Platform Engineering is changing the way companies build software. Born in response to the growing complexity of systems designed according to the criteria of native Cloud architectures, this new approach to development promises to increase the level of efficiency, speed and dynamism in the creation of applications.
What is Platform Engineering?
Platform Engineering, or platform design, is a new discipline aimed at improving the development and operations of software architectures, which are increasingly complex today. To do this, it focuses on building Internal Developer Platforms (IDP), which are centralized, self-service tools that provide developers with the features, tools, and automation needed to simplify the development lifecycle and software distribution in Cloud-native environments.
IDPs eliminate infrastructure complexity and provide a unified interface for developers to provision resources, deploy applications, and manage their development environments. Which makes the management of Cloud resources more efficient and scalable, thus promoting productivity and reducing operational complexities.
Benefits of Platform Engineering in industry
Operational efficiency
Unlike traditional IT roles that often involve manual, repetitive tasks related to configuring, maintaining, and troubleshooting infrastructure, Platform Engineering emphasizes automation and self-service. Its role consists in automating all these activities, to minimize manual intervention and, thus, the risk of errors. Through self-service capabilities and standardized development environments, operations are simplified, and resource utilization is optimized, allowing operators to focus on higher-value activities.
Scalability
Platform engineering prioritizes scalability to support the dynamic needs of modern software development. While traditional IT may focus on managing static infrastructures, platform engineers design flexible, resilient environments that can adapt to changes in variable workloads, traffic patterns and business requirements. This allows companies to quickly scale their infrastructure and applications to meet evolving demands and requirements.
Stability and quality
By automating testing, deployment, and operations processes, Platform Engineering improves software quality and stability.
Continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipelines make it possible to reliably test and deploy code changes, reducing the risk of errors and downtime. but not only. Platform Engineering also improves the quality of the developer experience, as it provides easy-to-use tools, APIs and data.