As enterprises and software development firms evolve and embrace digital transformation, they experience a shift in the work paradigms. The practice of DevOps has been instrumental, as it is a dominant force in software development to implement continuous integration, delivery, and interaction among multiple agile updates. DevOps is the bridge that links development teams with the operations department in a software development firm.
With the ever-evolving force on software development firms to keep pace in a rapidly growing technological space and faster time to market, companies are looking for new paradigms. Therefore, organizations are shifting towards a new paradigm called Platform Engineering to enhance productivity. In this article, we will explore what DevOps and Platform Engineering are. We will also dig into the journey of transforming paradigms and best practices to manage such transitions effectively.
What is DevOps?
DevOps is a combination of two terms: Development and Operations. It is a collaborative approach that comprises tools, technologies, and culture. This software development paradigm integrates and automates processes between the software developers and IT operations departments. Apart from the philosophy of collaboration, the DevOps culture also promotes Continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) of software solutions. DevOps methodologies also enable development automation, cloud computing, microservices, and implementation of containers concurrently.
What is Platform Engineering?
Platform engineering is another software development paradigm that helps application engineers & developers deliver software products at full acceleration. It can handle some of the most noteworthy pitfalls of DevOps to leverage emerging technologies and accelerate development at scale. This software development culture aligns itself with the business goals and priorities.
According to Paul Delory, VP Analyst at Gartner, “Platform engineering emerged due to the increasing complexity of modern software architectures. Today, non-expert end users are often asked to operate an assembly of complicated arcane services.”
Factors Driving the Transitions
Unlike DevOps, which focuses on the culture and philosophy of software delivery, Platform Engineering underlines robust designing & scalable infrastructure of the platform and project. Thus, companies are thoughtful in taking this paradigm shift. They are more focused on preserving the benefits of DevOps while reducing its discrepancies by shifting towards Platform Engineering.
Numerous factors are pushing software development enterprises to transition from DevOps to Platform Engineering. These help increase the scalability, consistency, & reliability of products & platforms. In addition, it enhances the desire to empower developers with self-service capabilities through collaborative tools. With platform engineering, software development firms can upgrade their DevOps sophistication, improving the capitalization of new opportunities.
Again, the modern software ecosystem is changing significantly with the blend of cloud-native technologies, microservice architecture, cross-platform development frameworks, and platform-centric development management. Thus, transitioning from DevOps to Platform Engineering requires a natural expansion towards a modern & agile delivery of applications & software.
Making the Transition Process Right
The standardization from DevOps to Platform engineering demonstrates the efforts & initiatives enterprises are taking to revolutionize developers’ lives, making it easier and more productive. However, this change process should go the right way. During the change in the development methodologies, developers should consider critical terms from the beginning to avoid uncertainty for those adopting it. Enterprises should define clear objectives & goals for the transition. Developers should clearly outline the benefits organizations will enjoy with the change.
Again, the organization should consider other factors like investing in upskilling developers and engineers for platform engineering. It includes focusing on expertise in managing scalability & reliability, development infrastructure, containerization, handling platforms, and dealing with cloud-native technologies. Again, software development enterprises must deal with cross-functional teams to bring together infrastructure disciplines, software designing, and operations to work simultaneously with scalability & reliability.
Leading the Way of Development to New Horizon
Numerous organizations have started utilizing and demonstrating the potential of platform engineering. Companies like HubSpot have begun adopting the self-service platform approach. Such platforms enable developers to pivot into writing resource-optimized code that offers collaboration and sticks to compliance rather than infrastructure management. Numerous company executives and tech leaders like Jean-Michel Lemieux (former CTO of Shopify & VP of Engineering at Atlassian) have approved to allocation of fifty percent of their resources specifically for platform work.
According to Civo’s 2023 report, published by their owner Mark Boost, it says that the adoption of platform engineering improved standardization by 50.4 percent and enhanced product delivery by 43.2 percent. They also stretched, saying 65 percent of respondents consider platform engineering the next stage after DevOps. It enhances operational back & forth plus product development dramatically.
Such a shift is necessary because software development is moving toward the cloud. Software developers are creating more cloud-native applications that require greater flexibility and scalability. As organizations are tackling user demand, quick time to market, innovation, and pursuing innovation, Platform Engineering will be the next big paradigm shift that can meet customer expectations while boosting productivity and collaboration across development.
DevOps vs. Platform Engineering
DevOps
- DevOps focuses on a project development mindset, with collaboration between IT operations & software engineering teams.
- It relies on collaboration, cultural change, and development through proper communication.
- Some of the practices DevOps follows are Infrastructure as Code, Continuous Integration, Continuous Delivery, automated testing, product monitoring, etc.
- It reduces silos between the operations team and the software developers to offer faster delivery and enhanced quality.
- Some well-known practices Platform Engineering follows are self-service capabilities, platform abstraction, platform containerization, orchestration, Infrastructure as Code, standardization, use of automation tools, etc.
- It streamlines delivery faster by enabling self-service techniques with collaboration between platforms, tools, & scalable cloud designs.
Platform Engineering
- Platform engineering focuses on a platform or product-delivering mindset where the team focuses on complexity management, security, compliance, resource optimization, scalability, & efficiency, along with collaboration.
- It relies on reusable platforms and empowers development teams to deploy and manage apps autonomously.
- Some well-known practices Platform Engineering follows are self-service capabilities, platform abstraction, platform containerization, orchestration, Infrastructure as Code, standardization, use of automation tools, etc.
- It streamlines delivery faster by enabling self-service techniques with collaboration between platforms, tools, & scalable cloud designs.
Conclusion
Changing an existing infrastructure and mode of software development can be difficult. But, if the benefits can make the process worthwhile, companies should transit. That is why software development enterprises are shifting towards platform engineering from DevOps – as it offers standardized tools, self-servicing techniques, careful planning, and agility to handle customer needs with accuracy & speed. By understanding the reasons why to shift to platform engineering & the right approach to make the shift, software development firms can successfully navigate the transition & position themselves for success in the digital age.
