Why developers need a self-service platform – and how to provide one
In this white paper, we explain what a self-service developer platform is, how it can benefit your business and explore GitOps as the best way to deliver it.
In the cloud-native world, the developer experience is vital. Developers function at their best when they can move quickly from concept to code to production. And research has proven that when an organization’s developers can do this quickly, business performance improves.
In our latest white paper, GitOps Accelerates Self-Service for Operators and Developers, we look at the concept of a self-service platform for developers. We explore how it can make you more competitive and why GitOps is the best way to create one.
Key measures of effectiveness
When you’re trying to quantify the effects of different software delivery models, one of the best reference points is the research undertaken by the DevOps Research and Assessment group (DORA) in their State of DevOps Report 2020. By studying the real-world impact of different methodologies across a range of organizations, the team identified four measures against which business performance correlates strongly. They are Deployment Frequency, Lead Time for Changes, Mean Time to Recovery and Change Failure Rate.
Not only do these four criteria affect the speed and effectiveness with which you can deliver new features, but they are directly correlated with top-line business performance measures – including profitability and market share. In other words, organizations that score highly on DORA’s four measures are more likely to be successful.
What DORA does not do, however, is stipulate exactly how you should go about improving your performance against their four measures. There are many ways to achieve this – and the route you choose depends largely on where you are now.
Start with self-service
If you are currently embarking on a digital transformation or if, like many organizations, you are still at a relatively early stage in your cloud-native journey, one of the most effective actions you can take is to implement a self-service platform for your developers.
Without a high-performing development team, you cannot bring new features to market fast enough to compete with your rivals. In highly competitive markets such as online banking, speed of innovation is vital - which is why developers are so critical to success.
It is a fact that they work faster and more effectively when they are allowed a degree of autonomy. However, this autonomy has to be balanced against the need for security and stability. You need to ensure that neither can be compromised by developer actions.
GitOps makes it easy
GitOps is a model for operating cloud-native software. It brings together two proven technologies - Kubernetes and Git - to centralize and automate much of the operational overhead involved in cloud-native software. By holding everything in Git - not just application code but also operational information, config and policy - it ensures that nothing can drift without coming to the attention of monitoring software. As a result, it affords developers more of that much-needed autonomy, coupled with guardrails to prevent them from breaking things as they work. They can focus on working and testing at speed. It is a true self-service platform.
Real-world results
When a self-service platform like this is up and running, the results can be remarkable. British fintech organization, Mettle (part of NatWest Bank) used GitOps to create a self service developer platform, with the aims of improving security and reducing operational overhead, all while improving the developer experience. As a result, they increased the rate at which they deploy to production by 50%, improving their performance against the first two of DORA’s key measures, while radically improving the third, Mean Time to Recovery. As a result of implementing GitOps, they can now destroy an entire cluster and bring it back to life within 20 minutes.
Read the full case study here.
Download the white paper today
To learn more about using GitOps to provide your developers with a self-service platform, download our white paper, GitOps Accelerates Self-Service for Operators and Developers.
Alternatively, learn more about implementing GitOps via the commercially supported Weave GitOps Enterprise.
