Best Practices for the SRE: Automation

IN THIS COURSE

• 1.  Course Overview
  1m 49s
  FREE ACCESS
• 2.  Automating Processes and Systems
  8m 39s
  In this video, you'll learn how to describe automation and its benefits. You'll learn that modern systems are getting larger and more complex to manage. Cloud-based distributed systems can consist of hundreds or thousands of individual resources working together. The days when one person can hold all that complexity in their head are gone. FREE ACCESS
• 3.  Scripting vs. Programming
  3m 30s
  In this video, you'll learn more about the choices for implementing automation. You can write scripts which contain the procedural steps of the automation, or you can rely on more sophisticated programming. Programs are typically more maintenance-intensive, but they can also be more powerful. You can rely on programs of your own or you can rely on programs from other trusted vendors to manage a sophisticated test environment. FREE ACCESS
• 4.  Evolution of Automation
  3m 46s
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• 5.  Quality and Consistency
  4m 10s
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• 6.  Platform
  3m 44s
  In this video, you'll learn more about the main benefit of automation. When repetitive tasks are done by machines instead of humans, they're done the same way every time. But there are many other advantages to automating systems. If you design your automation correctly, you'll have a platform that can be extended over time and iterated on like any other platform. FREE ACCESS
• 7.  Resolving Common Problems
  5m 25s
  In this video, you'll learn how to describe how automation can reduce the mean time to repair for common faults. You'll discover that as an SRE, you can automate the correction of common issues. This means faster repairs of issues result in a reduced mean time to repair. Mean time to repair is the average time it takes your organization to repair a failure. FREE ACCESS
• 8.  Quicker Reactions
  3m 30s
  In this video, you'll learn more about the commonality in small companies that hesitate to automate by management. This is because they are reluctant to lose control of manual processes. Instead, they see it as a risk. Managers tend to be concerned with a perceived loss of control when a system is run by machines instead of human beings. However, in order to grow in today's distributed software world, it's necessary. FREE ACCESS
• 9.  Efficiency
  3m 22s
  In this video, you'll learn more about the time saving benefits of automation. You'll learn that it's supposed to save time and free people up to do more important work. Everyone knows this rationale, not just from the software industry, but in all aspects of life. Think of appliances at home that automate your everyday chores or automation of manufacturing plants. FREE ACCESS
• 10.  Governance and Reliability
  3m 13s
  In this video, you'll learn more about governance of automated systems. You'll learn how reliant an automated organization is on its automation. This focuses on accuracy in business processes and the reliability of automation to ensure company processes are in accordance with legislation. FREE ACCESS
• 11.  Cost Savings
  4m 31s
  In this video, you'll learn more about how automation saves a company time and money and improves productivity. You'll learn that human interactions are labor-intensive and error-prone. When the release was automated via scripts, much of this was corrected. The scripts didn't require a lot of documentation because they were always run the same way. FREE ACCESS
• 12.  Metric Visibility
  5m 33s
  In this video, you'll learn more about automation metrics. You'll learn that there are a number of challenges when you begin to use automation metrics. There's also the danger of drawing incorrect conclusions from your metrics because you only have a partial picture. Some metrics in isolation might not give you the whole picture. This video outlines these challenges and looks at some common metrics in software testing automation. FREE ACCESS
• 13.  Challenges of Automation
  3m 46s
  In this video, you'll learn the common challenges of automation. You'll learn about integration compatibility and the return on investment. You'll also learn there are some challenges when it comes to convincing management about the benefits of automation. And that can be because they only see the initial startup cost, but don't do a full analysis of how that cost is mitigated over time. FREE ACCESS
• 14.  Automation for Site Reliability Engineers
  3m 36s
  In this video, you'll learn more about the value of automation for a site reliability engineer or SRE. You'll learn that as Google has grown to the point that manual management of processes is rarely an option, automation has become their default stance. These values magnify for the SRE when systems grow larger. They're consistency, machines are quicker than human beings at performing repetitive tasks, and generally machines are more reliable. FREE ACCESS
• 15.  Course Summary
  1m 31s
  In this video, you'll summarize what you've learned in the course. In this course, you've learned about the benefits and challenges associated with introducing automation into an organization and how automation can be used by Site Reliability engineers to improve operations and correct faults. You explored automation and its potential benefits and the difference between scripts and programs as they relate to automation. Other topics include the evolution of automation at different companies such as Google. FREE ACCESS