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While most app developers work for organizations that have platform teams, there isn't much consistency regarding where that team reports. View the full article

The technology landscape has long been a domain of intense innovation and dynamic change. Yet, one of the most significant changes in recent years is the increasing visibility and impact of women in tech, especially in fields like DevOps and platform engineering. Names like Nicole Forsgren, Julia Evans, Bridget Kromhout, Nora Jones, and Dora Korpar, among others, have become synonymous with excellence and innovation in these domains. The Trailblazers In the world of DevOps and platform engineering, there are inspiring stories of female leaders like Nicole Forsgren, who have not only broken through gender barriers but have also excelled in their roles. View the full article

In today's fast-paced digital landscape, DevOps has emerged as a critical methodology for organizations looking to streamline their software development and delivery processes. At the heart of DevOps lies the concept of collaboration between development and operations teams, enabled by a set of practices and tools aimed at automating and improving the efficiency of the software delivery lifecycle. One of the key enablers of DevOps practices is platform engineering. Platform engineers are responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the infrastructure and tools that support the development, deployment, and operation of software applications. In essence, they provide the foundation upon which DevOps practices can thrive. View the full article

Welcome to the world of platform engineering, where innovation and efficiency intersect! As a platform engineer, you understand how crucial it is to have the right set of tools on hand. Whether you're building scalable infrastructure or managing complex workflows, finding the perfect tool for the job can make all the difference. That's why we've curated a list of 10 must-try tools that will revolutionize your team's workflow and amplify their productivity. From DevOps essentials to cutting-edge automation solutions, these game-changing tools are bound to level up your platform engineering game in no time. So gear up and get ready for an exhilarating ride through this toolkit of possibilities! Why Tools Are Important for Platform Engineers? The role of a platform engineer has become even more critical in ensuring that a company's infrastructure runs smoothly and efficiently. As the demand for reliable and high-performing platforms increases, it has become necessary for platform engineers to have the right set of tools to help them tackle complex challenges and achieve their goals effectively. View the full article

