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Capabilities & Characteristics

Platform Capabilities

When you think about building a platform, there are a few key components, or "capabilities," that lay the foundation. These are crucial because the platform can't function effectively without them. Together, these capabilities ensure that a business can run smoothly, grow, and innovate. Here's a breakdown of the six essential capabilities that any robust platform should have.

Infrastructure / Cloud Platform Scaffolding

This is all about your business's technology backbone. It involves picking and managing essential parts like computing power, network, and storage, whether in the cloud or similar environments. The aim is to have a flexible and sturdy base that supports all the other parts of the platform.

Security, Governance, and Resiliency

Security is critical. This area focuses on protecting your systems, data, and operations from threats. It includes setting up security policies, controlling who can access what, encrypting data, and monitoring your systems to catch any issues. It's also about following laws and internal rules to keep everything above board.

Observability

To keep your systems running smoothly, you need to be able to see what's going on. Observability allows you to collect and analyze data like logs, metrics, and traces. This allows you to understand your system's health and performance and fix any issues quickly.

Engineering Acceleration

This capability is all about speeding up and making software development more efficient. It involves using tools and practices that help streamline the work, automate repetitive tasks, and facilitate teamwork. The goal is to get new ideas to market quicker while maintaining high quality.

Software Delivery

Delivering software to users is what it's all about. This capability covers the steps needed to build, test, and release software. It includes using version control, continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, and a strategy for releasing software that ensures everything goes smoothly.

Operations

Lastly, making sure your software can be maintained and run effectively in a live environment is key. This involves setting up, scaling, and managing the software. Support systems are also critical here to ensure everything stays up and running reliably.

Understanding and developing these capabilities is essential for any platform to deliver value and drive innovation.

Platform Characteristics

For platforms to truly succeed and be embraced by users, they must exhibit certain key characteristics alongside their capabilities. Here's what sets apart successful platforms:

  • Focus on Speedy Delivery: Platforms are designed to help teams quickly deliver value, acting almost as a catalyst in the development process.
  • Evolving Architecture: The design isn't set in stone; it grows and improves over time through continuous updates and iterations.
  • Self-reliance: The team that builds the platform also uses it, ensuring it effectively meets real-world needs.
  • Collaborative Flexibility: Teams can suggest changes and enhancements, making the platform a collective effort.
  • Top-tier Tools: It's built with the best tools available, staying current as technology evolves.
  • Instant Emergency Access: In case of issues, teams can quickly gain access to address them, ensuring minimal downtime.
  • Ready from Day One: The platform allows for immediate deployment without delays.
  • Modern Tech Foundation: It uses the latest cloud-native technologies and tools for optimal performance.
  • Freedom within Framework: While a recommended path to production exists, teams are free to explore and innovate.
  • Built-in Security: Security measures are integrated and transparent, protecting without hindering development.
  • Immediate Observability: Systems are set up to provide insights right out of the box, aiding in quick decision-making.
  • Automated Governance: Governance and compliance are streamlined and automated, reducing manual oversight.
  • Swift to Production: The time it takes to move from concept to production is measured in minutes rather than hours, speeding up delivery.
  • Adherence to Best Practices: The platform aligns with modern delivery standards to ensure quality and reliability.
  • Continuous Improvement: It supports and encourages ongoing updates and iterations for perpetual enhancement.
  • Modern Delivery Support: Supports practices that align with today's fast-paced development environments.
  • Immutable Artifacts: Ensures that once something is built, it can run anywhere without changes, enhancing reliability.
  • Reliable Deployment Pipelines: Offers dependable, efficient, simple, and trusted deployment mechanisms.
  • Separate Configurations: Configuration specific to environments is kept separate from the build process for flexibility.
  • Smart Scaling: Automatically scales resources as needed to ensure consistent performance without manual intervention.
  • Inbuilt Performance: High performance is a standard feature, not an afterthought.
  • Room for Improvement: Engineers have the space to innovate beyond basic requirements.
  • Simplified Advanced Deployments: Enables advanced deployment strategies like canary and blue-green models easily, boosting resilience.

These characteristics ensure platforms not only meet the immediate needs of their users but are also prepared to evolve and adapt over time.