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If you're like me, you've got a book or two that you just haven't been able to get through. Maybe it got boring, maybe it didn't make sense, or maybe you're just an unmotivated piece of poo poo like me! That's where this thread comes in! Let's read IT Books together. We'll pick a book, set a schedule, read it according to that schedule and talk about it as we go along. That way if a chapter is confusing and lovely we can all bitch about it together instead of privately worrying that we're just too drat stupid. Don't forget to bookmark the thread so you don't fall behind! I'm open to suggestions for a book and we can adjust the schedule if it seems too fast or too slow. Here are a few ideas to start:  Information Storage and Management: Storing, Managing, and Protecting Digital Information in Classic, Virtualized, and Cloud Environments by EMC Education Services Link: http://amzn.com/1118094832 I've heard this described as "The Bible of Enterprise Storage." 15 chapters, 400 pages. Difficulty: Looks like a good introduction to storage. the first chapter can be previewed on Amazon. I don't think you need much outside knowledge to keep up.  Learn Windows PowerShell 3 in a Month of Lunches by Don Jones et al. Link: http://amzn.com/1617291080 A great introduction to an important tool in Windows Administration. I never bothered to finish but the first half was great. 28 chapters, about 300 pages. Difficulty: You probably want to be familiar with windows and for some of the exercises you'll need to be able to remotely manage other computers.  Time Management for System Administrators by Thomas A. Limoncelli Link: http://amzn.com/0596007833 13 chapters, 220 pages Difficulty: It's not a technical book, I haven't even cracked open my copy. I just haven't been able to find the time. I'm definitely open to other suggestions, if we can get a few people to agree on one, we'll pick a start date and get going. From there, we'll have time to pick a new book for when we're finished.
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Feb 1, 2015 07:19
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I'm good with any of these, I started reading Time Management and now I fill my gas every Sunday 
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Feb 1, 2015 07:37
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Or maybe we could start with the Phoenix Project to keep it fun? Edit: the first 16 chapters are online for free too so that might make it easy for people to jump in. Dr. Arbitrary fucked around with this message at 17:51 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 17:07
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I'm kinda interested in this, and the one I'd be most likely to read is Powershell in a Month of Lunches... that said, I'm also working on certs and I have a five month-old in the house, so I would probably be flaky as hell.
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Feb 1, 2015 17:46
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I vote for http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-VMw...are+vsphere+5.5 since I'm working on that cert...
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Feb 1, 2015 20:07
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Is there a way we could have a poll? I think what we want to read is going to be all over the place.
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Feb 1, 2015 20:10
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I've read both The Phoenix Project and the Time Management book, but they are both great so I don't want to discourage the thread from choosing those. And honestly I could do with a reread of Time Management. I'll also selfishly throw out The Practice of Cloud System Administration since I'm currently reading that  I feel like it has more room for discussion than just a dry technical manual.Someone in the LinkedIn group suggested Systems Performance. Edit: Sorry, you've got me on a roll now. Remembered I have a reading list in Evernote. Field Guide to Understanding Human Error. Not strictly a tech book but very relevant to reliably operating large systems. Debug It! Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder Docjowles fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Feb 1, 2015 |
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Feb 1, 2015 20:27
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My favorite number machine book - Jon Stokes - Inside the Machine. It's out of date as it only goes up to the C2D but it's very thorough on the things it covers. http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Machine-Introduction-Microprocessors-Architecture/dp/1593271042
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Feb 1, 2015 21:10
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A lot of these books look awesome. I'd like to suggest that we start with The Phoenix Project. The first half of the book is hosted at the author's website so we can all get started right away and people will have a chance to buy the rest. http://itrevolution.com/the-phoenix-project-excerpt/ This will give us time to pick our next book. We can start on Monday and try to do maybe 5 chapters a week making speed adjustments if needed. It's easy reading so people who fall behind should be able to catch up. Definitely continue to post suggestions.
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Feb 1, 2015 21:18
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It's also on safari books, just an FYI.