As organizations look to expand DevOps maturity, improve operational efficiency, and increase developer velocity, they are embracing platform engineering as a key driver. Indeed, recent research found that 54% of organizations are investing in platforms to enable easier integration of tools and collaboration between teams involved in automation projects. Platform engineering creates and manages a shared infrastructure and set of tools, such as internal developer platforms (IDPs), to enable software developers to build, deploy, and operate applications more efficiently. The goal is to abstract away the underlying infrastructure’s complexities while providing a streamlined and standardized environment for development teams. As a result, teams can focus on writing code and building features rather than dealing with infrastructure nuances. During a breakout session at the Dynatrace Perform 2024 conference, Dynatrace DevSecOps activist Andreas Grabner and staff engineer Adam Gardner demonstrated how to use observability to monitor an IDP for key performance indicators (KPIs). The pair showed how to track factors including developer velocity, platform adoption, DevOps research and assessment metrics, security, and operational costs. Recent Dynatrace research has found that only 40% of a typical engineer’s time is spent on productive tasks, and 36% of developers resign because of a bad developer experience, Grabner noted. “If your developers are leaving the company, the IDP may have something to do with it,” he said. Platform engineering: Build for self-service Self-service deployment is a key attribute of platform engineering. It gives developers the means to create environments and toolsets unique to the projects they’re working on. “[An IDP] must be a product that developers want to use because it helps them get the job done,” Grabner said. “It makes them more productive . . . and reduces the complexity of things such as reading a new app or service. They shouldn’t worry about the platform; they should just start writing code.” Because of their versatility, teams can use IDPs for all types of software engineering projects, not just those in cloud-native scenarios. IDPs can eliminate much of the administrative minutiae that stalls development projects. Grabner gave the example of one Dynatrace banking customer who built an IDP that enables developers to provision new Azure machines or Chef policies without administrative help. “IDPs are not constrained to building microservices or a new serverless app,” Grabner noted. Before putting an IDP in place, organizations must encourage their platform engineering teams to adopt a product mindset with feedback loops between developers and users. They should also establish milestones to ensure the built product solves a defined business problem. The Dynatrace IDP encompasses platform services, delivery services, and access to observability and automation tools. The Dynatrace Operator automatically ingests all observability data from OpenTelemetry and Prometheus. Furthermore, OneAgent observes and gathers all remaining workload logs, metrics, traces, and events. Automate deployment for faster developer velocity Additionally, the IDP used during the session connects to the open-source Backstage developer portal platform and a library of templates stored in a GitLab repository. The templates can deploy automatically into the development environment with just a few clicks. Argo works in a GitOps fashion to automate the deployment of files stored in Git. “Argo has an eagle eye on the Git repository,” Gardner said. “Every time something changes, it’s synced to Kubernetes.” Backstage holds many of an organization’s critical development resources that must be treated with the same respect as business-critical data. Observability is not only about measuring performance and speed, but also about capturing granular business analytics to support data-driven decision-making. These metrics can include how many people are using the IDP, how quickly the tasks are running in the IDP, and more. “That means making it available, resilient, and secure,” Grabner said. Intelligent monitoring is also crucial. “If you don’t monitor, you risk building a product that nobody needs,” Grabner continued. Observability is a critical component of an IDP. It illuminates the activity of components such as Backstage, GitHub, Argo, and other tools. Service-level objectives (SLOs) are similarly important. SLOs ensure developers can accelerate their velocity and remain productive with an optimally functioning platform. Test continuously Synthetic testing simulates user behaviors within an application or service to pinpoint potential problems. This process is vital to an IDP’s effectiveness. An observability solution can monitor both synthetic and real-user tests to verify an application is on track. GitLab, a source code repository and collaborative software development platform for DevOps and DevSecOps projects, is populated with a set of pre-filled templates. The combination gives developers a unique set of tools they can deploy on a self-service basis with full monitoring by Dynatrace. “Every time [developers] pick a template in Backstage, they get their own version of the Git repository based on the template. Then, Argo deploys the app,” Grabner said. “It has worked kind of flawlessly.” Observability at the core “Platform engineering is about being responsible for making sure platforms are available,” Gardner said. “Dynatrace can tell us whether Argo is up and whether it’s killing GitHub with too many syncs. It lets us see events such as starts and traces in a standardized manner.” This certainty can accelerate developer velocity and improve the developer experience, resulting in better software and happier developers. Dynatrace has made the reference IDP architecture available on GitHub for anyone to use. It includes a notebook with configuration and deployment instructions. “It explains every single step that was involved in building the IDP, creating the configuration, and setting up Argo,” Gardner said. “You can launch a code space that starts a container that shows you everything about how an app was built and deployed.” Curious to learn more about observability to optimize KPI success? Check out the Perform 2024 session: Observability guide to platform engineering. Watch now Discover how unified observability unlocks platform engineering success in the free ebook: Driving DevOps and platform engineering for digital transformation. Read now! The post How platform engineering and IDP observability can accelerate developer velocity appeared first on Dynatrace news. View the full article

Platform engineering addresses the inefficiencies caused by the decentralization of tools and processes in DevOps, especially as organizations scale. View the full article

Editor's Note: The following is an article written for and published in DZone's 2024 Trend Report, The Modern DevOps Lifecycle: Shifting CI/CD and Application Architectures. DevOps — ✓ DevSecOps — ✓ Platform engineering — ? View the full article

Achieving agility, scalability, efficiency, and security is paramount in modern software development. While several cultural methodologies, tools, and approaches are sought after to achieve the above-mentioned, GitOps, Kubernetes, and Platform Engineering are keystones of this transformation. In this comprehensive guide, you will learn what GitOps, Kubernetes, and Platform Engineering are, unraveling their significance, working principles, and what makes this trio the powerhouse of modern DevOps. Revolutionizing Infrastructure Management With GitOps Understanding GitOps GitOps is a methodology that centers around the use of version control systems, with Git being the primary choice as the singular source of truth for both application code and infrastructure configurations. GitOps encourages the declaration of the desired state of applications and infrastructure within Git repositories. This approach makes it effortless to track changes, maintain version history, and foster seamless collaboration among team members. Furthermore, the use of pull requests and code reviews in GitOps ensures high code quality and security. Whenever changes are made to the Git repositories, automated processes ensure that the system's state remains aligned with the declared configuration. View the full article

