Platform Engineering

Platform Principles

• Self-service first: Reduce manual work to <10%
• Golden paths: Pre-approved, opinionated templates
• Developer experience: Measure and optimize productivity
• Platform as product: Treat with product mindset

Self-Service with Crossplane

# Composition for self-service database
apiVersion: apiextensions.crossplane.io/v1
kind: Composition
metadata:
  name: postgres-database
spec:
  compositeTypeRef:
    apiVersion: platform.example.com/v1alpha1
    kind: Database
  resources:
    - name: rds-instance
      base:
        apiVersion: rds.aws.crossplane.io/v1alpha1
        kind: DBInstance
        spec:
          forProvider:
            dbInstanceClass: db.t3.micro
            engine: postgres
            engineVersion: "15"
            masterUsername: admin
            allocatedStorage: 20

Terraform Self-Service Module

# modules/service/main.tf
variable "service_name" {}
variable "environment" {}

module "k8s_service" {
  source   = "./k8s-deployment"
  name     = var.service_name
  env      = var.environment
}

module "database" {
  source = "./postgres"
  name   = "${var.service_name}-db"
}

module "monitoring" {
  source  = "./monitoring-stack"
  service = var.service_name
}

output "service_url" {
  value = module.k8s_service.url
}

Backstage Service Template

# templates/microservice/template.yaml
apiVersion: scaffolder.backstage.io/v1beta3
kind: Template
metadata:
  name: microservice-template
  title: Microservice Golden Path
spec:
  owner: platform-team
  type: service
  parameters:
    - title: Service Info
      properties:
        name:
          type: string
        owner:
          type: string
          ui:field: OwnerPicker
        language:
          type: string
          enum: [go, python, nodejs, java]
  steps:
    - id: fetch
      action: fetch:template
      input:
        url: ./skeleton
        values:
          name: ${{ parameters.name }}
    - id: publish
      action: publish:github
      input:
        repoUrl: github.com?owner=org&repo=${{ parameters.name }}
    - id: register
      action: catalog:register

Service Catalog Info

# catalog-info.yaml
apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  name: payment-service
  annotations:
    github.com/project-slug: org/payment-service
    pagerduty.com/integration-key: abc123
    grafana/dashboard-selector: service=payment
spec:
  type: service
  lifecycle: production
  owner: payments-team
  system: checkout
  dependsOn:
    - resource:default/payment-db
    - component:default/auth-service
  providesApis:
    - payment-api

Golden Path Scaffolding

#!/bin/bash
# create-service.sh - Golden path for new services

SERVICE=$1
LANG=$2

# Create from template
gh repo create "org/$SERVICE" --template "org/template-$LANG"
git clone "git@github.com:org/$SERVICE.git"
cd "$SERVICE"

# Setup CI/CD
cat > .github/workflows/ci.yml < terraform/main.tf <
      
      <p>Provision Time: {metrics.avgProvisionTime}</p>
      <p>Uptime: {metrics.uptime}</p>
      <p>Satisfaction: {metrics.satisfaction}/5</p>
    
  );
};

Cost Allocation

# kubecost/allocation.yaml
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: cost-allocation
data:
  allocation.json: |
    {
      "defaultLabels": {
        "team": "team",
        "service": "app",
        "environment": "env"
      },
      "shareNamespaces": ["kube-system"],
      "shareCost": "weighted"
    }

Platform APIs

# Platform API for self-service provisioning
from fastapi import FastAPI, Depends
from pydantic import BaseModel

app = FastAPI()

class ServiceRequest(BaseModel):
    name: str
    environment: str
    language: str
    database: bool = False

@app.post("/api/v1/services")
async def create_service(request: ServiceRequest):
    # Validate and enqueue
    task = platform.provision_service(
        name=request.name,
        env=request.environment,
        template=f"golden-path-{request.language}"
    )
    return {"task_id": task.id, "status": "provisioning"}

@app.get("/api/v1/services/{name}/status")
async def service_status(name: str):
    return {
        "status": "running",
        "url": f"https://{name}.example.com",
        "health": "healthy",
        "cost_mtd": "$142.50"
    }

Multi-Tenant Architecture

# Policy: Resource quotas per tenant
apiVersion: v1
kind: ResourceQuota
metadata:
  name: team-quota
  namespace: team-payments
spec:
  hard:
    requests.cpu: "20"
    requests.memory: 40Gi
    persistentvolumeclaims: "10"
    services.loadbalancers: "2"
---
# RBAC: Namespace admin
apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
kind: RoleBinding
metadata:
  name: team-admin
  namespace: team-payments
roleRef:
  apiGroup: rbac.authorization.k8s.io
  kind: ClusterRole
  name: namespace-admin
subjects:
  - kind: Group
    name: team-payments

Adoption Strategy

# Platform metrics tracking
apiVersion: v1
kind: ConfigMap
metadata:
  name: platform-goals
data:
  goals.yaml: |
    q1_2024:
      self_service_rate: 90%
      avg_provision_time: 5min
      developer_satisfaction: 4.5/5
      golden_path_adoption: 80%

    tracking:
      weekly_provisioning: true
      team_feedback: true
      support_tickets: true
      training_completion: true

CLI Tool Example

#!/bin/bash
# platform-cli - Self-service CLI

platform() {
  case $1 in
    create)
      curl -X POST $PLATFORM_API/services \\
        -d "{\\"name\\":\\"$2\\",\\"env\\":\\"$3\\",\\"language\\":\\"$4\\"}"
      ;;
    status)
      curl $PLATFORM_API/services/$2/status | jq
      ;;
    logs)
      kubectl logs -l app=$2 -n ${3:-staging} --tail=100
      ;;
    cost)
      curl $PLATFORM_API/services/$2/cost?period=mtd
      ;;
  esac
}

Best Practices

• Design for self-service from day one
• Make golden paths the easiest option
• Measure developer satisfaction continuously
• Automate platform operations
• Provide excellent documentation
• Build APIs, not just tools
• Enable safe experimentation
• Maintain backward compatibility
• Treat platform as a product
• Gather and act on feedback
• Track adoption metrics weekly
• Run platform as a product team
• Invest in developer evangelism
• Maintain SLOs for platform uptime
• Provide fast, helpful support