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Feb 1, 2015 21:25
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I'm in for this. Perhaps a bit technical, but The Elements of Computing Systems is amazing if you really want to understand the guts of what's happening on a more fundamental level than Inside the Machine (caveat: I haven't read Inside the Machine, but now I want to -- I'll hold off for this thread if anyone else is also interested, though)
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Feb 1, 2015 22:35
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I started Time Management and picked up Project Phoenix because of this thread. I am down for either. I am intersted in the EMC book though because I am wanting to expand my storage background too.
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Feb 1, 2015 23:03
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I think this is a great idea! I recently started the Phoenix Project so I am tempted to lean towards that. Although I am up for any of the books mentioned.
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Feb 2, 2015 00:31
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I'd be for the Project Phoenix as it's been on my list for a while. I'd also be up for Powershell as I'd recently started it and having people to work with on it would really help me out.
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Feb 2, 2015 02:44
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Its a quick read, i'm already on chapter 20.
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Feb 2, 2015 03:23
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I'll admit, I got a bit ahead of myself reading. Let's start the Phoenix Project. In any case, it's definitely not going to be a book that gets us bogged down. The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win by Gene Kim Link: http://amzn.com/B00AZRBLHO Start reading right now: http://itrevolution.com/the-phoenix-project-excerpt/ This book went by VERY quickly for me. I think 10 chapters a week is a reasonable pace. Read Chapters 1 and 2 and let's talk about it! If we end up getting through a book or two we might want to start making separate threads, but until then. LET'S READ!
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Feb 2, 2015 04:17
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From reading chapter 1 & 2,quote:Luke was our CIO, or Chief Information Officer. Damon worked for him and was my boss, in charge of IT Operations across the entire company. This made me laugh. It's incredibly common and quite unnerving while even being low on the totem poll to see higher-ups suddenly disappear without a trace. Gucci Loafers fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 06:21
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Tab8715 posted:From reading chapter 1 & 2, I always keep an eye on the job postings at work. Sometimes you get a hint at some real craziness. A few years back the a huge chunk of the executive team got canned because of an incident involving Ron Jeremy.
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Feb 2, 2015 06:30
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:
I grabbed this one around Christmas and simply haven't arsed myself around to starting it, even though I'm using a bit of Powershell at work that I've basically cobbled together myself. I'm going to be starting tomorrow after work (lunch hour is rather busy usually) so I'll start following up the chapters in here as I go along. Mo_Steel fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Feb 2, 2015 |
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Feb 2, 2015 06:56
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Mo_Steel posted:I grabbed this one around Christmas and simply haven't arsed myself around to starting it, even though I'm using a bit of Powershell at work that I've basically cobbled together myself. I'm going to be starting tomorrow after work (lunch hour is rather busy usually) so I'll start following up the chapters in here as I go along. We'll probably rock through The Phoenix Project fairly quickly and I was thinking that Powershell might be a good one to do next. Feel free to get a head start though! I guess there's no reason to have multiple books going at once but it'd probably be smart to make new threads if that's the case.
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Feb 2, 2015 06:59
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For those that don't feel like subscribing with an email to get the excerpt: http://itrevolution.com/wp-content/uploads/files/PhoenixProjectExcerpt.pdf
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Feb 2, 2015 12:21
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:We'll probably rock through The Phoenix Project fairly quickly and I was thinking that Powershell might be a good one to do next. Sounds good, I'll give the Phoenix Project a look through.
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Feb 2, 2015 13:50
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So, I've read a bit ahead but it's interesting how many clues are in the first two chapters. It's almost like a mystery novel.
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Feb 2, 2015 15:46
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I picked up Phoenix Project. This sort of thing, I should definitely be able to keep up with, so why not. It's pretty interesting so far (stopped half-way through chapter 3).
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Feb 2, 2015 16:02
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My vote is for Time Management for SysAdmins! Always wanted to read that and feel like I need to learn it now more than ever.
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Feb 2, 2015 16:26
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I just chewed through the Phoenix Project sample; couldn't put it down. Later tonight I'm sure I'll wind up finishing the drat thing. It's great reading, and discusses the way I've seen so many shops operate.
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Feb 3, 2015 02:05
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I'm also enjoying Phoenix Project. Some pages I think, "wow, their company is worse off than mine." Then I wonder what I don't know about the systems I don't touch. Looking forward to when they get to DevOps, though I'm sure my coworkers will find it annoying if I get the religion.
