Platform engineering best practices for data centers
Platform engineering is an emerging discipline that optimizes DevOps workflows with internal developer platforms. It enhances efficiency through automation and standardized tools.
Demand for faster application development cycles requires streamlined DevOps workflow. The emerging discipline of platform engineering provides immediate access to common, reusable tools that simplify application builds and deployments to achieve these goals.
The key attributes of internal developer platforms (IDP) are standardization, scalability, automation and self-service. Developers employ these features to gain greater autonomy and efficiency.
Platform engineering extends to empowering developers and establishes a foundation for newer innovations, such as distributed services, API management, DevSecOps, generative AI and machine learning operations.
Best practices for IDP implementation
The following represents important steps and best practices that IT leaders should focus on as they consider transitioning to IDP adoption.
1. Produce a mission statement
An effective IDP tailors to the specific needs of the developers who use it. The first step in platform engineering is to formulate a mission statement to guide the transition process and define the goals. It should state the overarching goals of the business and clearly define the roles of individual developers or the DevOps team within an organization.
2. Promote leadership buy-in and initiate an action plan
An IDP reduces administrative costs, streamlines developer workflows and thoroughly documents build processes. For organizations and IT leaders, a well-supported, proactive management approach is crucial. Executive buy-in and backing ensure that platform engineering will persist as a long-term investment to effectively handle development challenges as the business expands.
3. Understand platform consumers
The goal of IDP adoption is to improve the development process. It's crucial to clearly identify the development platform consumers and gather information on skill sets, core capabilities and build-cycle issues, all of which will inform platform design. IDP features should be based on a holistic assessment that identifies development pain points. They should also ensure must-have capabilities and standardized workflows for efficient end-to-end experiences.
4. Take a product approach
IT leaders plan to streamline development through IDP deployment and take a platform-as-product approach to focus on the exact tooling, frameworks and features that developers require. As companies move forward with adoption, they can choose from open source or proprietary software.
An IDP reduces administrative costs, streamlines developer workflows and thoroughly documents build processes.
Start small and focus on a tangible goal, such as security, to garner buy-in from both developers and business stakeholders. For example, consistency and standardization in developer workflows ensure build integrity and result in greater security baked into software from the start of development.
Benefits of a unified IDP
Platform engineering provides a self-service delivery model, which ensures access to curated tools that replace repetitive manual tasks and reduce the IT burden. As a result, developers can innovate faster without concern for logistics and don't need to acquire specialized infrastructure knowledge. Once platform standards are in place, DevOps teams and programmers gain stability along with the assurance that critical build components are available.
Business and IT leaders must take a proactive approach to platform engineering to offset developers' tendencies to adopt their own tools and workarounds. These create fragmented development silos that slow down production and introduce new vulnerabilities.
In contrast, organizations that rely on IDP automation can maintain security measures. Platform engineering, for example, ensures that secure coding practices are built into software development from the start.
Organizations must identify their core development needs. For smaller companies, the relevance of platform engineering and investment can be hard to justify, yet an IDP can be a stepping stone to further growth. For larger companies, the value of IDP adoption is based on the expansion of other IT resources, such as software development, client services, data center functions and networking. Ultimately, ensuring synergy between IT components and efficiency makes long-term economic sense for companies of any size.
The challenge rests in recognizing how to handle development complications as the business expands. According to recent research by Gartner Hype Cycle, more companies are choosing platform engineering as their primary productivity discipline. Successful adoption revolves around identifying key goals for this engineering approach and what will drive value.
For example, an emphasis on greater security at every stage of the development process is important for smaller organizations. On the other hand, gaining consistency across development, IT and business teams is critical for larger companies.
Focus on an end-to-end experience
Platform engineering hasn't matured to the point where product vendors offer plug-and-play software, such as PaaS or productivity suites. Rather, companies can uniquely tailor prebuilt software to meet certain needs and assemble off-the-shelf or open-source components to specifically address organizational and development requirements.
Pros and cons of PaaS.
Platform engineering KPIs measure success and ensure that an IDP simplifies and streamlines workflows. Platform Engineering Slack is a useful resource to learn and compare notes with others engaged in IDP deployment.
In the same way that DevOps methodologies evolved to make the discipline essential for large-scale application builds, automated IDPs offer new potential for meeting the requirements of next-generation technologies.
Kerry Doyle has written about technology, business and higher education for a variety of publications and organizations. His current focus is on issues relevant to IT and enterprise leaders across a range of topics, from nanotech to the cloud to microservices.
