Keith Babo leads the product team at Solo.io, covering the full range of application networking technologies required to build modern, cloud-native application architectures. Before joining Solo.io, Keith held product management and engineering leadership positions at Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, and Intel Corporation.
This conversation Keith offers how he and his team builds on DevOps by shifting the focus from collaboration and automation, to optimizing the entire software development lifecycle through centralized, integrated platforms. Keith also highlights the evolution from DevOps practices to more streamlined and standardized processes in platform engineering.
M.R. Rangaswami: How does platform engineering build on the foundations of DevOps, and what
sets it apart in the software development landscape?
Keith Babo: The primary difference between DevOps and platform engineering lies in their approach and focus. DevOps was introduced to foster collaboration between development and operations teams, leveraging automation and agile methodologies to streamline the software delivery pipeline. However, as organizations scaled their DevOps practices, they encountered new challenges, such as managing diverse and distributed systems and provisioning resources efficiently.
Platform engineering emerged to address these challenges by building on the foundation of DevOps. It focuses on creating internal developer platforms (IDPs) that provide self-service capabilities, standardized workflows, and integrated tooling. This centralized approach not only streamlines the development and deployment process but also enhances security, observability, and governance.
Essentially, while DevOps emphasizes collaboration and automation, platform engineering aims to optimize and standardize the entire delivery process through a cohesive, integrated environment.
M.R.: How is platform engineering improving the efficiency and productivity of
development teams?
Keith: Platform engineering significantly improves the efficiency and productivity of development teams by providing a streamlined and standardized environment for software development and deployment. One of the key advantages is the introduction of self-service capabilities. Developers can independently provision resources, deploy applications, and manage their environments without relying on traditional, ticket-based operations. This reduces lead times and increases agility, allowing developers to focus more on writing code and solving business problems.
Moreover, platform engineering integrates various tools and services into a unified interface, ensuring that repetitive tasks are automated and handled consistently. This not only improves productivity but also enhances the reliability and scalability of the software delivery process. By removing the friction associated with provisioning resources and managing environments, developers can concentrate on their core tasks, experiment, iterate, and deploy new features rapidly, ultimately driving business growth and innovation.
M.R.: What role does security play in platform engineering, and how does it enhance
an organization’s security posture?
Keith: Security is a critical aspect of platform engineering, and it plays a vital role in enhancing an organization’s security posture. Platform engineering incorporates security measures into the core workflows of delivering applications and services through the internal developer platform (IDP). By standardizing workflows and automating processes, platform engineering ensures that security best practices are consistently applied across the organization, creating a more robust and resilient
security framework.
Automated policies and guardrails are also implemented to enforce security standards, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities and compliance issues. This systematic approach not only improves the overall security of applications in production, but also ensures that security considerations are integrated from the beginning of the development process.
This proactive integration of security measures means that potential risks are identified and mitigated early, reducing the likelihood of security breaches and operational disruptions.
Additionally, platform engineering fosters a shared responsibility for security between development and platform teams, making it easier to establish a comprehensive security posture. This collaboration ensures that security is not an afterthought but a fundamental component of the development lifecycle.
By embedding security into the platform, organizations can mitigate risks and maintain compliance more effectively, as demonstrated by recent incidents like the Snowflake data breach. This holistic
approach to security, embedded within the platform engineering framework, enables organizations to safeguard their digital assets while continuing to innovate and deliver high-quality software solutions.
M.R. Rangaswami is the Co-Founder of Sandhill.com