The overwhelming majority of a software system's lifespan is spent in use, not in design or implementation. So, why does conventional wisdom insist that software engineers focus primarily on the design and development of large-scale computing systems? In this collection of essays and articles, key members of Google's Site Reliability Team explain how and why their commitment to the entire lifecycle has enabled the company to successfully build, deploy, monitor, and maintain some of the largest software systems in the world. You'll learn the principles and practices that enable Google engineers to make systems more scalable, reliable, and efficient-lessons directly applicable to your organization. This book is divided into four sections: Introduction-Learn what site reliability engineering is and why it differs from conventional IT industry practices Principles-Examine the patterns, behaviors, and areas of concern that influence the work of a site reliability engineer (SRE) Practices-Understand the theory and practice of an SRE's day-to-day work: building and operating large distributed computing systems Management-Explore Google's best practices for training, communication, and meetings that your organization can use

Chris is a Site Reliability Engineer for Google App Engine, a cloud platform-as-a-service product serving over 28 billion requests per day. Based in San Francisco, he has previously been responsible for the care and feeding of Google's advertising statistics, data warehousing, and customer support systems. In other lives, Chris has worked in academic IT, analyzed data for political campaigns, and engaged in some light BSD kernel hacking, picking up degrees in Computer Engineering, Economics, and Technology Policy along the way. He's also a licensed professional engineer.Niall Murphy leads the Ads Site Reliability Engineering team at Google Ireland. He has been involved in the Internet industry for about 20 years, and is currently chairperson of INEX, Ireland's peering hub. He is the author or co-author of a number of technical papers and/or books, including "IPv6 Network Administration" for O' Reilly, and a number of RFCs. He is currently co-writing a history of the Internet in Ireland, and he is the holder of degrees in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Poetry Studies, which is surely some kind of mistake. He lives in Dublin with his wife and two sons.