Platform Engineering

Streamlining DevOps for Enhanced Experiences and Results

Explore how platform engineering revolutionizes developer productivity by optimizing processes and enhancing collaboration. Discover how it streamlines DevSecOps workflows, ensuring efficiency and security across the development lifecycle.

Platform engineering: the crazy idea that DevSecOps should be user-friendly.

Ignoring developer experience (DevEx) is a luxury that enterprises can no longer afford in today's competitive landscape. The demand for software delivery that is not only efficient but also cost-effective is at an all-time high. This is where platform engineering comes into play as a solution, although it's important to note that implementing it successfully is no walk in the park. Get started here—or skip to the “easy button” and try CloudBees now.

Who is platform engineering for?

Organizations face common hurdles of software complexity, speed, and costs. Stay ahead by adopting platform engineering, or risk falling behind.

83%

of orgs are in adoption mode for platform engineering

80%

of orgs will have platform teams as internal providers by 2026

94%

agree that platform engineering helps realize the benefits of DevOps

42%

report that platform engineering increases development speed “a great deal”

What is platform engineering?

Platform engineering is an emerging discipline dedicated to reducing complexity—and cognitive load—for DevOps teams. Platform engineering team treat your platform as a product and your internal teams as the customers/users of that product. By dedicating themselves to improving DevEx, platform engineering allow DevOps and SRE personnel to focus on writing code instead of operational overhead.

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Platform engineering vs DevOps

Platform engineering does not replace DevOps (or, increasingly, DevSecOps)—it makes it easier. DevOps is a set of principles that guide modern SDLCs. But knowing what you want to do doesn’t help you do it. Platform engineering fills this gap by dedicating specialists, methodologies, and technologies exclusively to making life easier for DevOps teams. It’s about time.

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What do platform engineering teams do?

Platform engineering teams design and maintain internal developer platforms (IDPs) that serve as an abstraction layer between the components of your SDLC and your DevSecOps teams. Built to optimize DevEx and accelerate software delivery, IDPs provide self-service access to standardized tools, services, resources, and workflows tailored to your teams’ needs. The goal is continuously refining golden paths that balance DevSecOps autonomy and creativity against organizational security, governance, and efficiency requirements.

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Engineering "better" into every part of DevSecOps

IDPs increase happiness and improve productivity for developers by providing access to self-service toolchains that reduce friction and cognitive load. The benefits to your SDLC are numerous:

  • Golden paths for everyone

    Challenge: Architectural gaps, missing tools, instability, poor integrations, inflexibility, and tool sprawl. When your teams are fighting platform deficiencies, they are not making great software.

    Solution: Platform engineers build team-tailored golden paths with self-service workflows, improving DevEx and speeding up software delivery.

  • Security, compliance, & governance

    Challenge: When chaos reigns, security, compliance, and governance are out the window. Breaches might be your greatest concern, but failures here threaten every business objective.

    Solution: Embed security, compliance, and governance checks at the platform level. Passing these checks becomes compulsory org-wide.

  • Different teams, different needs

    Challenge: Distinct needs across DevSecOps and platform teams are among the greatest drivers of operational complexity and cognitive load. How do you balance these needs against efficiency concerns?

    Solution: Provide guardrails, not barriers. Tools and services are standardized, but teams retain autonomy to choose the best tools for their specific challenges.

  • Scalability on tap

    Challenge: What works for a few small teams often crashes and burns as your teams—and their ambitions—grow.

    Solution: Support scalability, enabling efficient resource management, quick adaptation, and streamlined processes with low cognitive load.

  • Happy developers, happy customers

    Challenge: Oppressive cognitive overhead inhibits creativity and productivity, resulting in low morale, burnout, and attrition.

    Solution: Freeing DevSecOps and platform teams to focus on code maximizes job satisfaction, reducing burnout and turnover so your teams produce better products faster.

  • More efficiency = less TTM

    Challenge: Friction in your SDLC is friction in your time to market, and launch delays imperil even the best business plans.

    Solution: Boost productivity and accelerate product releases by abstracting complexity and automating workflows to streamline SDLCs within your platform.

New discipline, new growing pains

Your platform will only be as good as your platform engineers and development teams—and their tools. The goal is to double down on anything that increases developer productivity, but that requires avoiding common pitfalls:

"Any platform will do" syndrome

IDPs don’t automatically succeed. If they fail to meet your teams’ needs and pain points, DevOps teams will grumble, scapegoat the platform team, and seek workarounds.

Security & compliance don’t just happen

While an internal developer platform (IDP) can bake security and compliance into your SDLC, this takes considerable effort. Your platform isn’t a net gain if it leads to data breaches and failure to meet standards.

One size doesn’t fit all

Building golden paths isn’t easy. The trick is providing roads for DevSecOps while allowing for the occasional off-road venture. Your platform must support technologies that don’t yet exist.

Costs won’t control themselves

Failure to build cost controls into your platform can create a budgetary death spiral. Improving efficiency across your SDLC doesn’t help if your compute bill kills your company.

Ignore DevEx at your peril

Your platform will only succeed if your DevOps teams want to use it. A good rule of thumb? If you have to force your developers to use their IDP, you’ve built a bad platform.

Remember: it’s a business

Bad things happen when platforms fail to align with business objectives: resource misallocation, reduced productivity, decreased ROI, and an inability to respond to market changes.

Essential Resources for Platform Engineers

Explore key resources curated to enhance internal developer platforms and drive excellence in platform engineering.

Survey Report

Platform Engineering in 2023: Rapid Adoption and Impact

Our research reveals key insights into how rapid adoption of platform engineering is shaping the future of software delivery—as it creates new challenges.

Blog

Platform Engineering Best Practices

Learn from our best practices on how to avoid common pitfalls as you build out and scale platform engineering.

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Platform Engineering: Revolutionizing DevOps Workflows for Enhanced Experiences and Improved Results

Learn more about the transformative impact of platform engineering on developer productivity and how IDPs streamline DevSecOps at scale.

Blog

Understanding Internal Developer Platforms in Software Development

Discover the benefits of internal developer platforms and how they enhance productivity. Learn about critical criteria, best practices, and CloudBees' approach.

Webinar

The Rise of Platform Engineering

Discover the power of platform engineering in accelerating software delivery and fostering collaboration. Join Robert Boyd, VP of SaaS Engineering at CloudBees, and Jason Mimick, Senior Partner Solution Architect at AWS, to explore how it enhances DevOps.

Webinar

The Evolution of DevOps: Spotlight on Platform Engineering

Discover the impact of platform engineering in DevOps. Learn why it matters, how it boosts efficiency, and its future trends in this insightful webinar. Benefit your DevOps practice now!

We’ve been platform engineering since before it was called that

For organizations looking to implement platform engineering, starting from scratch isn't necessary. CloudBees platform provides a key tool for managing CI/CD processes to boost developer efficiency and optimize DevSecOps workflows. Try it now for free.

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