Book · 2014
The Practice of Cloud System Administration
by Thomas A. Limoncelli
Limoncelli's sequel to the sysadmin bible, rebuilt for teams who rent their servers by the hour instead of racking them.
What does Reddit think of The Practice of Cloud System Administration?
Ten mentions, and most of them aren't really about this book at all. It mostly shows up as one line inside larger 'here's what to read' comments in r/sysadmin, usually right after its own predecessor, The Practice of System and Network Administration Volume 1. One comment (↑57) names it directly and correctly, crediting Thomas Limoncelli and listing the DevOps and SRE framing right out of the subtitle. The rest of the displayed excerpts talk around it: a thread about container tooling drifting away from Docker, a debate over how recent SELinux actually is, a devops conference-and-books list (↑21) that runs through The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project without landing on this specific volume. r/devops contributes exactly one reference here against r/sysadmin's nine. Nobody in these excerpts argues with the book's content directly. It survives as a citation inside somebody else's bibliography, not as the topic of its own thread.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · cloud and SRE practices as the sequel to classic sysadmin
- · Limoncelli's system administration series
- · operational discipline for web services
- · reading lists as the book's actual home on Reddit
Common praise
- + One comment (↑57) gets the author and both volumes right, which is more than most citations manage.
- + It keeps getting bundled with The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project on r/devops lists, company most sysadmin books don't keep.
- + Reddit treats it as the natural next purchase after Volume 1, not a separate decision to argue over.
Common criticism
- − Nobody quoted here actually discusses a chapter, an SRE practice, or anything specific from the book.
- − It rides on Volume 1's reputation more than it builds its own; most citations name both books together.
- − One devops mention against nine sysadmin ones suggests the DevOps crowd this book targets barely brings it up.
Who it's for
Already own Volume 1? This gets presented as the next purchase, not a separate decision, in the one comment here that gets the whole series right. If you manage services that live on someone else's servers instead of your own rack, that's the gap this volume is supposed to fill, per its own subtitle. Don't expect Reddit to argue you into it chapter by chapter: what's here is bibliography-drop material, not a live debate about the book's actual advice.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Practice of Cloud System Administration?
The most relevant excerpts across the subreddits where this book is mentioned — opinionated, argued takes first, then top-upvoted mentions. Click through to read the full thread.
“First of all you should decouple the the idea of containerization from docker. Docker is not what it once was in terms of market penetration and pretty much everyone is moving away from docker to different containerization tooling. As to your actual question: It depends on what you consider "old-t…
“UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook, 5th Edition The Practice of System and Network Administration: Volume 1: DevOps and other Best Practices for Enterprise IT, 3rd Edition The Practice of Cloud System Administration: DevOps and SRE Practices for Web Services, Volume 2, 1st Edition
“It's not insane... but it's not ideal either. SELinux didn't launch until 2000, and that's a pretty significant change in Linux fundamentals. ----- Nerd Books: [Cisco CCNA Certification, 2 Volume Set: Exam 200-301](
“Author: Thomas A. Limoncelli Books: * Practice of System and Network Administration, The: DevOps and other Best Practices for Enterprise IT, Volume 1 3rd Edition * Practice of Cloud System Administration, The: DevOps and SRE Practices for Web Services, Volume 2 * Time Management for System Admi…
“Did you check the wiki? > >Read these books: >* The Practice of System and Network Administration, Second Edition, Third Edition (Current) >* UNIX and Linux System Administration Handbook (4th Edition), Fifth Edition (Current) >* The Practice of Cloud …
“**Conferences:** - DevOpsDays - Velocity Conference - DevOps Enterprise Summit - ChefConf - PuppetConf - AWS re:Invent - Monitorama - Surge - ScaleConf - Structure - RSA - GlassCon - meetup.com **Books:** - **The Phoenix Project** - Gene Kim - The Unicorn Project - Gene Kim - **The DevOp…
“- Measure What Matters - The Goal - Radical Candor - The Site Reliability Workbook - The Practice of Cloud System Administration - The Art of Monitoring
“This is a Fakespot Reviews Analysis bot. Fakespot detects fake reviews, fake products and unreliable sellers using AI. Here is the analysis for the Amazon product reviews: >**Name**: The Practice of Cloud System Administration: Designing and Operating Large Distributed Systems, Volume 2 >**Company**…
“The Practice Of Cloud System Administration was noted by another user here. Another solid book in my experience.
“Some good ones: - Unix and Linux Administrators Handbook - The Practice of Cloud System Administration volume 2
Convinced? Pick up The Practice of Cloud System Administration
Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with The Practice of Cloud System Administration — counted from the comments, not curated.
The Practice of Cloud System Administration — frequently asked
Is The Practice of Cloud System Administration worth reading after Volume 1?+
Reddit treats it as the default next step. One r/sysadmin comment (↑57) lists it directly as Thomas Limoncelli's Volume 2, right after Volume 1's Enterprise IT edition, with no hedging about whether to bother. No displayed excerpt argues against reading it as a follow-up.
What does r/sysadmin actually say about The Practice of Cloud System Administration?+
Mostly it names the book rather than reviews it. The clearest hit is a ↑57 comment listing Limoncelli's full bibliography, this title included by name and subtitle. Other displayed r/sysadmin threads talk around it, covering Docker's decline and SELinux history, without engaging its content directly.
Is The Practice of Cloud System Administration still relevant given how much containerization has changed?+
That question is live in the surrounding threads, though not aimed at this book by name. One ↑198 comment argues containerization should be decoupled from Docker specifically because 'pretty much everyone is moving away' from it, a shift this book's cloud-era framing would need to track, though no displayed excerpt evaluates that directly.
Does r/devops recommend The Practice of Cloud System Administration?+
Barely, based on what's tracked here. r/devops contributes one reference, inside a books-and-conferences list (↑21) that features The Phoenix Project and The Unicorn Project more prominently. This title doesn't get its own line in that specific excerpt.