In the dynamic world of software development, Developer Experience (DevEx or DX) is becoming increasingly vital. It's all about creating an environment where developers can thrive, blending ease of use, efficiency, and overall job satisfaction. Good DevEx is more than just a convenience; it's a strategic asset; It leads to higher productivity, quicker development timelines, and better-quality software. By fine-tuning the tools and methods used by developers and fostering a supportive work culture, DevEx directly influences a company's ability to innovate and stay ahead in the competitive tech industry. At Weaveworks, we know how a poor developer experience can cause frustration, misalignment between Development and Ops teams, and duplication of work. This is why we have built Weave GitOps Enterprise: a state-of-the-art GitOps platform powered by Flux CD and Flagger. It empowers developers and platform operators to build and manage an internal development platform easily. In this blog, we round up all the important resources, assets, and videos on DX and Weave GitOps. From whitepapers to blogs and on-demand webinars, we’re confident you’ll learn something new here. Expand Your Knowledge with Our Detailed Whitepapers Why Self-Service is Key to Developer Productivity Organizations can enable great developer experience with a self-service platform that serves the developers’ needs and eliminates causes of friction between Developers and Ops teams. You’ll learn the essential elements of good DX, the root causes of developer frustration, and how to leverage GitOps to implement a self-service developer platform. Download Whitepaper The GitOps Guide to Building & Managing Internal Platforms The way to foster an outstanding developer experience is to leverage the internal platform approach because it helps to get resources to developers on-demand and in a secure way. But, adopting the platform approach alone is not enough. Organizations need to think strategically about how they would build and maintain the platform. And looking ahead, how to build a new development culture around the platform that makes software delivery seamless. This paper explores how the GitOps framework can be used for building internal platforms at scale and how it enables continuous application delivery. Download Whitepaper The Weave GitOps’ Blueprint for Exceptional DX Weave GitOps Enterprise is a continuous operation solution that makes it easy to deploy and manage Kubernetes clusters and applications at scale in any environment. It boasts a number of distinct features that elevate DX and empower platform teams to build self-service platforms. These include: Platform Engineering & Self-Service Platforms: Platform engineering and internal developer platforms automate operational overhead and abstract infrastructure complexity for software teams. Learn more about the benefits of platform engineering and how Weave GitOps serves as an effective solution for building internal developer platforms. Progressive Application Delivery: Progressive delivery is a modern set of practices for application deployment, including canary releasing, blue-green deployments, A/B testing, and feature flagging. These strategies allow for the gradual rollout of new application features to a subset of users, enabling developers to smoothly release new features with minimal risk. Learn More.Security and Compliance Policy Guardrails: Weave Policy Engine enables platform operators to enforce security and compliance policies, ensuring resilient infrastructure and compliance framework across all Kubernetes deployments. Consequently, developers can concentrate on their primary tasks, free from the complexities of security and compliance. Read More.Self-Service Templates: Self-Service Templates and Profiles empower developers to create reusable configurations for applications. By saving configurations, this feature not only saves time, but also mitigates potential errors during the deployment process. Read More. CI/CD Automation with GitOps: While CI tools like Selenium and Jenkins have gone a long way to automate tests and builds, GitOps lets you automate every step of the CI/CD pipeline, including the deployment stage. Read More. View the full article

