Whether you use Linux, Unix, or Windows, this new edition describes the essential practices previously handed down only from mentor to protégé. This wonderfully lucid, often funny cornucopia of information introduces beginners to advanced frameworks valuable for their entire career, yet is structured to help even experts through difficult projects. Other books tell you what commands to type. This book teaches you the cross-platform strategies that are timeless! DevOps techniques: Apply DevOps principles to enterprise IT infrastructure, even in environments without developers Game-changing strategies: New ways to deliver results faster with less stress Fleet management: A comprehensive guide to managing your fleet of desktops, laptops, servers and mobile devices Service management: How to design, launch, upgrade and migrate services Measurable improvement: Assess your operational effectiveness; a forty-page, pain-free assessment system you can start using today to raise the quality of all services Design guides: Best practices for networks, data centers, email, storage, monitoring, backups and more Management skills: Organization design, communication, negotiation, ethics, hiring and firing, and more Have you ever had any of these problems? Have you been surprised to discover your backup tapes are blank? Ever spent a year launching a new service only to be told the users hate it? Do you have more incoming support requests than you can handle? Do you spend more time fixing problems than building the next awesome thing? Have you suffered from a botched migration of thousands of users to a new service? Does your company rely on a computer that, if it died, can’t be rebuilt? Is your network a fragile mess that breaks any time you try to improve it? Is there a periodic “hell month” that happens twice a year? Twelve times a year? Do you find out about problems when your users call you to complain? Does your corporate “Change Review Board” terrify you? Does each division of your company have their own broken way of doing things? Do you fear that automation will replace you, or break more than it fixes? Are you underpaid and overworked? No vague “management speak” or empty platitudes. This comprehensive guide provides real solutions that prevent these problems and more!