Web Operations: Keeping the Data on Time

Foreword
Preface

1. Web Operations: The Career
-Why Does Web Operations Have It Tough?
-From Apprentice to Master
-Conclusion

2. How Picnik Uses Cloud Computing: Lessons Learned
-Where the Cloud Fits (and Why!)
-Where the Cloud Doesn't Fit (for Picnik)
-Conclusion

3. Infrastructure and Application Metrics
-Time Resolution and Retention Concerns
-Locality of Metrics Collection and Storage
-Layers of Metrics
-Providing Context for Anomaly Detection and Alerts
-Log Lines Are Metrics, Too
-Correlation with Change Management and Incident Timelines
-Making Metrics Available to Your Alerting Mechanisms
-Using Metrics to Guide Load-Feedback Mechanisms
-A Metrics Collection System, Illustrated: Ganglia
-Conclusion

4. Continuous Deployment
-Small Batches Mean Faster Feedback
-Small Batches Mean Problems Are Instantly Localized
-Small Batches Reduce Risk
-Small Batches Reduce Overhead
-The Quality Defenders' Lament
-Getting Started
-Continuous Deployment Is for Mission-Critical Applications
-Conclusion

5. Infrastructure As Code
-Service-Oriented Architecture
-Conclusion

6. Monitoring
-Story: "The Start of a Journey"
-Step 1: Understand What You Are Monitoring
-Step 2: Understand Normal Behavior
-Step 3: Be Prepared and Learn
-Conclusion

7. How Complex Systems Fail
-How Complex Systems Fail
-Further Reading

8. Community Management and Web Operations

9. Dealing with Unexpected Traffic Spikes
-How It All Started
-Alarms Abound
-Putting Out the Fire
-Surviving the Weekend
-Preparing for the Future
-CDN to the Rescue
-Proxy Servers
-Corralling the Stampede
-Streamlining the Codebase
-How Do We Know It Works?
-The Real Test
-Lessons Learned
-Improvements Since Then

10. Dev and Ops Collaboration and Cooperation
-Deployment
-Shared, Open Infrastructure
-Trust
-On-call Developers
-Avoiding Blame
-Conclusion

11. How Your Visitors Feel: User-Facing Metrics
-Why Collect User-Facing Metrics?
-What Makes a Site Slow?
-Measuring Delay
-Building an SLA
-Visitor Outcomes: Analytics
-Other Metrics Marketing Cares About
-How User Experience Affects Web Ops
-The Future of Web Monitoring
-Conclusion

12. Relational Database Strategy and Tactics for the Web
-Requirements for Web Databases
-How Typical Web Databases Grow
-The Yearning for a Cluster
-Database Strategy
-Database Tactics
-Conclusion

13. How to Make Failure Beautiful: The Art and Science of Postmortems
-The Worst Postmortem
-What Is a Postmortem?
-When to Conduct a Postmortem
-Who to Invite to a Postmortem
-Running a Postmortem
-Postmortem Follow-Up
-Conclusion

14. Storage
-Data Asset Inventory
-Data Protection
-Capacity Planning
-Storage Sizing
-Operations
-Conclusion

15. Nonrelational Databases
-NoSQL Database Overview
-Some Systems in Detail
-Conclusion

16. Agile Infrastructure
-Agile Infrastructure
-So, What's the Problem?
-Communities of Interest and Practice
-Trading Zones and Apologies
-Conclusion

17. Things That Go Bump in the Night (and How to Sleep Through Them)
-Definitions
-How Many 9s?
-Impact Duration Versus Incident Duration
-Datacenter Footprint
-Gradual Failures
-Trust Nobody
-Failover Testing
-Monitoring and History of Patterns
-Getting a Good Night's Sleep

Appendix: Contributors

Index