12.3. Platform Engineering
Platform engineering treats the internal developer experience as a product: instead of every team wiring up its own deploys, monitoring, and infrastructure, a platform team provides golden paths that make the right way the easy way. The goal is to reduce cognitive load without reducing autonomy. This chapter covers the internal developer platform, service catalogs like Backstage, the golden-path concept, infrastructure-as-code with Terraform and Pulumi, and the cost optimization that keeps the whole platform economically honest.
Topics Covered
Section titled “Topics Covered”- 12.3.1. Internal Developer Platform (IDP): What It Is and Why It Is Needed: Explains the internal developer platform that abstracts infrastructure behind self-service golden paths.
- 12.3.2. Backstage: Service Catalog and Developer Portal: Covers Backstage, the service catalog and developer portal that centralizes ownership and documentation.
- 12.3.3. Golden Paths: Speed and Security Through Standardized Routes: Explains golden paths, the paved, opinionated routes that make the secure and reliable way the easy way.
- 12.3.4. Infrastructure as Code: Terraform and Pulumi: Compares Terraform and Pulumi for declaring and versioning infrastructure as code.
- 12.3.5. Cost Optimization: Monitoring and Optimizing Resource Utilization: Covers monitoring and optimizing resource utilization to keep the platform economically sustainable.