September 2023 Summaries

The Humanitec Platform Orchestrator is a key component of an Internal Developer Platform (IDP), enabling Dynamic Configuration Management (DCM) across the entire software delivery lifecycle by defining how resources should be provisioned in a dynamic and standardized way, and allowing developers to create workload specifications that remove the need for environment-specific configs. In contrast, Compass is a developer portal that acts as the interface to the platform, enhancing the developer experience with features such as a software catalog, Score Cards, and integrations with VCS, CI pipelines, Slack, etc., making it easier for teams to discover and access internal platform capabilities. The real magic happens when these two tools are used together to build an effective enterprise-grade IDP that boosts DevOps productivity by providing a standardized architecture, config management, and self-service actions for developers.

The Humanitec Platform Orchestrator is a key component of an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) that facilitates Dynamic Configuration Management (DCM), enabling platform engineers to set standardized and dynamic definitions of how to provision resources, thus simplifying environment-specific configs for developers. In contrast, Backstage acts as the interface to the platform, providing a developer portal with features such as a software catalog, software templates, and documentation, enhancing the developer experience. While both tools are valuable in building an IDP, they belong to different categories and have distinct roles, making it essential to choose the right tool for each stage of the application lifecycle. By combining the Platform Orchestrator and Backstage, organizations can drive developer satisfaction, enable true self-service, boost productivity, and shorten time-to-market, ultimately creating a robust enterprise-grade IDP.

The Humanitec Platform Orchestrator has introduced a new UI for cloning workloads and shared resources, designed to enhance transparency and control when cloning between environments. The new feature allows users to clone individual workloads or entire applications between environments, promoting changes across different environments while retaining control and transparency. The cloning process is now organized into three sections: removing, adding, and updating workloads and shared resources, enabling more precise management of the states of multiple environments and determining which workloads and resources should be promoted. This change aims to simplify the cloning workflow while maintaining its core functionality, allowing users to clone deployments with ease and isolate changes, test updates, facilitate parallel developments, and enable easy rollback and recovery.

Our journey towards delivering a product that’s intuitive and user-centric is neverending. And it’s driven by the valuable feedback and experiences of users just like you. We're always listening and adapting, so today, we're thrilled to reveal our redesigned Platform Orchestrator user interface! A new, simplified, more intuitive interface prioritizes easier understanding of dependencies between components, with a logical flow and intuitive navigation. The redesign separates entities such as Applications, Environments, Deployments, and Workloads into context-specific views, giving users relevant information at their fingertips. Accessibility and scalability have also been improved, with table-like components making data easier to view and keyboard accessibility enhanced. Next, the company will focus on increasing information availability for both new and experienced users, aiming for a seamless and enjoyable experience.

Static configuration management can significantly hinder developer productivity due to its complexity, resulting in increased maintenance overhead, cognitive load for developers, and reliability issues. The traditional approach, often based on static setups, generates exponentially more configuration files as the number of services and environments increases, leading to config sprawl and a higher risk of errors and security incidents. In contrast, Dynamic Configuration Management (DCM) offers a solution by allowing developers to create workload specifications that describe everything their workload needs to run successfully, reducing the number of files and continuous standardization requirements. By adopting DCM, organizations can drive developer productivity, lower change failure rates, and reduce security incidents, making it an essential tool for enterprise-grade platforms.