What is Platform Engineering?
Platform engineering provides stable, scalable, and standardized support to help developers and teams to design, build, deploy, maintain, and manage applications efficiently.
It involves creating and managing underlying infrastructure for applications to run on viz. servers, cloud, storage services. It helps engineers automate deployment and scaling of applications. It supports them in the creation of abstractions and APIs so they can solely focus on features and functionality instead of the nitty-gritty of infrastructure.
Platform engineering allows users to develop and maintain tools meant for operational tasks. It accelerates software development and helps organizations focus on digital transformation.
Read more about Nitor Infotech’s platform engineering services.
Why is Platform Engineering important for DevOps?
Platform engineering is vital for DevOps as it sets up the essential infrastructure and tools, enabling smooth collaboration between development and operations teams.
- Automation and Efficiency : Automation is a key focus in platform engineering that aligns with DevOps principles. It reduces errors, speeds up releases, and boosts overall efficiency by automating tasks like infrastructure setup and deployment.
- Collaboration and Communication : Platform engineering promotes teamwork between development and operations, breaking down barriers. A well-designed platform improves communication, making it easier for information and resources to flow between these usually separate departments.
- Scalability and Flexibility : DevOps needs swift infrastructure scaling and adaptability. Platform engineering creates architectures that are scalable and flexible, enabling DevOps teams to respond promptly to workload changes.
Platform engineering is crucial for DevOps, laying the foundation for effective collaboration, automation, scalability, and security. These are vital for achieving DevOps goals like faster delivery, continuous feedback, and a reliable software development and deployment process.
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How does Platform Engineering work?
Platform engineering creates a strong base for software development and deployment. Here's how it works:
- Designing Infrastructure : Platform engineers plan the foundational infrastructure, like hardware and cloud resources, aiming for scalability and flexibility to meet application requirements.
- Automation : They use tools to automate tasks like setting up infrastructure, managing configurations, and deploying software. This speeds up processes, reduces errors, and ensures consistency.
- Containerization and Orchestration : Engineers use containerization (e.g., Docker) to bundle applications and their dependencies. Tools like Kubernetes help manage and deploy these containers efficiently at scale.
- Continuous Integration and Deployment (CI/CD) : CI/CD pipelines automate testing, integration, and software deployment. This ensures a continuous and reliable delivery of updates, making development more agile.
- Scalability : Platform engineers design architectures that scale horizontally, handling increased workloads. Techniques like load balancing and auto-scaling optimize resource usage for optimal performance.
- Security Measures : Engineers implement security measures such as access controls, encryption, and regular audits to protect against threats and ensure data safety.
- Monitoring and Logging : Robust systems for monitoring and logging track platform performance, health, and usage. This proactive approach helps identify issues early and optimize resource usage.
- Collaboration and Communication : Platform engineering encourages collaboration, especially between development and operations teams. A well-designed platform facilitates effective communication, allowing seamless sharing of information and resources.
- Adaptability to Change : Platform engineering anticipates and accommodates changes in technology and business requirements. This adaptability ensures the platform evolves with the organization's needs and technological advancements.
Platform engineering streamlines operations, fosters scalability, and enhances agility, ensuring your product is poised for sustainable growth in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
Read our expert blog on WebAssembly and get familiar with the platform engineering terrain.
Why do organizations need Platform Engineering?
The sole aim of platform engineering is to provide its users with ample support for development and management of software applications across the entire organization. Here is why every organization needs platform engineering:
- Standardized tools, processes, and infrastructure mean less focus on managing apps and more on building unique features and functionality. This brings increased efficiency and productivity.
- Pre-configured resources, self-service abilities, and automation allow developers to iterate and release software regularly. This means platform engineering provides them with the capacity to rapidly develop and deploy.
- Centralized security controls help monitor and mitigate security risks at the earliest. Thus, security and compliance needs are taken care of without a hitch.
- Development and deployment being quick, the time taken for new features to reach the market gets reduced drastically and each app can recover from failure at the same pace. This shows improved scalability and resilience with platform engineering.