Crafting Platforms: The Noble Art of Building Platforms

About the Book

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This book is about the artisanal craft of building platforms that adapt to each organization’s unique DNA. Modern Platform Engineering teams provide developers with a platform tailored to their needs. When we talk about a platform, managed as just another product, we refer to a set of services, tools, modules, templates, and best practices that facilitate the development, deployment, and operation of applications.

Drawing from years of hands-on experience designing and building platforms, the author shares fundamental concepts and proven patterns for creating secure, robust, scalable, and multi-tenant platforms in this book. The book’s approach is practical, offering solutions you can implement immediately in your organization.

Who Is This For?

Platform engineers, DevOps professionals, and technical leaders who are building (or considering building) an internal platform for their development teams. Regardless of whether your organization is a rapidly growing startup or a large enterprise modernizing its infrastructure, the fundamental principles will be the same.

This is not a book for beginners in cloud infrastructure (Azure, AWS, GCP, Kubernetes), but you don’t need to be an expert either. The main concepts are explained throughout the book, though it’s not an exhaustive guide to every specific technology.

Platform Craftsmanship

Every organization has unique DNA that demands tailored solutions. This book teaches you to build internal platforms that evolve and adapt to the needs of development teams, not the other way around. Think platform craftsmanship, not platform manufacturing.

About the Author

Over the past 25 years, I have worked as a system administrator, application developer, and cloud infrastructure expert. I have worked in companies of all sizes, from large consulting firms to small 2-person startups. In recent years, I have led Platform Engineering teams to create platforms focused on developer needs in various organizations.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Platform as a Product
3. Infrastructure as Code
4. Segmentation Strategies
5. Self-Service
6. CI/CD
7. Observability
8. Security Services
9. Developer Portals