Platform engineering is key to today's cloud-native world, as it ushers DevOps into a new era. The discipline revolves around an Internal Developer Platform (IDP), a unified toolset covering every operational need from coding to deployment. The focus here is to lessen cognitive friction for developers while giving operations a structured way to manage technology. This blog post will cut through the jargon, highlight platform engineering advantages over traditional methods, and offer actionable insights for integrating platform engineering into your tech strategy. Ready to dive in? Understanding Platform Engineering Platform engineering represents an advanced stage of DevOps methodologies developed to manage the escalating intricacies of IT operations. Its core objective is to establish a resilient internal platform that streamlines workflows and furnishes a self-service interface for developers. Imagine an operational environment where developers can independently provision resources and deploy applications, eliminating delays typically incurred through Ops team coordination. With platform engineering, this operational efficiency is no longer a distant aspiration, but a milestone within reach. Conventional IT operations come with complications, including manual interventions, fragmented team structures, and scalability issues. Platform engineering alleviates all these by bringing together elements of DevOps, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and GitOps into a cohesive strategy. This amalgamated approach expedites the deployment process, minimizes errors, and enhances the agility of the software development lifecycle. The Payoffs of Platform Engineering Platform engineering does more than radically alleviate some of the most persistent issues in traditional IT. Here are a few major benefits it offers: Self-service DX: Self-service Developer Experience (DX) helps mitigate some of the most persistent challenges in traditional IT settings. Automating tasks through a self-service developer portal eliminates delays and errors while promoting developer autonomy and agility.Automation with GitOps: By weaving GitOps into its automation fabric, platform engineering dissolves team silos, fuels collaboration, and speeds up deployments.Version control: A hallmark of the GitOps approach, version control is indispensable for modern declarative ops. Incorporating version control into platform engineering means every change is tracked in a centralized repository. This is crucial for rollback scenarios and provides a historical context for all changes, making it easier to understand the system’s state at any given time.Consistency: Platform engineering standardizes the deployment and operational procedures, ensuring that each team within the organization is aligned in their practices. This consistency reduces errors and streamlines troubleshooting, making it easier to maintain high-quality service delivery.Scalability: Scalability in platform engineering is not just about handling more resources; it's about doing more with less and without manual intervention. As your organization grows, platform engineering allows you to easily adapt by automating the integration of new technologies and methodologies, thereby reducing operational overhead.Auditability: Platform engineering, especially when integrated with GitOps, provides a transparent environment where every change is logged and can be traced back to an individual. This makes it easier to comply with regulatory requirements and internal policies.Portability: The modular and containerized nature of platform engineering allows for high portability. Applications and services can be easily moved across different cloud environments or even back to an on-premises setup, providing flexibility in deployment choices. The cumulative impact of these benefits fosters a culture of operational excellence. Teams gain agility and efficiency while their objectives increasingly align with the broader organizational goals. View the full article

Organizations must proactively navigate newly emerging trends within platform engineering to remain competitive. View the full article

The rise of Kubernetes, cloud-native, and microservices spawned major changes in architectures and abstractions that developers use to create modern applications. In this multi-part series, I talk with some of the leading experts across various layers of the stack — from networking infrastructure to application infrastructure and middleware to telemetry data and modern observability concerns — to understand emergent platform engineering patterns that are affecting developer workflow around cloud-native. The next participant in our series is Tom Wilkie, CTO at Grafana Labs, where he leads engineering for Grafana Cloud... View the full article

The rise of Kubernetes, cloud native, and microservices spawned major changes in architectures and abstractions that developers use to create modern applications. In this multi-part series, I talk with some of the leading experts across various layers of the stack — from networking infrastructure to application infrastructure and middleware to telemetry data and modern observability concerns — to understand emergent platform engineering patterns that are affecting developer workflow around cloud native. The first participant in our series is Thomas Graf, CTO and co-founder of Isovalent, and the creator of Cilium — an open source, cloud-native solution for providing, securing, and observing network connectivity between workloads, fueled by the revolutionary Kernel technology eBPF. View the full article

If you follow the platform engineering trend, you'll have heard people talking about paved paths and golden paths. They're sometimes used as synonyms but can also reflect different approaches. In this article, I discuss the critical difference between paved paths and golden paths in platform engineering. View the full article

