Essential DevOps Books for Software Engineers
There are several essential DevOps books that is an important resource for software engineers looking to learn and implement about DevOps practices. This article lists the top essential DevOps books for Software Engineers.
- 1. The DevOps Adoption Playbook
- 2. The DevOps Handbook
- 3. The Phoenix Project
- 4. Continuous Delivery
- 5. The Unicorn Project
- 6. Accelerate
- 7. Continuous Integration
- 8. Start and Scaling Devops in the Enterprise
- 9. Devops: A Software Architect’s Perspective
- 10. Effective Devops
- Conclusion
There are several essential DevOps books that is an important resource for software engineers looking to learn and implement about DevOps practices. This would assist engineers to increase the efficiency and dependability of software delivery by automating procedures and optimising workflows. The different books strongly emphasises cooperation and communication between the development and operations teams which is at the core of the DevOps culture.
The essential DevOps books for software engineers are:
1. The DevOps Adoption Playbook
by Sanjeev Sharma
The DevOps Adoption Playbook, named DevOps 2017 Book of the Year, offers helpful, practical advice on applying DevOps at an enterprise scale. In this book, author Sanjeev Sharma, who oversees IBM's DevOps strategy, offers exceptional advice and perspective on deploying DevOps at large enterprises. DevOps for startups doesn't work at this scale, but the DevOps paradigm can revolutionize business IT.
 | Title: | The DevOps Adoption Playbook: A Guide to Adopting Devops in a Multi-Speed IT Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Sanjeev Sharma | |
| ISBN-13: | 9781119308744 | |
| ISBN-10: | 1119308747 | |
| Published: | 2017 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 4.38 |
Most DevOps literature is geared toward startups, but enterprises have unique demands, capabilities, restrictions, and issues. By implementing the necessary procedures, using the appropriate automation technologies, and making the necessary organisational and cultural adjustments, it is possible to provide high-value applications and systems quickly and agilely.
2. The DevOps Handbook
by Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois & John Willis
The DevOps Handbook has been the go-to manual for adopting the lessons learned from the best-selling The Phoenix Project in any enterprise for the past five years. This best-selling and award-winning business guide to digital transformation has just been completely updated, with new case studies and the most recent research included.
 | Title: | The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Gene Kim, Jez Humble, Patrick Debois, John Willis | |
| ISBN-13: | 9781942788003 | |
| ISBN-10: | 1942788002 | |
| Published: | 2015 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 4.32 |
Now that this edition has been completely updated and expanded, it's time to move DevOps out of the IT department and implement it throughout the entire company. Regardless of the business model or product, technology is now the foundation of every company. Anyone from across the firm can utilise the theories and practices included in The DevOps Handbook as instruments to spread joy and achieve commercial success.
3. The Phoenix Project
by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
At Parts Unlimited, Bill manages the IT department. Tuesday morning, Bill receives a call from the CEO while he is driving to work. The future of Parts Unlimited depends on the company's new IT initiative, code-named Phoenix Project, but the project is wildly over budget and a lot later than expected. The CEO threatens to outsource Bill's whole department if he doesn't report directly to him and clean up the problem within 90 days.
 | Title: | The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford | |
| ISBN-13: | 9780988262591 | |
| ISBN-10: | 0988262592 | |
| Published: | 2013 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 4.27 |
Three luminaries in the DevOps movement tell a narrative that will be familiar to anyone who works in IT in a quick-paced and humorous manner. In addition to learning how to better their own IT departments, readers will receive a new perspective on IT.
4. Continuous Delivery
by Jez Humble, David Farley
Software release is sometimes an unpleasant, dangerous, and time-consuming procedure. This ground-breaking new book outlines the technical best practices and guiding concepts that permit the quick, piecemeal delivery of useful, new functionality to users. Delivery teams can quickly release changes by automating the build, deployment, and testing processes and improving communication between developers, testers, and operations.
 | Title: | Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases Through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Jez Humble, David Farley | |
| ISBN-13: | 9780321601919 | |
| ISBN-10: | 0321601912 | |
| Published: | 2010 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 4.19 |
The first thing Jez Humble and David Farley do is lay out the principles of a quick, dependable, low-risk delivery procedure. The "deployment pipeline," an automated mechanism for handling all changes from check-in to release, is then introduced. They then talk about the "environment" required to support continuous delivery, including governance, infrastructure, data, and configuration management.
