How Platform Engineering Compares to Running a Restaurant

Dive into the fascinating world of platform engineering while we draw parallels between the complex operations of a bustling eatery and the intricate processes of platform engineering. Just as a successful restaurant relies on a harmonious blend of ingredients, staff, and ambiance to delight customers, platform engineering integrates various technologies, teams, and practices to deliver robust software solutions. Join us as we explore the similarities in skill sets in both fields.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Sponsor: DoubleCloud
🔗 double.cloud 🔗
Save time & costs by streamlining data pipelines with zero-maintenance open-source solutions. From ingestion to visualization: all integrated, fully managed, and highly reliable, so your engineers will love working with data.
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
#PlatformEngineering #InternalDeveloperPlatform #IDP
Consider joining the channel: / devopstoolkit
▬▬▬▬▬▬ 💰 Sponsorships 💰 ▬▬▬▬▬▬
If you are interested in sponsoring this channel, please use calendar.app.google/Q9eaDUHN8... to book a timeslot that suits you, and we'll go over the details. Or feel free to contact me over Twitter or LinkedIn (see below).
▬▬▬▬▬▬ 👋 Contact me 👋 ▬▬▬▬▬▬
➡ Twitter: / vfarcic
➡ LinkedIn: / viktorfarcic
▬▬▬▬▬▬ 🚀 Other Channels 🚀 ▬▬▬▬▬▬
🎤 Podcast: www.devopsparadox.com/
💬 Live streams: / devopsparadox
▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⏱ Timecodes ⏱ ▬▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 Platform Engineering vs. Restaurant
01:54 DoubleCloud (sponsor)
02:54 Platform Engineering vs. Restaurant (cont.)

[@nelloserio1992]

Great explaination, as always! This simplified analogy between restaurant and IDP becomes extremely useful for those who needs to have a high level idea about what an IDP is and what added values brings to the company productivity, while still hiding the complexity and the necessary integrations to implement a solid solution. The Waiter example clearly highlights the boundary that separates users point of view from the backend details Keep it up! 💪🏼💯

[@steve-at-yt]

I have been thinking about this many many times and you bring it to the point! Awesome!

[@DevOpsToolkit]

Glad to hear it!

[@walk_with_anshuman]

You're my mentor now!!

[@IvanRizzante]

Thank you for this video, I really liked the comparison between platform engineering and restaurants, it really clarifies the concepts behind it. I bet that while many people already know how to implement the other parts (service catalog, services, ...) at least up to a certain point it's still unclear how to get the feedback part done right. Maybe it could be an idea for an upcoming video?

[@DevOpsToolkit]

Adding it to my to-do list...

[@michaeljuliano8839]

One thing I’ve been a bit confused about is how GitOps practices interact with this kind of platform. When you provide your users with an API to order their own infrastructure, would the API be interacting with a git repo, or is this a different thing that falls outside the scope of GitOps?

[@DevOpsToolkit]

Assuming that those resources are managed by kubernetes, it's up to you to choose how you interact with it's API. You can use gitops, or kubectl, or helm, or anything else. That is the beautify or APIs. You are not concerned how people consume it. Personally, i tend to use gitops to interact with kube API.

[@michaeljuliano8839]

Ah, okay. I was imagining that the API was something injected between the user and Kubernetes, but it sounds like you would recommend letting Kubernetes be the API in this case. From there, it follows that it’s on the user to decide how they interact with Kubernetes. I suppose to stick with the restaurant analogy, the user decides whether to go to the restaurant and sit at a table or to order to go or to use an app to order delivery.

[@DevOpsToolkit]

@michaeljuliano8839 that's correct. I believe that kubernetes API is the best bet we have when building API for a platform.

[@MrEvgheniDev]

Greate compare, thank you! Interesting who is sommelier in this restaurant?

[@DevOpsToolkit]

That would be the mainframe guy.

[@MrEvgheniDev]

@@DevOpsToolkit or mainframe AI :)

[@Yair-wj6ir]

Hi, great video, i didnt understand the part about observability, how can one filter and transform the logs (technically) which frameworks recommend? Also how would one expect the logs to be?

[@DevOpsToolkit]

Logs can be transformed by services themselves. They can output logs that matter to end users and keep those for service providers separate. That's what, for example, AWS does. It does not give us, the users, all the information but only parts that matter to us. As an example, I am trying to push crossplane project to enable some kind of filtering so that service providers, people building compositions, can choose what matters to end users. Alternatively, you can use log shippers like fluentd or promtsil to filter logs based on whichever criteria you define.

[@DerJoe92]

Very nice comparison and very well explained! Is there a simple tool for creating menus from APIs, besides kubectl explain or IDE's Kubernetes plugin (which are great but kinda "low level")?

[@DevOpsToolkit]

Unfortunately, as far as I know, there are no such tools that are user-friendly. That is the part that is very surprising. I do not fully understand why none of "service catalog" tools use Kube API to discover what's available instead of asking the API. That being said, even though there is no plugin in Backstage that can do that, it should be trivial to develop one and I know that at least a few companies are doing it (without open sourcing it). Hoopefully, someone will create a plugin. I do not work with TS so I can't help with that one myself. Port, my favorite tool in that area is working on it. That was one of my complaints and they took it to heart. I can't say when it will be release except to say that I believe we're close to getting it.

[@DerJoe92]

@@DevOpsToolkit oh that is indeed surprising. Thanks a lot for your answer!

[@DevOpsToolkit]

My videos often contain "sublimal" messages to other projects to influence their roadmaps. I'm sure we'll have that soon 🙂

[@sredevopsorg]

I've spent years of literal pain, suffering and stress until I've realized that I wasn't the problem, just -at most- a minor part of the problem when it comes to culture, management and horrible practices, even if we don't take in count the poor ownership/governance which it's seems to be a "global pandemic" hahahaha, regards from Chile!