Nose in a book

I don’t spend quite as much time reading books as I’d like to, in fact I think my new years resolution this year might be to read more IT books.

In this world of blog posts, white papers, online articles, webinars, and video it’s easy to overlook the more traditional material (even in eBook form)- but it’s still probably my best option for taking some time out and focusing in depth on a subject. Looking back at last year, here’s some of the new (to me) books I read in 2015.

Installing and Configuring Windows Server 2012R2: Exam Ref 70-410. This was one of my core reading materials for the Microsoft MCP exam which I passed in 2015 so I’d definitely recommend it to anyone planning on sitting 70-410.

The Phoenix Project. This DevOps tutorial written as a novel took me two attempts to get through (first time round Patty’s comments kept jarring me out of the story), but in the end it was worth it. There’s lots of useful pointers in here (the highlighter on my Kindle had a workout at times) and plenty of references to other sources to look at. If you’re at all interested in DevOps, or even if you just want your IT operation to run smoother then I’d recommend giving this a go and sticking with it.

Following the theme, I also read “What is DevOps?” by Mike Loukides. Partly drawn to this because it’s FREE on Kindle :). It’s short at 18 pages (still great value!) but sometimes it’s useful to have these short texts to dip into a subject briefly.

When time allows I’ve currently got my nose in the Training Guide Administering Windows Server 2012R2 by Orin Thomas and the Exam Ref for 70-411 by Charlie Russel. Hopefully that’s something I’ll be sitting down to this year.

Last, but not least, my Kindle is usually stacked with some of the free eBooks available from Microsoft here including Introducing Windows 10 for IT Professionals, Preview Edition by Ed Bott.