About the Book

DevOps. It's one of those buzzwords that everyone wants a part of. DevOps has transformed the way many organizations build and deliver software to customers. It can help you too!

When you say 'DevOps', you can't get away from cloud computing. The cloud model natively adheres to many DevOps philosophies. Microsoft has built a cloud in Azure that rivals the biggest player in the cloud game (AWS). But many new to the DevOps way of culture, thinking and tooling don't even know where to start. If this sounds familiar, this book is for you.

Is this book for you?

This book is for anyone in IT or software engineering that wants to learn more about DevOps and, specifically, how to follow DevOps practices in Azure. Whether you're a system administrator, engineer, developer or IT manager, this book will help you understand what it takes to deliver more value to customers with DevOps using Azure.

Learn how to use popular DevOps tools

The book is split into two parts, Tools and your DevOps journey. In Part I, you will learn, hands-on, how to get started with over a dozen popular tools to establish a strong DevOps presence in your organization. These tools include:

1. Git and GitHub
2. Azure Boards
3. Azure Pipelines
4. Ansible
5. Terraform
6. Kubernetes
7. Docker
8. ...and more!

Each chapter in Part I will provide an excellent understanding of each tool and also how to use it by building a real project. Part I chapters will prepare you for what's to come in Part II.

Build a real project the DevOps way

Part II is where your DevOps journey begins. Part II is broken into milestones. This part assumes you're in your DevOps infancy and proceeds to teach you, hands-on, how to collaborate with others, build, deploy and eventually maintain a real-world application.

Part II is broken up into five primary milestones with various chapters based on a real project. Basing the entire journey from the eyes of a team and an example project, you will follow the progress of an organization to:

1. Get buy-in from coworkers and management
2. Implement continuous integration (CI) with GitHub and Azure DevOps
3. Implement continuous delivery/deployment (CD) with ARM templates, Terraform and Azure Virtual Machines
4. Learn how to monitor Azure cloud infrastructure and application with Azure Monitor and Application Insights
5. Take DevOps tooling to the next level with Docker, Kubernetes, and serverless technologies

By the time you're done working side-by-side on a real project with the authors in Part II, you will have the skills to be successful at any DevOps project in Azure.

Come with authors, Adam Bertram and Michael Levan, as they guide you through your next DevOps journey in Azure!

Testimonials

My firm is moving towards DevOps and there really hasn't been a concise book like this that encompasses the full experience. This one brings all of the various thoughts together and really provides an experience that isn't interrupted by jumping around to other sources to fill the gaps. I've already recommended this book to my entire team. Feel free to include my thoughts on anything you need along with my name. 

-Soloman Stroup

This is easily one of the most effective books I’ve read in the past few months with its end-to-end examples. Really easy to bring into your everyday life, yet powerful enough to be cautious about how you use the content. This book covers multiple important subjects that every DevOps engineer should know from architecture, infrastructure, testing, deploying, monitoring, and tracking issues. What I also like about From Admin to DevOps is that it covers something that other similar books ignore which is Azure Boards in DevOps environments.

-Mohsin Yasin, Cloud Solution Architect

An invaluable reference on how to get started with DevOps in Azure using a "hit the ground running" approach. The content is rich yet not overly complex. When reading through the book I felt I was being mentored quickly and straight to the point without compromising on fundamentals and quality. If you are an on-premises Admin like myself and looking to get started in the cloud space but don’t know where to begin, this is an invaluable reference. Cloud platforms will push you towards Infrastructure as Code as cloud operates at scale. Adam and Michael will walk you through some of the most popular tools in DevOps in order to embrace the Infrastructure as Code methodologies. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to start a journey with DevOps in Azure or even other cloud platforms.

-Francisco Navarro

About the Authors

Adam Bertram

@adbertram

Adam Bertram is a 20+ year veteran of IT and an experienced online business professional. He’s a consultant, Microsoft MVP, blogger, trainer, published author and content marketer for multiple technology companies. Catch up on Adam’s articles at adamtheautomator.com, connect on LinkedIn, or follow him on Twitter at @adbertram.

Michael Levan

@TheNJDevOpsGuy

Michael Levan is a seasoned engineer and consultant in the Kubernetes and Platform Engineering space who spends his time working with startups and enterprises around the globe on Kubernetes consulting, training, and content creation. He is a trainer, 4x published author, podcast host, international public speaker, CNCF Ambassador, and was part of the Kubernetes v1.28 and v1.31 Release Team.

Want to see what he is up to? https://www.michaellevan.net/