As organizations become cloud-native and their environments more complex, DevOps teams are adapting to new challenges. Site reliability engineering first emerged to address cloud computing’s new performance needs. Today, the platform engineer role is gaining speed as the newest byproduct of scaling DevOps in the emerging but complex cloud-native world. What is this new discipline, and is it a game-changer or just hype? In a recent episode of the PurePerformance podcast, Dynatrace DevOps activist Andreas Grabner and director of sales engineering Brian Wilson sat down to discuss the platform engineer role and its impact. Joining them for the discussion was Saim Safdar, Cloud Native Community Foundation (CNCF) ambassador and member of the CNCF TAG App Delivery Platform Working Group. They explore platform engineering’s multiple definitions, its pros and cons, and how practitioners can shape this emerging DevOps concept. Understanding the platform engineer role DevOps is a constantly evolving discipline. At its core, DevOps is a collaborative framework between development and operations teams whose goal is to streamline software development. Platform engineering supports this goal by providing developers with the environments, or platforms, they need to build and run applications. Safdar views the discipline primarily as a means of lifting some responsibility off developers’ shoulders. “A platform engineer is responsible for reducing developers’ cognitive load while interacting and delivering software,” he said. “The job of the platform team is to define how the environments are built and where they run, and to make sure they’re always available in an easy way.” The “cognitive load” refers to the additional requirements of building an application beyond the code itself. When developers begin building applications, they also must spin up infrastructure, GitOps, tooling, services meshes, and more to run applications. Platform engineers reduce developers’ workload by providing an internal self-service offering to have those environments automatically created for them. As a result, developers have the freedom to focus on building high-quality, resilient applications. A new way to collaborate with the platform engineer role Platform engineering offers a new way for teams to collaborate. The software development lifecycle is a complex system with many moving parts. DevOps practices aim to break down organizational silos and improve communication between development and operations teams. But Safdar sees additional benefits to platform engineering. “I believe the focus of platform engineering is how we simplify cloud-native computing for average developers,” he said. “I believe this is a focus of DevOps already, but the DevOps world is currently focused on collaborating.” DevOps teams aim to produce high-quality software quickly, frequently, and securely. Traditionally, teams have achieved this by ensuring operations teams are involved in the development process, and vice versa. Platform engineering takes collaboration a step further. It is a more active approach to collaboration that understands developers’ needs and takes deliberate steps to make their jobs easier. “No longer do developers need to submit a ticket, wait for a response, etc.,” Safdar said. “[Platform engineering] would lend to easily accessible, prepackaged environments.” Silos can still reappear Platform engineering’s benefits have game-changing potential for software delivery. But the new discipline has the negative potential to recreate the silos that the DevOps movement sought to break down. The problem lies in what Safdar calls the “skill concentration trap.” When creating a platform engineering team, one would likely recruit the most experienced engineers related to what the platform will cover. But this comes with risks if an engineer thinks they are more skilled than the developers. As a result, communication suffers. The developers lose the knowledge they need to run their own software. A silo forms between them and the engineers that could migrate them to the platform. Communication is key. “The platform needs to be treated as a product,” Grabner said. “You need to understand your users and their needs, challenges, and wants. A product is never finished.” Another common silo results from the developer side. “Because of platform engineers and the reduced cognitive load, the developers are writing the code they need to,” Wilson said. “But are they still thinking about performance and resiliency, or are they just going to write and push code without thinking about performance because that’s now someone else’s job?” Education and collaboration are great ways to avoid this pitfall. “Platform engineers need to treat their developers like customers they need to retain,” Grabner said. The big picture Digital transformation is constantly accelerating. With the increasing speed of delivery and scale of cloud environments, adaptability is critical to keeping pace with innovation. Platform engineering is the newest byproduct of DevOps evolution, and it holds much promise. With the right platform engineering team, organizations have the potential to see faster, more resilient innovation, and happier IT teams. But collaboration and communication remain more important than ever. To listen to the full episode, check it out here. Find the PurePerformance podcast on the following platforms: Apple Podcasts Spotify GoodPods Castbox The post The platform engineer role: A game-changer or just hype? appeared first on Dynatrace news. View the full article

Platform Engineering is the practice of building useful abstractions and self-service infrastructure within an organization, to unify scattered tools and accelerate developer productivity. Platform Engineering aims to mitigate the cognitive overload caused by a shared-responsibility model that's gone too far, by smoothing the day-to-day developer experience. So what kind of abstractions and self-service infrastructure would best serve developers? This brings us to the idea of a Golden Path. View the full article

Platform engineering is extending the principles that made DevOps so successful to meet the challenges and opportunities of the new tech era. View the full article

There's an integral link between platform engineering and DevSecOps and the broader infrastructure management landscape. View the full article

Here's what what a product mindset looks like in practice and why each component contributes to the success of your platform. View the full article

If we’re being honest, the “green issue” currently isn’t the priority it needs to be for a lot of companies. At best, they are ticking the box marked ‘sustainability’ and paying lip service to a trendy topic. At worst, they are engaging in nothing more than greenwashing. Considering carbon emissions from cloud computing have now […] View the full article

