Platform engineering aims to enhance developer productivity and experience, while reducing cognitive load by identifying gaps in DevOps principles. With over 90% of organizations adopting platforms in the next 5 years, platform engineering is set to grow by leaps and bounds. However, as more and more enterprises aspire to build a platform, a common challenge appears - the need for a clear starting point. Taking insights from our experience of building platforms for our customers, interacting with platform leaders, and being involved in the platform engineering community, we’ve developed a platform engineering reference architecture eBook with an aim to help engineering teams build efficient platforms.

Key considerations for building platforms

• Developer experience & productivity: Elevating developer experience involves creating an intuitive platform with complete documentation and automation. Emphasis should be building user-friendly interfaces, integrating them with relevant tools, and providing feedback channels. Create templates for repetitive tasks that help standardize and speed up onboarding for new developers.
• Scalability and flexibility: Building a platform with a modular architecture helps make it scalable and flexible, which can accommodate the growing demands of your developers. A thorough blueprint can help make a platform modular, allowing for the use of tools as plug-ins. Leveraging cloud native tools like Kubernetes allows for scaling and helps platforms adapt to dynamic loads.
• Security and compliance: Security is of paramount importance to build successful platforms. You need to enforce stringent access controls for your developers and platform teams. Bake in automated tools that regularly scan for vulnerabilities and alerts. Utilize tools to enforce consistency policies across your platform and into your development cycle.

The considerations we discussed above merely scratch the surface of the intricacies of building platforms. The platform engineering landscape is vast, complex, and dynamic. Aspiring platform engineering teams often find themselves at a crossroads, trying to figure out where to start their platform engineering journey. Without proper guidance, teams often end up failing at platform engineering.

Platform Engineering Reference Architecture

We at InfraCloud recognized the absence of a definitive starting point to build platforms and have released a platform engineering reference architecture eBook to guide platform engineering teams through the maze of platform engineering.

What’s in this eBook?

The Platform Engineering Reference Architecture eBook is not just a compilation of theories. It’s a practical guide offering blueprints, frameworks, tool recommendations, maturity questionnaires, and more. These resources will serve as a compass, helping you through the complexities of platform engineering.

• Blueprints & frameworks: The eBook explores a platform’s modular and scalable architecture patterns and shares ways for building a platform that focuses on increasing the flow state, building better feedback loops, and reducing developer cognitive load.
• Platform capability map: A platform is nothing without its capabilities. The book draws out essential features for building fully functional patterns. It outlines strategies for integrating diverse technologies to build an efficient platform.
• Tools suggestions: With a plethora of tools available, the book recommends tools for different platform capabilities. We provide evaluation criteria for selecting a tool based on your specific needs.
• Maturity questionnaire: The book comes with a set of maturity questionnaires for each capability to assess the maturity of your platform. This helps derive actionable insights and recommendations.

In this eBook, we’ve shared frameworks and blueprints that will help you build a robust platform.

Get your copy today

Packed with practical blueprints, frameworks, tool suggestions, and questionnaires, the platform engineering reference architecture eBook is your ticket to building resilient platforms. Grab your free copy of the eBook and empower your platform engineering teams with the knowledge they need to thrive in platform engineering.

This eBook was created after many interactions, practical implementations, and learnings from our experiences. We hope you find this eBook helpful. We are happy to share more and assist you in your platform engineering journey. Please feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Meanwhile, you can also read our insightful blog posts on platform engineering.