Python for Unix and Linux System Administration - New from O'Reilly

For Immediate Release
For more information, a review copy, cover art, or interview with the
authors, contact:
Kathryn Barrett (707) 827-7314 or kathrynb@oreilly.com

Python for Unix and Linux System Administration - New From O'Reilly
Efficient Problem Solving with Python

Sebastopol, CA--All languages are tools: simply a means to get work done.
They have value insofar as they help you get your job done better. So
state Noah Gift and Jeremy Jones in "Python for Unix and Linux System
Administration" (O'Reilly, US $49.99), adding, "We believe that Python is
a valuable tool, specifically because it enables you to get your work done
efficiently."

So is Python better than Perl, Bash, Ruby, or any other language? "It's
really difficult to put that sort of qualitative label on a programming
language, since the tool is so closely tied to the thought process of the
programmer who is using it," write Gift and Jones. "Programming is a
subjective, deeply personal activity. We're not going to argue that Python
is better, but we will explain the reasons that we believe Python can be
an excellent choice.  We'll also explain why it is a great fit for
programming sysadmin tasks."

"The art of systems administration has gotten more complex as
virtualization has taken a hold in the datacenter," explains Gift. "There
is a need for a way to tame the Wild West of Virtualization and Linux, and
Python is perhaps the perfect weapon. It is incredibly fast to code
one-off solutions to automate a task, but often those one off solutions
can--and do--turn into beautiful pieces of production code."

According to Gift, "Python for Unix and Linux System Administration"
should bring comfort to IT managers, small business owners, software
engineers, and yes, sysadmins.  "They could really plan a strategy in
which every component of the development strategy incorporated Linux and
Python," he says. "It really is possible to just about anything with
Python and Linux from building a website, to automating a datacenter, to
building really powerful command line tools."

Each chapter in "Python for Unix and Linux System Administration" presents
a particular administrative issue, such as concurrency or data backup, and
presents Python solutions through hands-on examples. When finished with
the book, readers will be able to develop their own set of command-line
utilities with Python to tackle a wide range of problems.

The authors also built a free, downloadable Ubuntu virtual machine that
includes the book's source code and runs examples with SNMO, IPython,
SQLAlchemy, and many others.  Discover how Python can help you:

- Read text files and extract information
- Run tasks concurrently using the threading and forking options
- Get information from one process to another using network facilities
- Create clickable GUIs to handle large and complex utilities
- Monitor large clusters of machines by interacting with SNMP
programmatically
- Master the IPython Interactive Python shell to replace or augment Bash,
Korn, or Z-Shell
- Integrate Cloud Computing into your infrastructure, and learn to write a
Google App Engine Application
- Solve unique data backup challenges with customized scripts
- Interact with MySQL, SQLite, Oracle, Postgres, Django ORM, and
SQLAlchemy

With this book and the complementary virtual machine, you'll learn to
package and deploy your Python applications and libraries, and write code
that runs equally well on multiple Unix platforms. 

For more information about the book, including table of contents, index,
author bios, and samples, see:
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596515829/

Python for Unix and Linux System Administration
Noah Gift and Jeremy M. Jones
ISBN: 978-0-596-51582-9, 433 pages, US $49.99
order@oreilly.com
1-800-998-9938
1-707-827-7000
http://www.oreilly.com
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