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Platform Engineering: Deep Dive

Frank Khan Sullivan
Frank Khan Sullivan

Platform engineering is the topic du jour. In this online event, we take a deep dive into how platform engineering is evolving, offer some definitional constraints and provide guidance for IT leaders and platform practitioners to take their game to the next level.

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Platform engineering is crucial in enabling businesses to develop, deploy, and manage their applications more effectively, ensuring they can meet the demands of their customers and the market. It’s that simple. Although the discipline is evolving, we have to think about the definition of platform - the interfaces, processes and services - squeezed between the infrastructure layer and the various application / DevOps teams consuming the platform.

The Importance of Platform Engineering for Businesses

The significance of platform engineering for businesses cannot be overstated. In an era where digital presence and agility are paramount, having a robust, scalable, and efficient platform is crucial. Platform engineering enables businesses to accelerate their development cycles, improve the reliability of their services, and enhance the overall user experience. 

This, in turn, leads to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty, which are key drivers of business growth. Moreover, platform engineering supports businesses in their scalability and flexibility efforts. As businesses grow, their technology needs evolve. Platform engineering ensures that the underlying infrastructure and services can scale and adapt to these changing needs without compromising performance or reliability.

Relationship to SRE and DevOps

Platform engineering is closely related to Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and DevOps, two other key disciplines within the technology sector. While there is overlap among these roles, each has its distinct focus and contribution to the technology stack. 

SRE focuses on creating scalable and highly reliable software systems. SRE professionals apply a software engineering approach to system administration topics, with the aim of automating and optimising system performance and reliability. 

DevOps, on the other hand, is a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops) with the goal of shortening the system development life cycle and providing continuous delivery with high software quality.

Platform engineering complements both SRE and DevOps by focusing on the broader platform that hosts the services and applications. It involves designing the platform's architecture, choosing the right technologies, and ensuring that the platform is secure, scalable, and efficient. While SRE and DevOps might focus on specific operational or development processes, platform engineering takes a holistic view of the technology stack, ensuring that it is optimally designed and managed.

Top Trends in Platform Engineering

Several trends are currently shaping the field of platform engineering, reflecting the rapid advancements in technology and the changing needs of businesses:

Cloud-Native Technologies: The adoption of cloud-native technologies, such as containers, microservices, and Kubernetes, is on the rise. These technologies offer unparalleled scalability and flexibility, making them ideal for modern platform engineering.

Infrastructure as Code (IaC): IaC is becoming a standard practice in platform engineering. It allows engineers to manage infrastructure using code, which improves efficiency, consistency, and reliability in infrastructure provisioning and management.

Serverless Architectures: Serverless computing, where the cloud provider dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources, is gaining popularity. It allows businesses to build and run applications and services without thinking about servers, significantly reducing operational complexity and costs.

AI and Machine Learning Integration: Integrating AI and machine learning capabilities into platforms is becoming more common. This integration can improve the efficiency of operations, provide advanced analytics, and enhance user experiences.

Observability and Monitoring: As platforms become more complex, the importance of advanced observability and monitoring tools increases. These tools help in understanding the system's state and diagnosing issues, ensuring high reliability and performance.

What Platform Engineers Should Look Out For

Platform engineers should be vigilant about several aspects to ensure the success and reliability of the platforms they manage:

  • Security: With increasing cyber threats, platform security should be a top priority. This includes securing the infrastructure, applications, and data, and adhering to best practices and compliance standards.
  • Performance and Scalability: As user bases grow and usage patterns change, platforms need to scale efficiently without degrading performance. Engineers should focus on designing scalable architectures and continuously monitoring and optimising performance.
  • Cost Management: Cloud and infrastructure costs can spiral if not managed carefully. Platform engineers should employ cost-optimisation strategies and tools to ensure that resources are used efficiently.
  • Continuous Learning: The technology landscape is continuously evolving. Platform engineers should stay abreast of the latest trends, technologies, and best practices to ensure they are leveraging the best tools and techniques for their platforms.

Key Takeaway

Platform engineering is an essential discipline in the modern technology landscape, enabling businesses to build and manage robust, scalable, and efficient platforms. Its relationship with SRE and DevOps ensures a comprehensive approach to infrastructure management, development, and operations. As the field continues to evolve, platform engineers must focus on trends such as cloud-native technologies, infrastructure as code, and serverless architectures, while prioritising security, performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.

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As ever, we would be interested to hear about your experience with Platform Engineering. Please email info@cloudsoft.io with your comments and suggestions or book a free session with one of our cloud experts.

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