Beyond the hype: A practical guide to internal developer portals

Summary

This talk explores the importance of Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) in improving software quality, reducing operational complexity, and enabling better collaboration between developers and platform teams. Key topics include standardization through checks, campaign automation for raising standards, and enabling self-service tools for developers to reduce dependency on platform teams. The speaker emphasizes how IDPs help organizations streamline their processes, enhance efficiency, and foster a more productive development environment. Ultimately, the goal is to reduce toil, improve software delivery, and increase leverage across engineering teams.

Takeaways

• 😀 Platform engineering is about providing self-service tools to help developers operate and scale software more effectively, without unnecessary friction or toil.
• 🔑 An internal developer portal (IDP) is a key component of platform engineering, helping developers quickly access relevant resources and reduce manual, repetitive tasks.
• 📊 Standardization is critical to improving software quality across an organization, and it’s achieved through consistent checks, documentation, and visibility for developers.
• 🚀 Developer self-service empowers product developers to independently manage and provision resources like databases, S3 buckets, and service templates, without needing constant platform team intervention.
• ⚙️ Automation is essential in platform engineering. Tools that automate routine operations, such as provisioning infrastructure or applying naming standards, can significantly reduce manual work and mistakes.
• 📉 The importance of tracking progress with metrics like burnup charts and trends over time to ensure campaigns or initiatives are on track and to highlight areas for improvement.
• 🔍 Providing clear context for each check and standard (e.g., why it's important and how to fix it) reduces developer confusion and increases the likelihood that checks will be completed.
• ⚖️ Prioritization of checks ensures developers focus on what’s most important first, such as bronze-level checks before tackling more advanced silver-level ones.
• 🎯 Platform engineers should focus on creating self-service tools that allow developers to access the necessary resources without manually filing tickets for basic tasks, thus increasing team efficiency and reducing unnecessary workload.
• 💼 Successful IDPs require a blend of well-documented self-service tools, automated checks, and easy-to-navigate portals that can scale across large organizations with complex infrastructures.

Q & A

What is the purpose of an Internal Developer Portal (IDP)?

An IDP serves as a centralized platform for developers to access tools, resources, and best practices that enable them to build, deploy, and maintain software more efficiently. It reduces friction in the development process, promotes standardization, and automates common tasks, helping developers deliver software faster while maintaining quality.

How do graduated standards (e.g., Bronze, Silver, Gold) benefit developers in an IDP?

Graduated standards help developers focus on completing simpler tasks (like Bronze checks) before advancing to more complex ones (like Silver or Gold). This structured approach makes it clear which tasks to prioritize, offers a pathway for progress, and ensures developers are meeting the necessary quality standards step by step.

Why is having context for each check important in an IDP?

Providing context for each check—explaining what it is, why it's important, and how to fix it—reduces confusion among developers and increases the likelihood that checks will be completed. Clear documentation helps developers understand the purpose behind the tasks and provides actionable guidance on how to resolve issues.

How does an IDP help platform engineers and management with visibility?

An IDP provides visibility into the entire infrastructure, allowing platform engineers and management to track the status of checks across different teams and systems. This visibility enables them to identify areas of deficiency (e.g., security), monitor trends over time, and make data-driven decisions about where to invest resources to improve quality.

What role do campaigns play in improving standards and processes in an IDP?

Campaigns in an IDP are automated initiatives designed to help teams adopt new standards or make large-scale changes (e.g., migrating to a new cloud provider). Campaigns track progress, send reminders, and escalate issues without manual intervention, streamlining the process of enforcing standards and achieving organizational goals.

What are the challenges of self-service for product developers and how does an IDP address them?

Product developers often struggle with having to manage both software development and operational tasks. An IDP solves this by providing self-service automation for common operations, such as rolling back code, scaling pods, or creating resources, without needing to consult platform engineers. This empowers developers to solve problems independently and reduces operational overhead.

How does an IDP prevent platform engineers from becoming overwhelmed with tactical requests?

An IDP helps platform engineers move away from handling individual tactical requests by automating common infrastructure tasks. Instead of constantly responding to requests, platform engineers can enable developers to self-serve through automated tools, which increases efficiency and allows platform teams to focus on higher-level tasks.

What is the importance of service templates in an IDP?

Service templates in an IDP standardize the creation of new services by providing a predefined structure that developers can use as a starting point. This ensures consistency across services, reduces errors, and eliminates the need for developers to start from scratch every time, improving overall service quality and alignment with best practices.

How does an IDP enforce organizational standards through automation?

An IDP enforces organizational standards by automating the creation and configuration of resources. For example, developers can be guided through creating an S3 bucket or provisioning a database with built-in validation that ensures they follow naming conventions, adhere to resource limits, and avoid costly mistakes like provisioning oversized instances.

When is an IDP most beneficial for an organization?

An IDP is most beneficial for organizations with large, complex infrastructures or multiple engineering teams. As the scale and complexity of production systems grow, an IDP provides the necessary tools to streamline processes, reduce manual tasks, ensure quality standards, and improve collaboration across teams. Smaller teams with simpler setups may not need an IDP immediately.