December 2023 Summaries

Platform Orchestration is a relatively new concept that involves a platform orchestrator dynamically updating application and infrastructure configurations based on workload requirements and provided resources. This approach reduces configuration surface area, eliminates the need for custom resource configurations, and enables near complete freedom in infrastructure choice. By abstracting away complexity, Platform Orchestration promises to reduce operational costs, increase efficiency, and enable more frequent deployments, ultimately leading to a shift from traditional reactive operations teams to proactive platform engineering teams. The implications of this technology are significant, including increased innovation, reduced waiting times, and a decrease in the need for proprietary serverless layers, with the benefits likely to be realized by companies that adopt an efficient operating model, GTM model, developer experience, and own the leading Platform Orchestration system.

KubeCon North America was a pivotal event where platform engineering took center stage, showcasing its significant impact on industry mindshare. The focus on visibility as a primary goal of platform engineering is misguided, and teams should prioritize building their foundation first. A key challenge in shipping an IDP with high impact and ROI lies in repository structure, which often suffers from inefficient relationships between workloads and configuration files. This leads to auditability, ownership, security, and maintenance issues. To address this, a more professional repository structure is needed, where resource config files are moved to dedicated repos, abstracting by building golden paths for developers. This approach enables clear governance, RBAC, and standardization, reducing config files by up to 95% and improving time-to-market by up to 30%.