@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Platform Orchestrators: The Missing Middle of Internal Developer Platforms? Daniel Bryant | Platform Engineer | Head of Product Marketing @ Syntasso @danielbryantuk

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio How do you build a platform? ● Top-down, application developer-focused ○ “The Backstage service catalog is fantastic, but the support for day 2 ops… not so much” ● Bottom-up, operations/infrastructure-focused ○ “The Terraform workflow is fantastic, but infrastructure abstractions leak through to developers (HCL, K8s, etc)” ● Middle-out, platform engineering-focused ○ X-as-a-service, process automation, fleet management ○ “Platform as a product” approach

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio @danielbryantuk (he/him) linktr.ee/danielbryantuk

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Previously at

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio From Kubernetes to PaaS to… err, what’s next? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUpYEhaUJnM

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio What is a platform, anyway? 🚉 A digital platform is a foundation of self-service APIs, tools, services, knowledge and support which are arranged as a compelling internal product. Autonomous delivery teams can make use of the platform to deliver product features at a higher pace, with reduced co-ordination. Evan Bottcher martinfowler.com/articles/talk-about-platforms.html

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Building platforms 🚉

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Top down, app developer-focused rollout “The portal is my platform. Developers go here to spin up a new application, deploy it, and view metrics” ✅ Fantastic developer experience (and service catalog) ✅ Highly customisable ⚠ Often a facade that calls a series of infrastructure APIs in “one shot” ⚠ Day 2 aspects of the portal and plugins can be challenging

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio “{{IaC}} is my platform. I can orchestrate all of my infrastructure via YAML, bash, and cron jobs, and the GitOps pipelines automatically deploy apps” ✅ Everything-as-code ✅ Highly automatable ⚠ Infrastructure abstractions leak outwards towards developers ⚠ At scale, the diversity of tech can become challenging to orchestrate Bottom up, operations-focused rollout

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio The missing middle? 🏗

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio https://thenewstack.io/crossplane-what-most-people-get-wrong-and-how-to-get-it-right/ https://cnoe.io/ https://platformengineering.org/platform-tooling https://www.kratix.io/

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio syntasso.io/post/platform-engineering-orchestrating-applications-platforms-and-infrastructure

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio syntasso.io/post/platform-engineering-orchestrating-applications-platforms-and-infrastructure

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Build it, and they will come Solve problems, and they will come󰠼

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio What are the goals of your platform? ● Go faster: Platform teams need to provide “everything as a service” to help rapidly and sustainably deliver value to end-users ● Decrease risk: Teams need to automate manual processes in reusable components ● Increase efficiency: You need to manage and scale your digital platform and resources as a fleet

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Emerging platform tech stacks ● Upbound, Humanitec, Syntasso Kratix Enterprise, Massdriver, Qovery, Port, Cortex, etc ● The “BACK” stack: Backstage, Argo, Crossplane, Kyverno ● CNOE Framework: Cloud Native Operation Excellence ● KubeVela and Open Application Model (OAM) ● Kratix and Promises ● Argo CD and Rollouts ● DIY: All the other CNCF tech++ ● … More opinionated Less opinionated

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Product focus thoughtworks.com/en-gb/insights/looking-glass/platforms-as-products

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Product focus thoughtworks.com/en-gb/insights/looking-glass/platforms-as-products

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Wrapping up the slides 🎉

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio Conclusion ● 🏗 Build your platform intentionally ● 🚉 Watch out for the missing middle: “platform orchestrators” ● 👀 Struggling with scaling day 2 operations with your portal? ● 👀 Infrastructure abstractions leaking to developers? ● 🎯 Focus on “platform as a product”

@danielbryantuk | @kratixio And now to a demo by Jake! @danielbryantuk | @aclevernamedev syntasso.io/post/platform-engineering-orchestrating-applications-platforms-an d-infrastructure speakerdeck.com/syntasso