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Feb 3, 2015 02:17
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I definitely don't want to be going significantly slower than even the slowest person who is reading through this. For more technical books we can take it slow but for this, anyone have a problem with trying to get through the pdf sample by Friday? I feel like going too slow is as bad as going too fast.
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Feb 3, 2015 02:27
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Eh, I'm drinking Fri/Sat but how about Sunday night for a deadline?
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Feb 3, 2015 02:46
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Tab8715 posted:Eh, I'm drinking Fri/Sat but how about Sunday night for a deadline? I was very close to naming this thread something like "Let's get drunk and read tech books" If you're drinking or eating something interesting while reading a book, feel free to share.
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Feb 3, 2015 04:05
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Finished the first chapter of Phoenix Project got a laugh out of this line:quote:CIO stands for "Career Is Over." And VPs of IT Operations don't last much longer. This is a pretty fun read so far.
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Feb 3, 2015 09:18
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I read the first 5 chapters last night and I doubled checked to make sure they aren't writing about my company. My last two weeks have literally been dealing with SAN issues because they wouldn't let us take it down to do updates and forced us to over provision and fill the ZFS volume. Also: I am the physical incarnation of Brent as I am involved in all the projects and am the first for break-fix issues. And with my real name being Brad, it makes it even more surreal.
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Feb 3, 2015 15:14
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I don't know if I can keep reading this book. It needs a trigger warning or something.
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Feb 3, 2015 17:07
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jim truds posted:I don't know if I can keep reading this book. It needs a trigger warning or something. Haha. Yeah, the authors have clearly spent a LOT of time talking to
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Feb 3, 2015 17:27
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jim truds posted:I don't know if I can keep reading this book. It needs a trigger warning or something. I thought about dropping a trigger warning in here but decided to wait and see some of the responses.  If you've ever worked in a lovely environment at any point it is probably going to hit pretty close to home.
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Feb 3, 2015 18:45
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I'm only in chapter 4 but I've been around enough "Sarah" type coworkers in my life that my blood pressure was rising very quickly.
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Feb 3, 2015 19:17
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I'm still processing Brent and what I can take away from the book's treatment of him.
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Feb 3, 2015 21:39
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Mo_Steel posted:I grabbed this one around Christmas and simply haven't arsed myself around to starting it, even though I'm using a bit of Powershell at work that I've basically cobbled together myself. I'm going to be starting tomorrow after work (lunch hour is rather busy usually) so I'll start following up the chapters in here as I go along. I got it about a week ago and am really enjoying it. This is as someone who doesn't really know much at all about Powershell.
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Feb 4, 2015 00:29
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Zorak of Michigan posted:I'm still processing Brent and what I can take away from the book's treatment of him. Brent is the goon in the well. It was good read, and didn't play down the complexities of operations IT and even new ideals like cloud. I saw myself a bit of myself in brent and wes. Ultimately I took away is you shouldn't silo dev/ops. incoherent fucked around with this message at 00:36 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 00:33
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As the IBMer in this discussion, I simultaneously laughed at and became defensive over Wes' dismissal of midrange systems, which are so often classified as useless antiques, but equally often have been running a company's most important workloads silently from the backwaters for decades. The midrange folks are often the ones who get laughed at in the business for being dinosaurs, yet like Bill's (original) group in the book, often have their environment running much more tightly than distributed groups. I think there are a few reasons why: 1. Barrier to entry: Midrange machines are not analagous to a desktop in any way, and share very few similarities with any common end-user OS, so most PC skills don't transfer over well. This means to run a midrange shop well, you have to learn how the machines work and what they do for the business. 2. Lifespan: It's a mature platform; they run the way they do and aside from supporting newer hardware, not much changes drastically from release to release like it can from say Server 2003 to Server 2008. We're not going to see Active Directory or Exchange released for IBM i anytime soon, so midrange shops have had plenty of time to get comfortable with the systems and establish policies and procedures that can be adhered to. 2a. Employee lifespan: Often midrange folks have been running the same class of systems for decades, possibly coming from a large systems backgrounds, where things like change controls have been the norm since Day 1. The type of rapid-fire revisions and deployments that plagued the Phoenix release aren't really a consideration in a midrange mentality.
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Feb 4, 2015 01:49
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