Platform Engineering Scenarios

Scenario 1: Self-Service Infrastructure Provisioning

Platform Engineers enable self-service infrastructure provisioning, empowering development teams to manage their resources independently without relying on manual intervention from the infrastructure team. Key aspects include:

Offering a user-friendly interface or API for seamless resource provisioning and management
Implementing infrastructure as code for version control, reproducibility, and automation
Defining policies and quotas to ensure fair resource allocation and prevent abuse
Monitoring and optimizing resource utilization for cost control and performance maintenance

Scenario 2: Streamlined Application Onboarding

Platform Engineers simplify the process of onboarding new applications to the platform by:

Providing standardized templates, frameworks, and best practices for application development
Automating the setup of development, testing, and production environments
Integrating with CI/CD pipelines to enable continuous integration and deployment
Implementing security and compliance checks to ensure adherence to organizational standards
Offering comprehensive documentation, training, and support for quick developer onboarding

Scenario 3: Establishing a Golden Path (DevOps)

The Golden Path represents the recommended set of tools, processes, and best practices defined by Platform Engineers to ensure consistent, efficient, and secure application development and deployment, following DevOps principles. This involves:

Selecting and maintaining a standard set of languages, frameworks, libraries, and tools
Defining architecture patterns and design principles for scalable and maintainable applications
Establishing coding standards, testing practices, and documentation guidelines
Providing pre-built integrations and APIs for common services and functionalities
Continuously updating and improving the Golden Path based on feedback and new technologies
Fostering collaboration and communication between development and operations teams

Scenario 4: Enabling Application Self-Operation in Multi-Cloud

Platform Engineers provide the tools and infrastructure necessary for applications to be self-operating, with automated deployment, scaling, monitoring, and recovery across multiple cloud providers. This includes:

Implementing infrastructure as code and configuration management for consistency across environments
Providing APIs and tools for applications to manage their own lifecycle, scaling, and health checks
Integrating with cloud-native services and technologies like Kubernetes, serverless, and service mesh
Enabling multi-cloud deployments to avoid vendor lock-in and improve resilience
Offering centralized logging, monitoring, and alerting for visibility and control

Scenario 5: Implementing Billing and Financial Operations (FinOps)

Platform Engineers play a crucial role in managing costs and optimizing financial operations related to the platform and its applications. This involves:

Implementing metering and billing mechanisms to track resource consumption by applications and teams
Providing cost visibility and analytics for stakeholders to understand and optimize spending
Defining cost allocation models and budgets to ensure fair and transparent charging
Continuously monitoring and optimizing resource utilization to identify and eliminate waste
Collaborating with finance and business teams to align platform costs with organizational goals and priorities
Implementing cost-saving strategies and negotiating favorable terms with cloud providers