Platform Engineering: A Complete Overview of the Main Advantages and Tools

An Internal Developer Platform (IDP) facilitates building software and optimizing workflows. Such solutions make it easier to expedite an app release. Coding teams deploy IDPs to work across multiple environments, control resource allocation and usage, track expenses, detect vulnerabilities, and maintain compliance. In this guide, we will consider the role of platform engineering (PE) in creating efficient toolchains, analyze the implementation of such practices, and discover how organizations use them to advance the programming process.

What is Platform Engineering?

PE is a methodology that allows coders to simplify collaboration between teams within an organization and improve cooperation. This approach facilitates onboarding and enables professionals to spend less time on administrative tasks. Such practices enable developers to remove bottlenecks and achieve a productivity boost. PE departments build powerful tools that help software engineers move through the different stages of their workflows quickly.

PE permits units to integrate a DevSecOps platform into their workflow and build a secure supply chain to accelerate app delivery. It enhances security, agility, and efficiency.

Different divisions use unique approaches when working on the tasks they were assigned. They create custom tools that will optimize maintenance and help software architects automate their processes.

We are confident that we have what it takes to help you get your platform from the idea throughout design and development phases, all the way to successful deployment in a production environment!

What is an Internal Developer Platform (IDP)?

IDPs are sets of self-service solutions built and deployed by PEs to improve app maintenance. Companies utilize IDPs to achieve better scalability, upgrade app security, and make their products more useful for the average client.

Teams look for specific technologies that can help them augment their experience. They choose tools depending on the objectives they want to achieve. Then, they gradually integrate other features to expand their scale of operations.

Platform Engineering vs DevOps

Similar to DevOps, PE enables coders to achieve better collaboration through automation. PE facilitates scaling DevOps across a specific company. While DevOps practices allow coders to deploy and manage apps independently, they may result in higher cognitive load and make it more challenging to work on current tasks.

In theory, the continuous delivery model was developed to expedite project completion. However, it resulted in expanded pipelines. Coders are now required to learn more about the details of every stage to understand how to make their processes more secure.

DevOps gives employees autonomy, but puts too much responsibility on their shoulders. In contrast, platform engineering is all about enhancing the user journey. This strategy makes it easier to use DevOps practices while automating app delivery, improving collaboration, eliminating errors, and achieving better compliance. It helps employees apply their efforts where their attention is necessary.

Platform Engineering Benefits

Development teams utilize PE systems to expedite the release of an app. Automated solutions and self-service tools allow them to expedite delivery. PE has multiple other upsides besides increasing teams’ productivity.

Consistent environment. Standardized practices make it easier to avoid potential variability issues.
Efficient workflow. PE tools streamline process orchestration and improve cooperation between development and DevOps teams.
Reduced workload. Companies embrace PE to focus on coding.
Top-grade security. Organizations deploy efficient practices to safeguard data and maintain compliance. It enables them to build an app that meets current standards.
Real-time monitoring. Teams utilize performance metrics and actual data to solve issues hindering app performance and make the development environment efficient.
Quick problem solving. Coders rely on PE to discover solutions to the issues they face and minimize downtime.
Higher quality. Teams have more time to focus on important projects and ensure that they meet professional standards. It makes their products reliable and enhances a positive image of the organization.

Besides, an experienced platform engineer can deploy and update products with ease. PE permits teams to scale programs depending on workloads.

Platform Engineering: A Complete Overview of the Main Advantages and Tools

Platform Engineering Tools

A PE team should develop and maintain an IDP to automate and speed up app delivery. Such systems allow them to access the available services even if they do not have a complete grasp of how they were built and deployed.

An IDP enhances productivity and enables teams to protect infrastructure components. However, building a custom IDP is cumbersome. It involves the utilization of multiple tools and elements. Below, we have briefly considered the main types of tools that enable developers to create an IDP fully meeting their criteria.

IDPs let specialists access resources quickly and manage environments without the assistance of operations professionals.
Kubernetes systems facilitate cloud resource management. Coders find the data they need via a custom API. They do not need to manually control infrastructure components and can spend more time working on their projects. PE professionals still need to control the policies they implement to remain compliant.
Data protection tools. Companies deploy dedicated solutions to safeguard sensitive data, including API and encryption keys, database passwords, and other information. Dedicated vaults automatically share data and services with employees who have the right to access them.
Monitoring tools. Technical divisions use open-source solutions to analyze metrics and logs. Such cost-effective products integrate with other products and make troubleshooting easier.
Observability tools. Employees use them with an IDP to analyze issues in a specific context.
FinOps solutions enable coding units to analyze Kubernetes clusters to discover how to minimize spending and implement more cost-effective workflows. Using them, developers can discover what apps they spend money on and what cloud solutions they use.
Platform orchestration systems automate resource allocation and workflow optimization.

Even though these tools may seem different, all of them serve the same main objective and are built to improve a developer’s experience. They enable staff members to track metrics to enhance productivity. For instance, developers use platforms with integrated AppSec tools to make their products secure. Employees deploy PE to standardize routines and build simple processes that are easy to repeat.

Principles of Platform Engineering

Businesses started to gradually recognize the potential advantages of IDPs and self-service solutions. Here are the main guidelines used by experienced staff who successfully implemented PE principles.

Set clear objectives. These goals may vary depending on a particular project. Some organizations build simpler workflows. They clarify what tasks the coding crew will have to complete and consider what steps they can take to deliver a product that will appeal to a target audience.
Develop a product-oriented mindset. Employees should think about building a product that will be valuable for customers and consider their feedback to improve it.
Prioritize common issues. The task of the engineering force is to check whether a specific problem has been solved before. If so, there is no need to allocate valuable resources to such tasks. Start by identifying the problems the staff has to deal with. Check whether it’s possible to prevent slowdowns by implementing the solutions that have already demonstrated their effectiveness.
Emphasize the significance of the platform engineering division’s efforts and show other employees that such engineers produce value. They ensure the seamless functioning of existing toolchains and improve cooperation between different departments.
Do not build alternatives to popular metrics dashboards or CI systems. While custom solutions may be more effective in some situations, you will spend a lot of resources. It will make it more challenging for you to outpace your competitors, who are likely to use more basic solutions.

Executives and project managers understand the importance of PE. Developers are the main beneficiaries of this approach, as it allows them to reduce the amount of time they spend on repetitive tasks.

Platform engineering maintains its significance due to the results this approach yields. Such practices, when successfully implemented, enable employees to spend less time on infrastructure maintenance. Trying to maintain a cutting edge over competitors, tech departments constantly master and integrate new tools. However, they might become less productive if they focus on too many things. PE permits them to access a standard architecture and generate value.