GitOps and Kubernetes: Continuous Deployment with Argo CD, Jenkins X, and Flux

by Billy Yuen, Alex Matyushentsev, Jesse Suen

GitOps and Kubernetes introduces a radical idea—managing your infrastructure with the same Git pull requests you use to manage your codebase. In this in-depth tutorial, you’ll learn to operate infrastructures based on powerful-but-complex technologies such as Kubernetes with the same Git version control tools most developers use daily. With these GitOps techniques and best practices, you’ll accelerate application development without compromising on security, easily roll back infrastructure changes, and seamlessly introduce new team members to your automation process.
about the technology
The tools to monitor and manage software delivery and deployment can be complex to set up and intimidating to learn, especially when you apply them to applications deployed using Docker and Kubernetes. Imagine instead of managing your entire Kubernetes infrastructure with Git pull requests! What might at first sound ridiculous is quickly becoming one of the most reliable ways to do Continuous Delivery. Dubbed “GitOps”, this new method uses Git as the “single source of truth” and allows you to manage your infrastructure as a codebase, just like you manage application code. Using declarative tools such as Kubernetes for automating deployment and scaling, GitOps gives you a single control interface, making it easy to assess and roll back changes.
about the book
GitOps and Kubernetes is half reference, half practical tutorial for operating Kubernetes the GitOps way. You’ll learn the GitOps best practices, techniques, and tools that simplify using Kubernetes to deliver enterprise-scale software faster, all without compromising on security. Through fast-paced chapters, you’ll unlock the benefits of GitOps for flexible configuration management, monitoring, robustness, multi-environment support, and discover tricks and tips for managing secrets in the unique GitOps fashion. When you’re done, you’ll be able to implement and manage a scalable Continuous Delivery pipeline that makes it easy to trace changes, rollback mistakes, and clearly validate and audit container deployments.

Genres: Technology, Computers, Software, Computer Science, Nonfiction

344 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 25, 2021

Reviews

[Sebastian Gebski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too shallow, too brief, too hastily written.
It feels like a glide over the topic - enough to get the overall idea, but far from giving you enough information to start with the technologies described: Argo CD, JX, or Flux.
Also, my version of the book (Kindle) could use some more diagrams/visualizations to clarify certain concepts - a good picture is worth 1000 words, and it seems that the author has forgotten that here.

There aren't that many books on GitOps approach, so there's definitely a niche here, but still - it's hard to recommend "GitOps and Kubernetes".
2.5-2.7 stars

[Eric · Rating 1 out of 5]

Definitely not recommended.

This book is at best a waste of time. It offers little value over the online documentation available for all the tools mentioned, but does provide often misleading or flat out incorrect advice.

Manning’s “Kubernetes in Action” and “Securing DevOps” are much better books on related topics. For ArgoCD, Jenkins X, and Flux, just RTFM.

[Semjon Kopp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book for the beginners, who just start with topics GitOps and Kubernetes.
The author makes good effort to cover many of K8s and GitOps related topics but sacrifices the depth of them. The book feels more like TLDR version of entire K8s and GitOps topic with examples not going deeper than you would find them in documentation of the described technologies. What the book lacks is real life examples or some personal experience or knowledge sharing of the author.

[Rohit Hegde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to GitOps and a bit of Kubernetes.
Plenty of concepts explored including the main idea about GitOps, how other aspects of software development work with it (secret management, git branching, tools supporting it) etc.
The best thing about is that the book provides the overall picture with plenty of knowledge nuggets and shows us where GitOps fits in.
Eg: The SRE nugget on alerting (four golden signals) was really good.
Do not go in with expectations of deep dives on tools like ArgoCD or Flux.

[Bashayr Alabdullah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing interested.

[Mikhail Mikhailov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good for beginners, but I want to more hands-on practice with ArgoCD or Flux, how to prepare git repository structure and etc.
Topic about Jenkins X is unclear.