Internal Developer Platforms: Engineering for golden paths and DevOps lifecycles

What is an internal developer platform?

An internal developer platform is a collection of tools and processes that enable developer self-service of configuration, deployment, observability, provisioning and rollback. IDPs streamline toolchains and workflows to create a development ‘golden path’ that defines and simplifies software development and allows developers to focus more time on writing code and less on configuring and managing infrastructure.

IDPs create golden paths with platform engineering

While they are related concepts, there are differences between platform engineering and IDPs. In fact, an IDP may be one of the primary results of a platform engineering effort, the outcome of a well-organized platform engineering team.

Platform engineering deals with the underlying infrastructure and architecture that supports software development across the entire organization. It lays the foundation on which specific tools and services, like IDPs, can be built. IDPs, on the other hand, are a specific set of tools and services designed to streamline the software development process. They are built on top of the platform engineering efforts and are tailored to the needs of developers within each organization.

Internal developer platform architecture

Internal developer platforms typically are implemented in one of two ways: either by purchasing existing frameworks or by creating one internally from scratch. Either way, IDPs are treated as important products with assigned product management resources to define requirements and capabilities. Common IDP components include:

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  Workflow automation tools: The practices and tools that automate the process of building, testing and deploying code to production environments, thereby ensuring faster and more reliable software releases.
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  Infrastructure building and management tools: Tools to compile and package the software for distribution.
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  Deployment tools: Technologies, like Docker and Kubernetes, that enable the efficient deployment and management of applications.
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  Security and compliance standards: Tools and best practices to ensure security and compliance standards are met during development.
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  Testing capabilities: Frameworks and tools to conduct automated testing, ensuring software quality.
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  Production application monitoring: Tools that help monitor the application's performance and collect logs for debugging and analysis.

The specific components and features of an IDP may vary depending on an organization's needs and the technologies they use.

Optimizing developer experience through IDP integration

A significant benefit of adopting an IPD is the efficiencies it brings to the DevOps team. DevOps teams typically are burdened with many operational responsibilities, such as security, scaling and infrastructure management. IDPs help to ease the operational burden by integrating into existing infrastructure to provide a simple, scalable platform for developers to build and run their code. This reduces the infrastructure provisioning workload on the DevOps team while abstracting the complexity of creating a new environment for developers. Developers can save time and improve their productivity because they don't have to wait for DevOps or Ops engineers to provision their infrastructure. IDPs help DevOps achieve their goals of providing streamlined, automated software delivery processes and a better developer experience.

Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs) vs. External Developer Platforms (EDPs)

Organizations that have strategic external developer ecosystems often adopt an external developer portal (EDP), which provides a self-service API portal to enhance collaboration between the organization and third-party developers. EDPs facilitate agreements with third-party developers, providing support on API usage, governance, documentation and security.

An EDP is different from an IDP because it is focused on creating an ecosystem around APIs for external developers to let them use and test APIs. IDPs are focused on streamlining internal workflows to create golden paths for internal software development. Many organizations choose to employ a hybrid approach, combining IDPs with EDPs to leverage the benefits of both.

Benefits of an IDP

While IDPs offer many benefits by providing a centralized and streamlined environment for software development, not all organizations may benefit equally from implementing one. The decision to adopt an IDP depends on several factors, including the size of an organization, the nature of its software development projects, and the availability of resources for IDP management. With appropriate resources in place, organizations can reap the full benefits of IDPs including:

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  Developer velocity: IDPs automate repetitive tasks, such as building, testing and deploying code, thereby reducing manual effort and enabling developers to focus on writing high-quality code. This efficiency leads to increased productivity and faster development cycles.
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  Standardization: IDPs promote consistency in development practices across teams, leading to standardized workflows, coding standards and best practices.
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  Collaboration and communication: IDPs often include collaboration and communication tools that facilitate interaction among developers, testers and other stakeholders. This improved communication fosters better collaboration, knowledge sharing and decision making.
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  Security and compliance: IDPs can enforce security measures and compliance standards, reducing the risk of vulnerabilities and ensuring that development practices align with industry and regulatory requirements.
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  Scalability and flexibility: IDPs are designed to scale as organizations and development teams grow. IDPs can accommodate the needs of various projects and technologies, supporting an organization's evolving requirements.
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  Cost-effectiveness: IDPs can lead to cost savings by streamlining development processes, automating tasks and improving the efficiency of development teams.
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  Innovation and experimentation: With the operational tasks automated, developers have more time to focus on innovation, experimenting with new technologies and exploring creative solutions.

Building IDPs with Tanzu

Internal developer platforms are an excellent solution for meeting the ever-increasing demand for faster development and automation of the entire DevOps lifecycle. IDPs help organizations create the development team’s ‘golden path’ with unified management, end-to-end connectivity, and faster software delivery times.

Tanzu empowers companies to innovate on their own terms through a product portfolio that allows developers to focus on building great apps with faster, more secure paths to production and fully automated platform operations at scale.