Platform engineering represents the next stage in DevOps.
While Kubernetes (like other technologies) can be excellent starting points, they are not the ultimate goal in delivering on the promise of platform engineering. Kubernetes can provide a strong foundation for building comprehensive platforms, but more is needed to fully develop a platform that enables developers to deliver with substantial autonomy. In real terms, this means increasing decentralized decisioning, faster flow, faster times to recovery, and, overall, happier developers.
In "Platform Thinking: Strategies for Building Effective Platform Teams," we will dive into the essentials of modern platform engineering. The workshop discusses the importance of a product mindset, domain-driven design, developer experience, and team topologies in building a well-architected system with the platform as a key enabler. Hands-on approaches to reducing developer cognitive load while delivering on orchestration, continuous delivery, observability, governance, and security are key workshop components.
Platform engineering teams are central to how modern teams deliver on the promise of devops today. This workshop is all about strategies for building effective platform teams today.
Workshop Outline:
- Platform Principles
- Containers, Orchestration, & Workflows
- GitOps, Paved Road, Infrastructure as Code, & CI/CD
- Observability (OTel), Security & Compliance
- Developer Experience & Developer Portals
- Platform Product Management, Team Topologies, DDD, & Measuring
Key Takeaways
1 Platforms are the next evolution of DevOps, helping teams reduce the cognitive load required in modern cloud-native systems.
2 There is no one-size-fits-all platform. The best approach is to start with a clear business objective, deliver in small increments, and measure the effectiveness of each.
3 Platforms should simplify how developers meet organizational NFRs around security, observability, compliance, and reliability.
4 Developer portals are key to enabling self-service and should prioritize the developer experience.
Speaker
Wes Reisz
Technical Principal @thoughtworks, Creator/Co-host of #TheInfoQPodcast, & QCon SF 2023 PC Chair, Previously Platform Architect @VMware
Wes is a Technical Principal with Thoughtworks where his focus is on working with customers on app modernization, with a particular focus on the cloud native ecosystem. Prior to Thoughtworks, he was one of the Platform Architects at VMware focused on Tanzu. Wes is a previous chair for the San Francisco edition of QCon and is one of the co-hosts of The InfoQ Podcast. His interests focus around architecture, cloud compute, app modernization, and, of course, the cloud-native ecosystem.
intermediate to advanced