In the rapidly changing world of technology, it is essential for professionals in the DevOps, IT Ops, Platform Engineering, and SRE domains to stay up-to-date on the latest innovations and best practices. Google Cloud Next, is the ideal place to do just that! Think of it as a golden opportunity to gain insights, expand your knowledge, and connect with like-minded peers. Read on for five compelling reasons why attending Next ‘23 is a must for operations professionals this year. 1. Uncover the potential of generative AI for operationsA recent IDC survey1 found that IT operations is the area with the most potential to benefit from generative AI assistance. From automating routine tasks to predicting and preventing potential issues, generative AI could revolutionize the way IT teams work. At Next ‘23, you'll have the chance to delve into the latest AI breakthroughs and explore how they can help supercharge IT operations. Our expert speakers will share real-world success stories of building an AIOps platform on Google Cloud, revealing the immense potential AI holds for optimizing workflows, enhancing system reliability, and driving efficiency in IT environments. 2. Embrace platform engineering Platform engineering has emerged as a crucial discipline for organizations aiming to build robust, scalable, and efficient software delivery platforms. Next ‘23 is a great place for professionals to dive deep into the principles and practices of Platform Engineering. Through sessions such as a panel with industry-leading thought leaders, and platform engineering customer success stories, you’ll gain the expertise you need to architect and build your own software delivery platform for your developers. 3. Learn about the latest innovations in GKEGoogle Kubernetes Engine fans, you don't want to miss out on this opportunity to gain insights into the latest GKE features, best practices, and real-world use cases from your peers. As the first managed Kubernetes offering, GKE has won the hearts of countless customers, and at Next ‘23 this year, you'll get the chance to discover why! GKE customers like ANZ Bank, Equifax, Ordaōs Bio, Etsy, and Moloco will share their success stories. More than that, we’ll also unveil the latest innovations that we’re adding to GKE to help you run modern workloads. 4. Get inspired by your peersLearning from peers is invaluable for technology professionals. At Next ‘23, you’ll be exposed to customer success stories about how leading organizations have leveraged Google Cloud's solutions to drive business growth and innovation. Hear from Charles Schwab on their best practices operating Google Cloud services; learn from SAP about how they control cost and build financial resilience with automation; listen to Wayfair on how they cut costs by 64% by moving from open source to Google Cloud operational tools. Snap will share their approach to observability; Priceline will discuss how they optimize Kubernetes for reliability and cost-efficiency; and Uber will show you how they build an AIOps platform with Google Cloud services. 5. Network and build communityNetworking and community building are an integral part of the Google Cloud Next experience, and this year, it gets even better! For the first time since the pandemic, our premier event is going back to its roots as an in-person gathering. Engage with your peers at the Innovator Hive’s specialized zone for the DevOps and IT Ops professionals. Get your hands on the interactive demos, try the micro-challenges, throw yourself into immersive learning, play the games, and meet with Google experts and your peers for architecture deep dives. We’re confident these interactions will open doors to new perspectives, ideas, and future partnerships. Google Cloud Next is not just another tech event; it's an immersive experience that has the power to transform your career and ignite your passion for all things cloud and technology. From exploring the latest GKE innovations to discovering the magic of AI in IT operations, from embracing platform engineering to learning from your peers, Next ‘23 is brimming with opportunities to expand your horizons and elevate your skills. So, don't miss your chance to be a part of this extraordinary event. Mark your calendar, pack your enthusiasm, and join us at Google Cloud Next. Together, we'll unleash the full potential of cloud technology and pave the way for a brighter, more innovative future. 1: US – Generative AI, IDC, April 2023; N=200; Base=All Respondents; Notes: Managed by IDC’s Global Primary Research Group; Data Not Weighted. Use caution when interpreting small sample sizes.

Dotan Horovits, principal developer advocate for Logz.io, explains why platform engineering represents the latest effort to centrally manage DevOps platforms at scale without compromising flexibility in a way developers will resist. View the full article

A key area where companies can eliminate expensive waste and increase time to value is the relationship and workflow between IT and developers. Enter platform engineering. View the full article