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New Google SRE book: Building Secure and Reliable Systems

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Re: New Google SRE book: Building Secure and Reliable Systems

#181

Post by jxub »

jashmatthews wrote: post #142
lonelappde wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why we need strong open source or liberally licensed components to build with. Small companies need to work together to keep up with the complexity of modern systems

Small companies just need to avoid getting into anything complex.

Both points of view seem valid, but patronising 90% of the programmers will probably decrease their overall happiness and retention. Also, some small companies do solve hard problems with no easy solutions both in terms of business logic and/or infra requirements.

Re: New Google SRE book: Building Secure and Reliable Systems

#182

Post by jxub »

l9i wrote: post #179
jxub wrote: post #177

In a somewhat cynic remark (and having nothing against the authors), I cannot think of a better timing to assuage someone about Google's competency after the numerous outgages in GCP these weeks. The "Compliments of Google Cloud" sticker on the cover makes sure to reinforce the association.

In a somewhat snarky reply, I can assure you that the book release was planned long in advance, unlike the outages. ;) (disclaimer: I worked on the book)

Ah, sorry then, my bad.

Re: New Google SRE book: Building Secure and Reliable Systems

#184

Post by amouat »

mbrd wrote: post #21
xyst wrote: post #12

What does a lizard have to do with SRE?

O'Reilly-published books often have an animal on the cover. I don't think they are picked for relevance to the topic (even most of the Python books don't have pythons!) https://www.oreilly.com/content/a-short-history-of-the-oreil...

There's usually some reference, but it can be a bit cryptic. All the Docker books have a whale.

Re: New Google SRE book: Building Secure and Reliable Systems

#185

Post by MaxBarraclough »

Veserv wrote: post #57

I scanned the introduction, but failed to see any concrete information on the expertise of the authors on security. Can anybody speak to the expertise of the authors on security? In particular, I am interested in specific projects or initiatives they directed or lead. The state of systems before and after these projects. If there were any long-term regressions after their involvement. To be even more concrete if poss…

> Would you feel comfortable using the processes you have used in the past to develop a system where compromise would result in the loss of human life?

I don't think that's a fair question. Life-or-death software systems (such as avionics) are built using very different methodologies than ordinary software, and their development costs (and times) are orders of magnitude higher. If ordinary software were held to the same standard, almost no software development projects would pay for themselves.

Re: New Google SRE book: Building Secure and Reliable Systems

#186

Post by MaxBarraclough »

Looks like a valuable resource.

A bit surprised to see that in Building Secure and Reliable Systems, as far as I can tell the word reliable isn't given a precise definition, even when it's contrasted with security.

The preface opens with "Can a system ever truly be considered reliable if it isn’t fundamentally secure?" but the terms don't seem to be clarified anywhere. It appears not to mean the same thing as service availability, given the section on the CIA triad.

Am I missing something terribly obvious?

Re: New Google SRE book: Building Secure and Reliable Systems

#187

Post by l9i »

sethvargo wrote: post #18
xyst wrote: post #12

What does a lizard have to do with SRE?

Great question. As an O'Reilly author myself, I can tell you that we have no control over the animal selected. There's a fun animal selection process, but the publisher's decide. Disclaimer - I work for Google and worked on this book.

Confirmed. I was hoping for the platypus but it turns out it was already taken anyway.

You can check out the whole O'Reilly menagerie at https://www.oreilly.com/animals.csp.

(disclaimer: I worked on the book)

Re: New Google SRE book: Building Secure and Reliable Systems

#189

Post by luckylittle »

l9i wrote: post #111
malodyets wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks great — thanks Seth. Could you guys set the correct Content-Type on the EPUB? Should be application/epub+zip

Thanks for pointing this out, we're on it (other formats have a similar problem). (disclaimer: I work at Google)

Actually the epub is so badly formatted, that Google Play Books does not even process it and fails. When i run it through epubchecker/Calibre, it shows 215 errors. Probably something you want to look at.

Re: New Google SRE book: Building Secure and Reliable Systems

#190

Post by atmosx »

gentleman11 wrote: post #130
dijit wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The books read quite easy. The first book is just stories from google; it doesn’t really prescribe anything- it’s a collection of people talking about what SRE means to them and also how it fits together with “devops”. The second book (the SRE workbook) is more prescriptive, walks through practical ways of implementing it. The most base description of SRE principles is simply that: 1) You automate aggressively and de…

If somebody was in a hurry, which sections of which book should they start with?

Check out the YouTube videos on SRE by the Seth Vargo and friends at Google.
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