The evolution of DevOps: Why platform engineering is gaining momentum

Platform teams are extending their responsibilities to security as platform engineering takes DevOps to the subsequent level

By

  • Steve Ranger

Published: 22 Mar 2024 12:30

Platform engineering, which takes the concepts at the again of DevOps and applies them at a grander scale, continues to develop its reach, extending into troubleshooting security problems across enterprise application model.

The conception that at the again of DevOps is that it brings collectively model and IT operations – the Dev and the Ops – to execute it more uncomplicated to create and deploy software. Platform engineering builds on this with a team made up of product managers and engineers, creating and maintaining the shared infrastructure wished by builders.

Tech analyst Gartner predicts that by 2026, 80% of software engineering organisations will establish platform teams as internal suppliers of reusable products and providers and tools for application provide.

Learn by Puppet by Perforce suggests the roles of this team are rising, including responsibility for security.

“The finest takeaway from our glimpse this 300 and sixty five days surprised us – not most productive are platform engineering teams supporting security and compliance efforts, but they’re tackling and troubleshooting issues around security in a reach that means this is going to be a bigger model,” the represent said.

It discovered that the platform team has change into accountable for each “putting out fires in customary, and constructing and enforcing security processes”.

“We also discovered that security and compliance tends to be within the route of the scope of the platform team total, as they execute optimistic persons are the use of the precise model of software and IT tools and following crucial benchmarks,” it said.

Championing security internally

The represent said that, correct as public cloud suppliers had to raise their security beyond the level companies could well well execute in their very absorb datacentres, application teams also build a question to the platform team to champion security internally. That could well well imply enforcing software and software versions, imposing organisational security benchmarks or continuously scanning for vulnerabilities.

Adding security to the platform team lowered risk by guaranteeing that code used to be compliant and earn, said 59% of respondents to the glimpse, whereas Forty eight% said it lowered time wished by builders to study security and compliance baselines. “We dwell up for that platform engineering will dwell at the centre of the protection and compliance dialog, as platform engineering’s optimistic affect on security posture fuels firm-large adoption,” the represent said.

Looking out more broadly at the outcomes, rising the payment of product provide used to be the tip purpose of companies adopting platform engineering, adopted by bettering security and compliance. On the enviornment of half of (43%) said their team used to be between three and five years gentle; even supposing a quarter said their team used to be between six and nine years gentle and 17% said their team used to be around one-to-two years gentle.

Half of respondents said elevated productiveness used to be the most fundamental profit for builders, adopted by better quality software and lowered lead time for deployment. “Imagine working in a fixed bid of files overload whereas managing a dozen a quantity of tools and processes,” the represent said. “For plenty of builders, it’s correct one other day at work.

“Platform engineering can act as a barrier in opposition to the chaos of tools, initiatives and knowledge,” it continued. “By standardising tools and processes, it will liberate builders from the burden of changing into software specialists so as that they’ll take care of their core strengths: writing great code.”

Platform Engineering teams often collaborate alongside or within engineering and operations, but their space within an organisation can range reckoning on their scope of toughen. While 23% of respondents said the platform engineering team used to be a separate team below engineering, 22% said it used to be within the operations team, and 21% said it used to be within the engineering team, whereas 14% said it used to be within the product team.

Areas covered by platform teams mainly encompass products and providers that allow app teams to execute, deploy and bustle capabilities, adopted by provisioning and managing infrastructure to toughen builders. Managing costs used to be a lengthy reach down the list of priorities. “As a platform matures, payment becomes a excessive metric to success,” the represent said. “We’ve viewed this with the excessive payment of public cloud adoption. If teams aren’t all in favour of managing and optimising costs, the very nature of platform engineering creates risk.”

Varied organisations also range on the make-up of the platform team. While a profitable platform engineering team requires a beefy-stack DevOps engineer, respondents were less optimistic relating to the need for a product manager as effectively.

While correct over half of said a product manager used to be excessive to success, 21% described them as a pleasant to absorb, 18% said they were crucial but not excessive and 9% said they weren’t foremost.

And it sounds as if not everybody is sold on the conception that – at least not but. The glimpse discovered that 65% of respondents said the platform engineering team used to be “crucial and is receiving continued funding”. Nonetheless 16% described it as a “passion mission” and 12% described it as a “beta test” the build future funding would depend upon its success or failure.

Nonetheless as organisations reach more developed phases in their DevOps trudge, the need for a dedicated reach admire platform engineering becomes optimistic, the represent said.

“Most organisations understand the affect a platform team can absorb on their operations,” it defined. “There is power in consistency across teams and the blueprint in which they reach their work. The more consistency you’ve got gotten across teams, tooling and processes, the more earn, efficient, and standardised your infrastructure would possibly be.” Puppet surveyed 500 tech professionals working with or on a platform team.

Margaret Lee, manager of product management at Puppet by Perforce, said platform engineering is a natural evolution, not a replacement. “We are seeing the benefits of automation realised at the organisation level now, with self-provider being a key piece of it,” she told Pc Weekly. “Previously, automation used to be at the person or team level. It has evolved to organisational level the build the benefits of standardisation and automation can again lower cognitive load and enlarge dev productiveness.”

Lee said starting minute is key. “Replace is tough regardless of what that exchange is,” she defined. “Start up with something that drives plenty of payment to your firm. What we saw within the guidelines is of us starting with security. It is something that could well pressure payment for each builders and the industry.”

Learn more on DevOps

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  • Auto-tech series – Lacework: More automation + more code=more weak

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  • Relate of DevOps: Success happens via platform engineering

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  • Cloud Security Alliance publishes pointers to bridge compliance and DevOps

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