What is Platform Engineering?
Platform engineering is a field of software engineering in product development engineering that focuses on building and maintaining the infrastructure and tools that software developers need to create and deploy applications. It is becoming increasingly important as software organizations adopt DevOps practices, which emphasize the collaboration between developers and operations teams.
Platform engineering services can help software organizations to:
- Improve the developer experience by providing them with self-service access to infrastructure and tools.
- Accelerate the delivery of customer value by automating the process of building and deploying applications.
- Reduce the cost of software development by streamlining processes and eliminating waste.
Gartner predicts that by 2026, approximately 80% of software engineering organizations will have dedicated platform teams focused on constructing Internal Developer Platforms. This is because platform engineering is essential for organizations that want to be successful in the cloud-native era.
In simpler terms, platform engineering’s meaning is about making it easier for developers to do their jobs. By providing them with the right tools and infrastructure, platform engineers can help developers to build and deploy applications faster and more easily. This can lead to a number of benefits for software organizations, including improved time to market, reduced costs, and increased customer satisfaction.
Rise Of Internal Developer Platforms
Platform engineering solutions refers to the development of Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) or engineering platforms that developers, data scientists, or end users can use to speed up application delivery.
In essence, Identity Providers (IDPs) function as a user-friendly operational interface situated between end-users and the backend services that drive the platform. The objective is to modernize the process of application development and achieve desired business results quickly.
Who takes care of these engineering platforms? Product teams. These product teams look at the required platforms as “products”.
IDP builders responsibility:
- To create IDPs that are specifically designed for the needs of the company’s application development and the unique challenges that come with it.
- Are packaged with capabilities that development teams can consume to drive their initiatives
- Provide self-service capabilities to keep developers in control of what they want to achieve
- Automated infrastructure operations can help businesses to streamline their processes, reduce disruption, and continuously innovate.
- Utilize reusable components to enable more extensive cross-departmental adoption
Is Platform Engineering Challenging?
Consolidating deep tech to address the businesses’ pain points and technical or operational requirements from a granular perspective.
Managing products (platforms) according to the business needs – meaning that platform engineers need to essentially be product managers at some level.
Recording the self-service functionalities and their corresponding workflows, enabling ongoing enhancements and fostering innovation.
But these challenges can be warded off if a competent platform team is put in place to take care of the infrastructure. Development teams also gain significant rewards, as they can quickly and effectively develop and launch applications in the market by harnessing the capabilities of these platforms, both quickly and on a large scale.
What is platform engineering vs devops?
DevOps, despite being a contemporary operational paradigm, presents multiple challenges. The fundamental DevOps principle of “You build it, you own it” is not always feasible, mainly because DevOps teams typically lack the expertise to handle complex tasks such as configuration updates, the addition of dependencies, or the integration of additional services.
Ideally, developers require a dedicated platform team capable of constructing and maintaining a foundational platform equipped with self-service capabilities to facilitate seamless application development initiatives. The key distinction here lies in the fact that while DevOps encourages close collaboration among all teams, platform engineering allows platform engineers and developers to function autonomously. While engineers do collaborate with developers to comprehend their unique requirements and tailor the platform to meet business needs, developers can operate independently in most other aspects of their work.
Benefits of Platform Engineering
- Reduced Friction
Paul Delory, VP Analyst at Gartner, says that “non-expert end users are often asked to operate an assembly of complicated arcane services.” The field of platform engineering has emerged to eliminate this friction and deal with the increasing complexity of modern software designs.
- Greater Speed
Platform engineering focuses on automating common workflows and paths. For example, By empowering developers with the ability to automate the code delivery process, employ automated test cases, and independently deploy applications, they become more proficient in expediting the delivery of their solutions to the market.
- Improved Developer Productivity & Experience
Developers are familiar with internal tools designed to assist them in navigating the intricacies of cloud-native development and embarking on the widely advocated “shift left” journey. Having this internal tooling also enables faster interactive prototyping and continuous delivery for the customers. Ultimately, this reduces the “cognitive load” on development teams and improves their experiences.
- Reduced Fragmentation
Developers are usually responsible for handling a host or things such as security, operations, misconfigurations, etc. All these facets require knowledge and adeptness at operating different tools and technologies. Platform engineering can effectively reduce this fragmentation and inconsistency. Platform engineers can resolve these challenges by consolidating various services and tools, even in the case of highly complex tasks such as application troubleshooting.
- Continuous Performance Improvement
It’s not that the platforms are static. Take cloud platforms, for example. Engineers working behind the scenes consistently enhance workflows, tailor the platform’s capabilities, and occasionally introduce new features. Thus, continuous improvement stands as a fundamental aspect of this discipline.
Does Your Business Need Platform Engineering Consulting?
Are you working on distributed, complex development projects? If you find yourself unable to execute self-service operations, like having precise control over development environments or establishing the necessary platforms for your developers, then it’s the right moment for your business to adopt the principles of Platform Engineering. This transition not only aids developers in enhancing their efficiency but also empowers your organization to cultivate the internal capabilities required for scalability and innovation.
If you are looking for platform consulting services to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your software development and delivery processes. By working with experienced consultants, you can get the help you need to build a platform that can support your organization’s needs.
For more information about platform engineering and how to get it right for your needs, contact us.
