Once upon a time, there was DevOps… and it laid the foundation for Platform Engineering.
You start keeping pace with the technological market… and suddenly — boom!
You know that feeling when you implement one methodology meant to revolutionize your organization’s workflow, only for the community to immediately introduce another, even more advanced one? You think you’re ahead of the curve, only to find new practices emerging that promise to further optimize your company’s tech processes. As the saying goes, “Better is the enemy of good.”
This is exactly how Platform Engineering emerged—a practice built on the foundation of DevOps. When organizations began adopting DevOps principles, the market recognized the need for an even more tailored approach for specific operational areas.
Should you take the next step and implement Platform Engineering after DevOps? Is this a practice that will accelerate team efficiency and support organizational growth? Let’s explore these questions in today’s article.
First came the philosophy of DevOps, and then…
DevOps serves as the cornerstone for emerging methodologies. At its core, DevOps is a culture and a set of practices that integrate development and operations processes. This creates a cohesive team that eliminates communication barriers and accelerates software delivery through automation and standardization.
Key tools supporting DevOps include Jenkins, GitLab, CI/CD pipelines, Ansible, Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes, and other container management platforms. These tools automate tasks like infrastructure provisioning and application deployment. Over time, it became evident that DevOps was just the starting point for further advancements.
One such advancement is Site Reliability Engineering (SRE). This concept prioritizes system availability, reliability, and deployment speed on par with traditional functional requirements, which necessitate continuous improvement. SRE focuses on optimizing production systems, actively monitoring them using tools like Prometheus, Grafana, or AWS CloudWatch, and refining them.
SRE relies on concepts such as error budgets and SLAs to balance reliability with the pace of deploying changes. While DevOps emphasizes integrating processes, SRE acts as a guardian of stability, responding to incidents and optimizing systems based on data and analysis.
Where does Platform Engineering fit in?
As the market and its demands evolve, gaps emerge. DevOps streamlines processes, and SRE ensures stability, but there was no approach enabling developers to quickly access ready-to-use infrastructure without waiting for DevOps specialists. To fill this gap, Platform Engineering was developed.
Platform Engineering provides resources for deploying new applications or microservices without requiring developers to delve into the intricacies of configurations or cloud tools. This approach enhances developer efficiency and grants greater autonomy than the DevOps methodology.
Platform Engineering enables the creation of efficient, consistent, and modern platforms that support development teams. The primary goal of Platform Engineering teams is to standardize tools and processes, automate infrastructure, and manage environments effectively. Unlike DevOps, which focuses on integration and optimizing code delivery to end-users, Platform Engineering builds infrastructure directly tailored to developers’ needs.
Practical applications of Platform Engineering
A practical application of Platform Engineering is creating a developer portal that allows teams to deploy applications on Kubernetes independently, without needing in-depth knowledge of infrastructure. Another valuable example is using Terraform templates developed by the Platform Engineering team to automate the creation of AWS environments, simplifying the onboarding of new projects.
DevOps and Platform Engineering can coexist within an organization, complementing each other. The undeniable benefit of combining these approaches is the ability to implement changes and services faster while maintaining consistent infrastructure management standards across the organization.
Summary
Platform Engineering didn’t appear out of nowhere—it is a response to needs that have become increasingly evident over time. Think of it as an evolution: from DevOps introducing a culture of collaboration, through SRE adding reliability, to Platform Engineering creating a solid foundation for all IT activities.
Imagine an organization where every team has exactly what it needs. Tools are available on demand, infrastructure adapts to requirements, and processes are so well-designed that everything operates almost automatically. Platform Wngineering is not just a technology—it’s a strategy to prepare your organization for any scenario.
You don’t have to choose between DevOps, SRE or Platform Engineering. These are all components of a larger story about modern IT. The question is: is your organization ready for the next chapter? If the answer is yes, Platform Engineering is the key to unlocking more efficient, scalable, and modern solutions. Everything you need is already within reach—you just have to take the next step.
If you have questions, contact us at kontakt@lcloud.pl, and we’ll guide you from implementing DevOps to embracing Platform Engineering.
