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Platform engineering may seem like the latest buzzword, but you might be surprised to learn that it’s not new. It’s been around for a long time, especially in software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, where the platform itself is actually the core product or service delivered to customers.
However, platform engineering is new to enterprise IT, and in many ways, heralds the return of the enterprise architect. This shift marks a critical moment in organizations’ use of technology to enable business, and organizations must adopt a platform mindset to keep up. In fact, a recent Gartner report on platform engineering found that teams should ignore the hype and embrace the value of a customer-centric approach to delivering infrastructure platform products that optimize agility and innovation.
The evolution of enterprise architecture
Years ago, the role of the enterprise architect was a core pillar of an enterprise’s organizational structure. Their initial task is to define the company-wide vision, strategy and technology portfolio roadmap; including architecting and implementing standardization, with the goal of supporting digital transformation, IT growth and modernization.
During this period, the cost of technology was quite high—capital investments in the tens of thousands in hardware such as servers and storage solutions were commonplace. Enterprise architects and IT leaders have a firm grip on the reins, acting as gatekeepers controlling technology purchases. This oversight is deemed necessary given the substantial financial investment and strategic importance of these technology investments.
However, the emergence of open source solutions and the proliferation of cloud computing services have opened the floodgates and shifted power from centralized control to individual developers and engineers. They can now access servers on demand, minute by minute, and take advantage of the software’s features for free from the Internet. This democratization marks the beginning of a new era in which users have unprecedented freedom and flexibility in technology choices.
Today, as the adoption of these technologies has begun to scale, companies are finding that they have too many silos of tools and systems with no standardization or consistency. This complexity creates risks, hinders operational efficiency, and leads to unexpectedly high costs.
The role of the platform engineer
The “rise” of platform engineering is really just this type of practice making its way into the enterprise. Enterprises are grappling with an increasingly complex environment that includes a multitude of different applications and infrastructures, multiple generations and types, both on-premises and in the cloud.
As a vendor, I’ve recently seen enterprise architects begin to lead product portfolio conversations, including platform architecture design and definition. The shift in responsibilities of the Enterprise Architect role is about understanding the increasing complexity of technology adoption across different teams, while also refocusing some technology decisions and governance to deliver managed and secure services.
While enterprise architects are not always engineers, platform teams are more than just engineers. Typically, platform leaders make the connection between business outcomes and technology investments to build the right platform to drive business growth. To this end, are today’s enterprise architects the new platform leaders? I said yes.
way forward
Today, platform teams need to build connections between business processes, results and technology. Today, many teams still operate in silos, which can manifest in their specific technical functional parts or just within a single team.
Today, however, several key factors are reshaping the way teams work. Easy access to technology outside of enterprise IT fundamentally changes this dynamic. Additionally, the idea that IT owns a small portion of the technology is no longer acceptable. For example, if you are a database team, you cannot just be responsible for the database itself – you must also own the delivery of the database as a service, including the additional technologies surrounding it, such as operating systems, compute, memory and cost, security , access and performance.
Enterprise architects taking on the new role of platform leader must adopt a cross-functional mindset. They have to look at technology from a functional perspective, how it should fit together, what services the company should offer, and for which use cases it is applicable. Platform leaders should be a key part of the decision-making process on what constitutes the stack and how to deliver it. They should also ensure customer adoption and satisfaction by leading the engagement of customers or internal application teams to drive their platform as much as the product.
At the end of the day, don’t get hung up on the term platform engineering or enterprise architect, but focus on adopting the right practices and platform mindset. Shifting the mindset from a single technology to thinking like a service provider will enable teams to think end-to-end across these silos.
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