5. The Unicorn Project
by Gene Kim
The Unicorn Project is the eagerly awaited sequel to the best-selling book The Phoenix Project revisits Parts Unlimited, this time from the viewpoint of software development. We follow Maxine, a senior lead developer and architect in The Unicorn Project. She is banished to the Phoenix Project to the despair of her friends and coworkers as retribution for her part in a payroll outage.
 | Title: | The Unicorn Project |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Gene Kim | |
| ISBN-13: | 9781942788768 | |
| ISBN-10: | 1942788762 | |
| Published: | 2019 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 4.10 |
This is the tale of rebel coders and business leaders racing against time to create, survive, and prosper in extraordinary uncertainty and opportunity. The Age of Software has arrived, and another global extinction disaster looms.
6. Accelerate
by Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim
Does technology have any real impact? How can technology be used to create company value? We've been taught for years that our firms can't benefit from the success of their software delivery teams in terms of gaining a competitive edge.
 | Title: | Accelerate: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, Gene Kim | |
| ISBN-13: | 9781942788331 | |
| ISBN-10: | 1942788339 | |
| Published: | 2018 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 4.08 |
Dr Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim set out to use rigorous statistical techniques to assess software delivery performance and what drives it over four years of ground-breaking research. Both the research's conclusions and the science underlying them are presented in this book. In order to increase team performance, readers will learn how to measure team performance and what capabilities to invest in.
7. Continuous Integration
by Paul Duvall, Steve Matyas, Andrew Glover
The authors first analyze the fundamentals of CI and its practices before investigating other practical CI system operations like database integration, testing, inspection, deployment, and feedback.
 | Title: | Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Paul Duvall, Steve Matyas, Andrew Glover | |
| ISBN-13: | 9780321336385 | |
| ISBN-10: | 0321336380 | |
| Published: | 2007 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 3.81 |
CI promotes more rapid software development, produces deployable software, and decreases the time between defect introduction and detection, saving time and reducing costs. Developers decrease risks and repetitive manual processes with the successful application of CI, and teams get enhanced project visibility.
8. Start and Scaling Devops in the Enterprise
by Gary Gruver
DevOps represents a fundamental shift in how cutting-edge businesses are beginning to handle their IT and software projects. Large software organisations are using these DevOps concepts to create new software faster than anyone could have imagined since they need to move more quickly than before.
 | Title: | Start and Scaling Devops in the Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Gary Gruver | |
| ISBN-13: | 9781483583594 | |
| ISBN-10: | ||
| Published: | 2016 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 3.70 |
The productivity advantage is so significant that larger companies with tightly coupled architectures recognise they must adopt DevOps or risk falling behind. The most critical issue is that their traditional architectures involve coordinating the creation, testing, and deployment of code across hundreds of employees; thus, they are unable to allow small teams to work independently.
9. Devops: A Software Architect’s Perspective
by Len Bass, Ingo Weber, Liming Zhu
Three prominent architects tackle these problems head-on in DevOps: A Software Architect's Perspective. The authors discuss choices software architects must make to fulfil the objectives of DevOps and explain how other DevOps players are likely to affect the architect's job. Additionally, they examine the effects of DevOps on each stage of development and give the organizational, technical, and operational context necessary for more effective DevOps deployment.
 | Title: | Devops: A Software Architect's Perspective |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Len Bass, Ingo Weber, Liming Zhu | |
| ISBN-13: | 9780321336385 | |
| ISBN-10: | 0321336380 | |
| Published: | 2007 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 3.65 |
Three real-world case studies are used in this guide to show how to apply the authors' concepts: migrating to a microservice architecture, managing a continuous deployment pipeline, and data center replication for business continuity.
10. Effective Devops
by Jennifer Davis, Ryn Daniels
Some businesses believe that implementing DevOps requires hiring specialists or acquiring a variety of new tools. With the help of this practical manual, you'll discover why DevOps is a professional and cultural movement that encourages change within your company.
 | Title: | Effective Devops: Building a Culture of Collaboration, Affinity, and Tooling at Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Author: | Jennifer Davis, Ryn Daniels | |
| ISBN-13: | 9781491926307 | |
| ISBN-10: | 1491926309 | |
| Published: | 2015 | |
| GoodReads Rating: | 3.41 |
The authors Ryn Daniels and Jennifer Davis offer several strategies for enhancing teamwork within teams, forging bonds across teams, encouraging effective tool utilisation within your organisation, and for scaling up what works across your business's inflexion points.
Conclusion
In conclusion, there are many books about DevOps not listed above that contains valuable insights, learnings and guidance for software engineers. It does not matter what skill lever you are as a Devops practitioner, there is always something new to learn or a different perspective. Only through continuous learning will you as a software engineer gain a deeper understanding of DevOps principles and practices.
