by drich

Thoughts from the President – 2015-Apr

The Board has said many times that we need to produce more content for the benefit of our members and for the sysadmin community in general. As a start to this, I would like to propose that LOPSA develop a recommended reading list. This would be a list of books that we as an organization recommend for someone trying to gain an understanding of our field and/or specific technologies in our field. It would be published on lopsa.org, maintained as a living document, and updated as technologies change and new books are published.

 
As an example, we might have the following hierarchy of recommendations:
  • System Administration Fundamentals
  • Areas of System Administration

    • Linux
    • Windows
    • Networking
    • Storage
  • Programming Languages

    • PowerShell
    • Perl
    • Python
    • Ruby
    • etc.
  • Tools

    • Configuration Management
    • Monitoring
    • etc.
The System Administration Fundamentals category would contain books like
  • Kim, Gene, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win. Portland, OR: IT Revolution, 2013. Print.
  • Limoncelli, Tom. Time Management for System Administrators. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly, 2006. Print.
  • Limoncelli, Tom, Christina J. Hogan, and Strata R. Chalup. The Practice of System and Network Administration. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2007. Print.
These are all books about the profession without being specific to an operating system or language.
 
The Python section might contain the O'Reilly Programming Python book, the Configuration Management section might contain Pro Puppet and Customizing Chef. To be clear, the idea is not to provide a list of every book published in the field, but the books that you, our members, feel are indispensable in learning the field of sysadmin administration or a specific task; and that you feel are the best resources available.

To that end, I want to ask you, what books would you recommend and do you think belong on this list? What books can you not live without in doing system administration tasks? Are there sections or categories that you think are missing from the list above? Let me know at president@lopsa.org, and I will be collating and publishing a list on lopsa.org before the next issue of the LOPSAgram comes out.