Practice of System and Network Administration, The: DevOps and other Best Practices for Enterprise IT, Volume 1 3rd Edition

I buy this book for all Junior admins that work under me for Christmas their first year. They always ask me how I seem to be basically working magic. I tell them it’s all in the book.

I've been working in Enterprise IT for 14 years doing everything from Helpdesk, Network Administration, Systems Administration, Cyber Security Engineer, IT Manager. This book is spot on! I would recommend this to anyone wanting to get into IT or is a senior in IT.

This is literally the "How-To" book of IT. I wish I knew this stuff when I was at the early stages of getting into the IT field. I've been in the field now for close to 14 years and I can say with all confidence this is more important than any certification you will get. The lessons learned in this book are priceless. Some things I read in here I literally find myself gaping and face-palming wishing I'd known this when I started it. It delves into every concept of being an IT person from server handling to network concepts to troubleshooting to the fabled 8th layer, which I believe is the true most important layer of them all (users and politics).As an SA you are going to need skill outside of IT and be able to communicate efficiently with mostly people that have no idea what you're talking about. As an SA you will also need to be able to troubleshoot and document tickets, as well as send and manage emails with different departments, in and outside of IT. As an SA you will need to also work with others and become part of the team. Develop a culture where you're seen as an advocate and not a clerk. This book will help you do all that and then some.tl;dr - Get this book and read it. It's BIG, but read the table of contents and start where you think you should start.

If you want to do great work not only as a SysAdmin, but as an IT professional, this is the book that every person who wants to be successful should read. No matter if you're a T1 Help Desk Technician or a veteran SysAdmin, this book will bring a whole new perspective to the way you go about your day-to-day life. And not only will thing change your day-to-day operations, but it'll change your entire career. Please pick up this book, it's intimidating because it's nearly 1,200 pages, but one of the most important principles in this book is working in 'Small Batches' and by chunking this book up, you're already learning something spectacular for your career.

This book is a crucial library item for any System or Network Administrator regardless of how many years you have under your belt. I picked up the second edition when I first became a sysadmin and it helped me a lot throughout my career. I was very excited when it was announced that this third edition was coming as the second edition has not aged well. The third edition is the perfect, much needed update to the second edition. This new version is definitely now up-to-date and should hopefully give us another decade of service. I definitely recommend this book for the sysadmin in your life or in your office. I always recommend it to my colleagues as it contains valuable information for your career. In fact, buy a few copies because if you loan this book out, I doubt you'll get it back!

This is an amazing book and was very excited to see this new edition come up. I work in the IT field and wear many hats and this book provides me with guidance to be successful in all areas in IT from service desk to Infrastructure to Web services. IT can be a rough spot for many but this book really sheds some great insight, practical tools, and positive ideas to get through not only through the technical facets, but also what I feel were left out from the OSI model - Layer 8 the political layer. 😀 I admire these authors and the experiences they have shared in this book. Kudos to them and I hope they continue to share more in future editions to come.

Fabulous book the goto for every area that I might get stuck on. I’ve reread sections that I was sure I knew everything that there was to know about them and still I learned something. I’ve been an Admin, an SE, a Designer, and even a CTO but I still refer to this book and now the latest edition of it all the darn time!

This book is a great starting place for new system administrators, and also contains valuable information and ways to think about problems for senior system administrators. I own the first edition, and the third edition is full of more new things, but equally accessible and easy to read. Start with any chapter and you can learn something useful, or read it front to back for a wholistic view. I am the interrupt sponge (see p10) for my team, but I use this book as a resource for teaching and mentoring.