Fundamentals of DevOps and Software Delivery

Fundamentals of DevOps and Software Delivery

By Yevgeniy Brikman

There are many guides out there on how to write software. This book is a guide to software delivery: that is, all the processes, tools, and techniques that are required to run software in production and maintain it on an ongoing basis. In particular, this book is a guide to DevOps, one of the methodologies used today to make software delivery vastly more efficient.

Whereas most DevOps content tends to focus primarily on culture and theory, this book is a hands-on guide that includes dozens of examples that walk you, step-by-step, through how to run real systems and real code. You’ll start with the basics—running a single server—and work all the way up to Kubernetes clusters, automated deployment pipelines, distributed data systems, and more.

By the time you’re done with the book, you will have had hands-on practice with all the core concepts and best practices of modern DevOps and software delivery.

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About the book

This book is for individual contributors in operations (e.g., current and aspiring Site Reliability Engineers, DevOps Engineers, Sysadmins, Operations Engineers, and Release Engineers) who want to level up their knowledge of software delivery, individual contributors in dev (e.g., Software Engineers, Software Developers, Web Developers, and Full Stack Engineers) who want to learn more about the operations side of the house, and managers in engineering (e.g., Engineering Managers, Engineering Directors, CTOs, VPEs, and CIOs) who want to learn how to adopt DevOps and software delivery best practices in their organizations.

Chapter 1
An Introduction to DevOps and Software Delivery

Key ideas you'll explore
  • The evolution of DevOps
  • On-prem vs cloud
  • PaaS vs IaaS
Examples you'll try
  • Run an app locally
  • Run an app on Render
  • Run an app on an EC2 instance in AWS

Chapter 2
How to Manage Your Infrastructure as Code

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Ad hoc scripts
  • Configuration management tools
  • Server templating tools
  • Provisioning tools
Examples you'll try
  • Use Bash to deploy an EC2 instance
  • Use Ansible to deploy an EC2 instance
  • Use Packer to build an AMI
  • Use OpenTofu to deploy an EC2 instance

Chapter 3
How to Deploy Your Apps

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Server orchestration
  • VM orchestration
  • Container orchestration
  • Serverless orchestration
Examples you'll try
  • Use Ansible to deploy app servers & Nginx
  • Use OpenTofu to deploy an ASG and ALB
  • Deploy a Dockerized app in Kubernetes
  • Deploy a serverless app with AWS Lambda

Chapter 4
How to Version, Build, and Test Your Code

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Version control
  • Build systems
  • Dependency management
  • Automated testing
Examples you'll try
  • Store your code in GitHub and use PRs
  • Configure your build in NPM
  • Set up automated tests for a Node.js app
  • Set up automated tests for OpenTofu code

Chapter 5
How to Set Up CI and CD

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Trunk-based development
  • Feature toggles
  • Deployment strategies and pipelines
Examples you'll try
  • Use OIDC with GitHub Actions and AWS
  • Run tests in GitHub Actions
  • Run deployments in GitHub Actions

Chapter 6
How to Work with Multiple Teams and Environments

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Multiple environments
  • Multiple libraries
  • Multiple services
Examples you'll try
  • Create multiple AWS accounts
  • Configure apps for multiple environments
  • Deploy microservices in Kubernetes

Chapter 7
How to Set Up Networking

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Domain Name System (DNS)
  • Virtual private clouds (VPCs)
  • Network access and hardening
  • Service discovery, service meshes
Examples you'll try
  • Set up a custom domain name in Route 53
  • Deploy a custom VPC in AWS
  • Use SSH to connect to a server
  • Use Istio as a service mesh with Kubernetes

Chapter 8
How to Secure Communication and Storage

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Cryptography
  • Encryption at rest
  • Encryption in transit
Examples you'll try
  • Encrypt data with AES and RSA
  • Store secrets in AWS Secrets Manager
  • Set up HTTPS with LetsEncrypt

Chapter 9
How to Store Data

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Relational DBs, schemas
  • NoSQL, NewSQL, queues, streams
  • File storage and CDNs
  • Backup and recovery
Examples you'll try
  • Deploy PostgreSQL using RDS
  • Configure RDS backup, replicas
  • Use Knex.js for schema migrations
  • Use S3 and CloudFront for static assets

Chapter 10
How to Monitor Your Systems

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Logs and log aggregation
  • Metrics, dashboards, alerts
  • Observability and tracing
Examples you'll try
  • Create a dashboard in CloudWatch
  • Do structured logging with Node.js
  • Set up Route 53 health checks and alerts

Chapter 11
The Future of DevOps and Software Delivery

Key ideas you'll explore
  • Infrastructureless
  • Generative AI
  • Shift left, supply chain security
  • Platform engineering

 
Open Source Code Samples

The book includes dozens of code samples for you to try, which you can find here:

https://github.com/brikis98/fundamentals-of-devops-code

About the author

Yevgeniy Brikman

Yevgeniy (Jim) Brikman is the co-founder of Gruntwork, a company that that offers products & services for setting up world-class DevOps Foundations. He's also the author of two other books published by O'Reilly: Terraform: Up & Running, the definitive book on Terraform and OpenTofu, and Hello, Startup, which is a hands-on guide to building products, technologies, and teams in a startup.

