Hello everyone! This is your tech guide, here to sharply dissect the latest trends in the IT industry. π
If you’ve been on LinkedIn or read international tech blogs recently, you’ve probably often come across the provocative phrase, “DevOps is Dead.” DevOps, which has been considered the golden rule of the IT industry for over a decade, is dead?
Today, we’re going to delve deep and in detail into the ‘developer burnout’ hidden behind this shocking declaration, and the emergence of ‘Platform Engineering’, which has appeared like a comet to solve it. Grab a cup of coffee and focus for about 10 minutes! βπ°οΈ
1. The Ideal and Reality of DevOps: “You build it, you run it” π€β‘οΈπ€―
In 2006, Amazon’s CTO Werner Vogels left us with a legendary quote:
> “You build it, you run it.”
This was the beginning of DevOps. It was an excellent philosophy to break down the barriers between development (Dev) and operations (Ops), and to increase agility by having developers directly participate in operations.
But what was the reality?
Companies began to misunderstand this philosophy as “dumping all the burden on developers.”
- Past: Developers only needed to write code. (Operations team handled servers)
- Present: Developers must write code, build Docker images, configure Kubernetes deployments, provision infrastructure with Terraform, monitor with Prometheus, and set up AWS IAM permissions.
Result: Developers spent more time learning infrastructure configuration than coding. This is professionally known as an ‘explosion of Cognitive Load.’ Developers’ heads were on the verge of exploding. π€―
2. The Betrayal of “Shift Left”: Developers Are Not Supermen π¦ΈββοΈπ«
Security shifted left (to the development phase), testing shifted left, deployment shifted left… The so-called ‘Shift Left’ movement placed too much burden on developers’ shoulders.
- Junior Developer’s Cry: “I joined as a Java backend developer, why am I troubleshooting Kubernetes?”
- Emergence of Shadow Ops: Ultimately, a distorted structure emerged where one senior developer in the team, who “knew a bit about infrastructure,” couldn’t code and spent all day dealing with infrastructure chores.
DevOps was meant for ‘collaboration,’ but in reality, it was forcing developers to become ‘full-lifecycle engineers’ beyond full-stack, leading to burnout.
3. The Emergence of the Relief Pitcher: Platform Engineering π‘οΈποΈ
The concept that emerged to solve this problem is Platform Engineering.
> Core Definition: Platform Engineering is about building and operating an ‘Internal Developer Platform (IDP)’ that allows developers to easily use necessary features themselves (Self-service), without needing to understand the complexity of the underlying infrastructure.
Let’s use a simple analogy. π
- Traditional DevOps: Throwing beef, flour, and lettuce at developers and telling them, “Go to the kitchen (AWS/K8s) and make your own burger.”
- Platform Engineering: Providing developers with a ‘kiosk (IDP)’. Developers just press a button (Self-service) and can get a burger without knowing what’s happening in the kitchen.
4. Three Core Elements of Platform Engineering π
Platform Engineering is not simply “renaming the operations team.” The philosophy is different.
β Product Mindset π
Platform engineers view internal developers as ‘customers.’ They consider, “Will our customers (developers) find this platform convenient?” The goal is not to force them to use it, but to make it so convenient that they choose to use it.
β‘ Golden Path β¨
This refers to the ‘easiest and recommended path.’ When a developer asks, “How do I deploy this?”, the platform team shows them a pre-paved road (Golden Path). “If you use this template, security settings, logging, and deployment pipelines are all set up. Just add your business logic.”
β’ IDP (Internal Developer Platform) π»
The tangible embodiment of all this is the IDP. A prime example is Backstage, created by Spotify. Developers access this portal to create development environments, deploy, and monitor with just a few clicks.
5. So, What Gets Better? π
This change benefits both developers and businesses.
- Developers (Dev): Freed from the hell of infrastructure configuration. No need to know kubectl commands. They can refocus on their core job: ‘writing code.’ (Burnout escape! ποΈ)
- Operations/Platform Team (Ops): Escapes from handling repetitive tickets like “Please spin up a server” or “Grant permissions.” Instead, they focus on engineering to create excellent ‘platform products.’
- Business (Biz): Security incidents are reduced due to the use of standardized methods (Golden Path), and the onboarding speed of new hires dramatically increases.
6. Conclusion: DevOps Isn’t Dead. It Has Simply ‘Matured.’ π¦
The phrase “DevOps is dead” is actually closer to clickbait. To be precise, what has died is the “incorrect practice of DevOps that burdens developers with everything.”
Platform Engineering is an evolved form (DevOps 2.0) designed to realistically implement the philosophy of DevOps (collaboration, automation).
How is your organization doing now? Are your developers sighing and struggling with YAML files in front of a terminal window? If so, it’s time to launch a new lifeboat: Platform Engineering. π’
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