Beyond the Platform Façade: Why Portals and Pipelines Aren’t Enough

Many platform engineering teams start strong with developer portals, workflow engines, and CI/CD pipelines. These tools bring quick wins, but they can also create a fragile illusion of progress. Without orchestration, governance, and lifecycle guarantees, platforms begin to duplicate effort, add operational burden, and ultimately decay.

Join Daniel Bryant for a whistle-stop tour of why Portals and Pipelines don't make a Complete Platform!

Transcript

1. Beyond the Platform Façade: Why Portals and Pipelines Aren’t Enough Daniel Bryant Platform Engineering & Product Marketing
2. • Portals and pipelines do not make a platform! ◦ Portals are the interface ◦ Pipelines are the tools ◦ Orchestration enables speed, safety, efficiency, and scalability • To avoid platform decay, treat your platform as a product, not just automation stitched together tl;dr
3. linktr.ee/danielbryantuk @danielbryantuk
4. Setting the scene
5. By 2026, approximately 80% of large software engineering organizations will establish dedicated platform engineering teams to create "Internal Developer Platforms" https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/what-is-platform-engineering Platform engineering: so hot right now!
6. …but there are challenges
7. The “portals and pipelines” antipattern
8. How (not) to build a platform A mandate often arrives top down: “you must build a platform.” 1. You Google the topic and spot some familiar technologies: a. Developer portals b. CI/CD tools c. Workflow engines 2. ? 3. Success a. Improved developer experience b. Strong compliance and governance c. Enable platform adoption and contribution Developer tooling
9. Let’s dive into portals, pipelines, and workflow engines... How (not) to build a platform
10. Developer Portals ✅ Improved discoverability via hub/catalog for developers ✅ User-friendly interface to workflows and templates ❌ Lack of “user observability” ❌ No lifecycle guarantees or compliance enforcement
11. CI/CD tooling ✅ Excellent at deployment logic, conditional paths, and parallelism ✅ Battle tested and familiar ❌ Fundamentally transient: no state management of lifecycle tracking ❌ Leads to drift and duplication (especially across enterprises)
12. Workflow engines ✅ Powerful control over workflows (retries, error handling, parallel tasks) ✅ Flexible for complex task orchestration logic in a single run ❌ They don’t enforce policies, track ownership, or manage upgrades ❌ Leads to drift and duplication (especially across enterprises)
13. Exposing the facade Developer portals = useful UI, but fragile if nothing robust behind it Workflow engines + CI/CD pipelines = platform automation, not orchestration
14. By 2026, approximately 80% of large software engineering organizations will establish dedicated platform engineering teams to create "Internal Developer Platforms" https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/what-is-platform-engineering Platform engineering: so hot right now!
15. Platform orchestration thenewstack.io/crossplane-what-most-people-get-wrong-and-how-to-get-it-right/ cnoe.io/ platformengineering.org/platform-tooling www.kratix.io/
16. Why move from Automation to Orchestration?
17. The “puppy for Christmas” antipattern
18. Beware of reducing friction, but increasing toil Self-service without orchestration = “you clicked it, now you own it.” Consequences: • Orphaned resources • Drift from policy • Developers become accidental operators • Platform team overwhelmed with support tickets
19. Automating provisioning is just the beginning An effective platform must offer: • Clear API (and contract) • Lifecycle guarantees • Composable workflows • Ownership models • Governance If not… beware of platform decay
20. From automation to orchestration Platform Pillar Automation (Portals + Pipelines) Orchestration (Platform as a Product) Speed Short-term focus: Fast to build and demo; quick paths for initial delivery, but hard to maintain pace with growing maintenance costs. Balanced focus: Fast creation on Day 1 and safe, repeatable, sustainable delivery on Day 2 and beyond Safety Scattered: Policy checks are inconsistently applied and fragmented across tools/systems Shared governance: Enforces policy and compliance where expertise lies, with automated drift detection Efficiency Pipeline-focused: Teams duplicate logic in scripts and pipelines; hard to maintain and evolve Collaborative by design: Platform responsibilities are shared, with reusable capabilities managed across a fleet Scalability One-size-fits-all: Hard to standardise services across diverse teams; grows tribal knowledge Composable and participatory: Platform capabilities are abstracted into reusable, versioned services that teams can extend and evolve together
21. Path Forward: Building a True Platform
22. Moving beyond portals and pipelines Looking for long-term ROI from your platform engineering initiatives? • Portals are how users interact with the platform • Pipelines and workflow engines are tools within the platform • And orchestration is the “intelligent glue”
23. By 2026, approximately 80% of large software engineering organizations will establish dedicated platform engineering teams to create "Internal Developer Platforms" https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/what-is-platform-engineering Platform engineering beyond 2026 Build your platform intentionally: Treat your platform like a product
24. Wrapping up 🎉
25. • Portals and pipelines alone do not make a platform! ◦ Portals are the interface ◦ Pipelines and workflow engines are the tools ◦ Orchestration enables speed, safety, efficiency, and scalability • To avoid platform decay, treat your platform as a product, not just automation stitched together Conclusion
26. Beyond the Platform Façade: Escaping the Portals and Pipelines Trap docs.kratix.io/ske/installing-ske/intro Thank you!