IDP without Modern CI/CD doesn’t Scale

Its always fun to check out local real estate listings on Zillow and see whats going on in the neighborhood. Almost every other new listing that pops up is a poorly flipped house where a contractor buys an older out of date house. They do cosmetic upgrades with the latest trends in paint colors, countertops, and hardware with builder grade quality materials to maximize profit. The fundamental problems with the home are still there, but it's not something a flipper cares about because it won’t be their problem once the house is sold.?

Internal Developer Portal (IDP) is one of the hottest trends in IT over the last 18 months, and the hype is warrented. The ability to transform developer onboarding and collaboration is very much real, however I’m seeing an interesting trend. A lot of organizations are trying to use IDP as a nice looking facade that hides the crumbling foundation of their legacy software delivery pipelines built on decades of scripts and tech dept.?

Here are my top 5 required capabilities for making any IDP project successful and sustainable at scale.??

5. Advanced Metrics?

How are you going to measure success? It's a very simple question, yet today most organizations struggle to capture DORA let alone more advanced metrics on software delivery. If you can’t measure developer productivity, how are you going to determine the impact of a developer portal? There is no point in going through the effort to improve the developer experience if you can’t measure the impact.?

4. Robust Plugin Framework?

Before things like Backstage existed, any attempt at a developer portal was 100% custom. Today for 95% of all IDP use cases it makes zero sense to start from scratch, since most organizations are trying to solve the same problem. Having an IDP with a robust plugin ecosystem is key, which is why Harness started with Backstage as the foundation for our IDP offering.?

3. Built in Orchestration with Multi-level Templatization?

A house is only as strong as its foundation and an IDP is only as good as the orchestration behind it. Trying to use an IDP as a pretty frontend for a weak legacy orchestrator is a recipe for disaster. It will simply become a POC level initiative rather than some that fundamentally changes how developers work.

2. Integrated Security & Policy Based Governance

There is no point in providing self service for developers if it doesn’t comply with security and governance requirements. Without the native ability to do policy as code, its impossible federate out an IDP at scale while meeting your governance and audit standards, and an IDP can become a liability as it can enable the automated provisioning of non-compliant service offerings.?

1. Comprehensive CD

Organizations invest in modern continuous delivery tools to accelerate velocity, improve quality, and increase governance while improving the overall developer experience. The goals of IDP and CD are very much in alignment, which makes IDP and natural evolution of the continuous delivery journey.?

In Summary

Organizations can certainly implement IDP without these 5 capabilities, but it will drastically limit the effectiveness of the initiative and ultimately lead to increased toil by providing the easy button for pipeline sprawl and script dependent delivery tooling. Start with a strong foundation first.