Description:

Synopsis:

The first edition of The Practice of System and Network Administration introduced a generation of system and network administrators to a modern IT methodology. Whether you use Linux, Unix, or Windows, this newly revised 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 the most advanced experts through difficult projects.

The book's four major sections build your knowledge with the foundational elements of system administration. These sections guide you through better techniques for upgrades and change management, catalog best practices for IT services, and explore various management topics. Chapters are divided into The Basics and The Icing. When you get the Basics right it makes every other aspect of the job easiersuch as automating the right things first. The Icing sections contain all the powerful things that can be done on top of the basics to wow customers and managers.

Inside, you'll find advice on topics such as

• The key elements your networks and systems need in order to make all other services run better
• Building and running reliable, scalable services, including web, storage, email, printing, and remote access
• Creating and enforcing security policies
• Upgrading multiple hosts at one time without creating havoc
• Planning for and performing flawless scheduled maintenance windows
• Managing superior helpdesks and customer care
• Avoiding the "temporary fix" trap
• Building data centers that improve server uptime
• Designing networks for speed and reliability
• Web scaling and security issues
• Why building a backup system isn't about backups
• Monitoring what you have and predicting what you will need
• How technically oriented workers can maintain their job's technical focus (and avoid an unwanted management role)
• Technical management issues, including morale, organization building, coaching, and maintaining positive visibility
• Personal skill techniques, including secrets for getting more done each day, ethical dilemmas, managing your boss, and loving your job
• System administration salary negotiation

It's no wonder the first edition received Usenix SAGE's 2005 Outstanding Achievement Award!

This eagerly anticipated second edition updates this time-proven classic:

• Chapters reordered for easier navigation
• Thousands of updates and clarifications based on reader feedback
• Plus three entirely new chapters: Web Services, Data Storage, and Documentation

ercb.com - Jack Woehr:

Despite sporting a title that sounds about as interesting as The Longest Checkers Games I Ever Saw, Thomas Limoncelli and Christine Hogan's The Practice of System and Network Administration is an exceptionally valuable book.

This book assumes you have the technical skills already. Now the authors are going to teach you how to use those technical skills, with an emphasis on reality bites. This makes for an entertaining read, as we are introduced to the Rioting Mob enterprise-wide desktop upgrade, the rule of No Changes On Friday, the value of Visible Presence the Next Day, rules for Shredding, and the heartburn of Dealing with Printer Abuse. And how could we have survived until now without knowing why data centers install their Power Down Units upside down?

So you don't get the wrong impression, this is not a book of humor. Nor, overall, is the book funny or witty. Ironic perhaps; this is a technical book for technical people, but when you're an administrator, the problem is always in the wetware, and let's face it, people are pretty funny. So it's no coincidence that the phrase "social engineering" recurs in the book like a leitmotif.

The greatest value of the book is Limoncelli and Hogan's breathtakingly comprehensive view of the playing field of system and network administration. They see how the puzzle pieces fit, from the cloud down to hand-holding with the end user. They are equally familiar with network security issues, fire suppression, rack mounts, and unmanageable management goals.

Some readers' favorite chapter might be the last, Chapter 31, "Firing System Administrators," a topic wherein end users and managers find much common ground, but that's probably not fair to administrators. I know, because I administer the Suns at work while my pal Paul administers the Linux and Windows boxes. Paul is a much better administrator: Although perhaps I understand the machines and software better than he does, he is more humane than I am. So are the authors of this book, who among their other hats wear one called Social Director and one called Mr. Break Time, both of whom flow with enough of the milk of human kindness to bear with the team member known as The Martyr.

What The Practice of System and Network Administration is really about is administering machines for people. Four of the authors' goals Simplicity, Clarity, Generality, and Automation are extensively applied to a wealth of technical problems, but woven through the treatment is their fifth goal - Communication.

Nonetheless, The Practice of System and Network Administration is not a feel-good book. It's a technical book of the first caliber, one properly scoped, carried out with first-rate writing, skillfully edited, well-designed, attractively bound, and typeset cleanly in LaTex style. Recommended reading for advanced administrators and those who would be if they could.

Biography:

Thomas A. Limoncelli is a noted system and network administrator employed at Google. He speaks at conferences worldwide on a variety of topics.

Christina J. Hogan has more than ten years' system administration experience. She now works at the BMW Sauber F1 team as an aerodynamicist.

Strata R. Chalup is a twenty-year veteran of system administration and technical project management. She is the founder of Virtual.Net, Inc.