Previously, Jim spent more than a decade building infrastructure and products that serve hundreds of millions of users at LinkedIn, TripAdvisor, Cisco Systems, and Thomson Financial. For more info, check out ybrikman.com.

This is a hands-on guide

Table of Contents

1. An Introduction to DevOps & Software Delivery 19
A Primer on DevOps 20
Where DevOps Came From 21
The Evolution of DevOps 23
Adopting DevOps Practices 33
An Introduction to Deploying Apps 35
Example: Run the Sample App Locally 35
Deploying an App on a Server 37
Deploying On Prem Versus in the Cloud 39
Deploying An App Using PaaS 43
Deploying an App Using IaaS 47
Comparing PaaS and IaaS 60
Conclusion 62
2. How to Manage Your Infrastructure as Code 65
The Benefits of IaC 67
Ad Hoc Scripts 69
Example: Deploy an EC2 Instance Using a Bash Script 70
How Ad Hoc Scripts Stack Up 72
Configuration Management Tools 74
Example: Deploy an EC2 Instance Using Ansible 75
Example: Configure a Server Using Ansible 77
How Configuration Management Tools Stack Up 82
Server Templating Tools 84
Example: Create a VM Image Using Packer 86
How Server Templating Tools Stack Up 89
Provisioning Tools 90
Example: Deploy an EC2 Instance Using OpenTofu 91
Example: Update and Destroy Infrastructure Using OpenTofu 97
Example: Deploy an EC2 Instance Using an OpenTofu Module 99
Example: Deploy an EC2 Instance Using an OpenTofu Module from GitHub 104
How Provisioning Tools Stack Up 105
Using Multiple IaC Tools Together 107
Provisioning Plus Configuration Management 107
Provisioning Plus Server Templating 107
Provisioning Plus Server Templating Plus Orchestration 108
Conclusion
3. How to Deploy Many Apps 111
An Introduction to Orchestration 112
Server Orchestration 115
Example: Deploy Multiple Servers in AWS Using Ansible 115
Example: Deploy an App Securely and Reliably Using Ansible 117
Example: Deploy a Load Balancer Using Ansible and Nginx 122
Example: Roll Out Updates with Ansible 126
VM Orchestration 127
Example: Build a VM Image Using Packer 128
Example: Deploy a VM Image in an Auto Scaling Group Using OpenTofu 130
Example: Deploy an Application Load Balancer Using OpenTofu 133
Example: Roll Out Updates with OpenTofu and Auto Scaling Groups 137
Container Orchestration 141
Example: A Crash Course on Docker 143
Example: Create a Docker Image for a Node.js app 145
Example: Deploy a Dockerized App with Kubernetes 148
Example: Deploy a Load Balancer with Kubernetes 154
Example: Roll Out Updates with Kubernetes 155
Example: Deploy a Kubernetes Cluster in AWS Using EKS 157
Example: Push a Docker Image to ECR 160
Example: Deploy a Dockerized App into an EKS Cluster 162
Serverless Orchestration 164
Example: Deploy a Serverless Function with AWS Lambda 168
Example: Deploy an API Gateway in Front of AWS Lambda 171
Example: Roll Out Updates with AWS Lambda 173
Comparing Orchestration Options 174
Conclusion 179

A snippet of the table of contents highlighting a few of the hands-on examples in the book. Try scrolling down to see more!

A book on weight lifting can teach you principles, routines, and exercises, but it's only after you spend hours in the gym practicing, sweating, and applying what you read that you'll be able to lift serious weight. Likewise, this book will teach you principles, techniques, and tools of DevOps and software delivery, but it's only after you spend hours writing code, running code, and applying what you read that you'll be able to achieve serious results.

That's what the dozens of hands-on code examples in this book are for. Instead of only reading, you get to learn by doing, following the step-by-step instructions to write and run a lot of code. You can find the sample code for the book in this GitHub repo.

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The early release and pre-orders are now available!

The early release and pre-orders are now available!

The early release is now available at O'Reilly Media! Grab a copy of the ebook before the final version is done so you can start learning today, and receive new chapters and updates as they are written, plus the final ebook bundle when the book is released. If you prefer to wait for the final version, you can preorder the book at online stores now!

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