PlatformCon 2024: A Recap and Key Takeaways

PlatformCon 2024 showcased incredible growth and a dynamic lineup, reinforcing its position as both the largest platform engineering event globally and a must-attend event for platform engineering and DevOps professionals. Hosted virtually, the event attracted an impressive 20,000=attendees—nearly doubling last year’s numbers—and featured 158 insightful talks.

The conference, a vibrant blend of blueprints, impact discussions, cultural explorations, and hands-on workshops, provided a comprehensive overview of the current state and future direction of the field. This recap highlights key themes and takeaways from the diverse range of sessions.

Introduction

PlatformCon 2024 returned this year with a bang, marking another milestone for platform engineers, DevOps enthusiasts, and cloud-native professionals. This year’s event set new records, with over 35,000 virtual attendees and 158 talks, reflecting the increasing relevance and urgency of platform engineering across industries. For anyone who’s been following PlatformCon’s journey, it was particularly exciting to see how the IDP reference architecture—introduced by Luca Galante in PlatformCon 2023—has evolved from a conceptual framework to a tangible asset adopted by several companies.

A Record-Breaking Year for PlatformCon

The numbers speak volumes about the success of PlatformCon 2024. With 35,000 attendees and nearly 160 talks, this edition doubled its audience size from the previous year, highlighting an industry-wide recognition of platform engineering. This year, the virtual event design was enhanced to support more interactive sessions, making it easier for attendees to engage with speakers, participate in live Q&A sessions, and join breakout rooms.

Spotlight on Internal Developer Platform (IDP) Adoption: The IDP Reference Architecture

The IDP reference architecture, introduced by Humanitec’s Luca Galante in 2023, was a focal point of this year’s discussions. Its widespread adoption this year underscores a significant shift in how organizations approach internal developer platforms.

The IDP architecture provides a standardized framework (which is becoming a de facto standard) that empowers organizations to build customized developer platforms that integrate seamlessly with their existing tech stack. Several talks specifically addressed implementation strategies, best practices, and extensions of the architecture. The success stories shared by companies who adopted this architecture were inspiring, with examples ranging from small startups to major enterprises. IDP’s widespread acceptance showcased its scalability and adaptability, two qualities that will continue to be critical as platform engineering evolves.

Keynote Highlights

PlatformCon 2024 featured a lineup of industry leaders who brought fresh insights into topics that are reshaping platform engineering. Keynotes covered advancements in cloud infrastructure, shifts in developer productivity frameworks, and essential security measures for multi-cloud environments. Notably, several speakers emphasized the importance of flexibility and adaptability in developer platforms, given the rapidly changing cloud-native landscape.

Platform Engineering Trends in 2024

Platform engineering continues its rapid evolution, moving beyond traditional DevOps towards integrated solutions finely tuned to specific business needs. PlatformCon 2024 highlighted several key trends:

1. Platform as a Product:

   • The concept of treating platforms as products continues to dominate discussions. This approach emphasizes delivering value to users and integrating feedback into development processes.

2. AI's Role in Platform Engineering:

   • A panel moderated by DZone explored how AI is reshaping platform engineering. Key points included the enhancement of developer productivity and challenges in integrating AI into workflows.

3. Platform Maturity Model:

   • The Platform Maturity Model which was developed by the Syntasso team and donated to the CNCF was a big part of the PlatformCon 2024. Discussions emphasized the importance of assessing platform maturity, helping organizations gauge their capabilities and areas for improvement in platform engineering.

4. Infrastructure Reliability:

   • There was a renewed focus on infrastructure reliability, with talks addressing how Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices can enhance platform resilience. This shift reflects a balance between developer experience and robust infrastructure.

5. Open Source Contributions:

   • Humanitec highlighted its open-source project, Score, which recently gained recognition as a Sandbox Project under the CNCF umbrella. This initiative aims to streamline developer workflows and enhance platform orchestration.

6. Community Engagement:

   • The event fostered community interaction through various channels, allowing participants to share best practices and discuss emerging trends in platform engineering.

7. Future Directions:

   • Closing panels discussed future trends in platform engineering, including team composition and evolving standards, indicating a collaborative approach moving forward.

Overall, PlatformCon 2024 showcased significant advancements in platform engineering, emphasizing collaboration, reliability, and the integration of AI technologies to enhance development workflows.

Top Talks and Breakout Sessions

PlatformCon 2024 featured 158 talks, covering a wide range of topics. However, several sessions generated significant buzz and post-conference discussion:

The Kelsey Hightower and Kaspar von Grünberg fireside chat

The PlatformCon 2024 fireside chat featuring Kelsey Hightower and Kaspar von Grünberg offered a compelling counterpoint to prevailing platform engineering wisdom. Hightower's surprising endorsement of "fantastic silos" when properly managed with APIs challenged the common pursuit of monolithic, standardized platforms. He used the analogy of airline operations, highlighting how compartmentalized responsibilities, though seemingly siloed, ultimately benefit the passenger (the developer) by streamlining their experience. This sparked debate about the balance between standardization and the inherent need for customization within diverse engineering teams and projects. The discussion revealed a common tension: organizations often desire standardized platforms yet simultaneously gravitate towards building custom solutions, reflecting a deeply ingrained preference for tailored approaches in software development.

Further enriching the conversation was the acknowledgment of platform engineering's evolution across decades, from bare-metal to cloud-native architectures. This evolution reflects the industry's broader shift toward abstraction and automation, crucial for modern development practices. However, this evolution also highlights the ongoing challenges in achieving true standardization. Even with established organizational guidelines, the inherent need for innovation and adaptation within specific projects inevitably leads to divergence from prescribed standards. The speakers emphasized the need for dedicated product ownership within platform engineering initiatives to successfully navigate these complexities, aligning stakeholder needs and facilitating effective cross-team collaboration. The concluding reflections underscored the dynamic and ever-evolving nature of the field, requiring continuous learning and adaptation to remain at the forefront of best practices.

Blueprints: Architecting the Future of Internal Developer Platforms (IDPs)

The "Blueprints" track delved deep into the architectural foundations of successful IDPs. Gregor Hohpe (AWS) set the stage with his foundational talk, "Platforms = (Architecture + DDD + Automation) x Wholesale," emphasizing the crucial link between architectural domain mapping and cloud automation. This theme resonated throughout the track, with speakers showcasing diverse approaches to IDP architecture.

• FinTech Blueprint (Igor Kantor, Convera): Convera's transformation showcased the power of a strategically designed IDP in modernizing a legacy financial services framework. The talk offered valuable insights into the architecture of a platform that streamlined development and enhanced operational efficiency.
• Orchestration and Intent (Luca Galante, Humanitec & Zibo He, Ant Group): The importance of platform orchestrators in securing and scaling IDPs, coupled with the power of intent-driven development using KusionStack, were highlighted. These sessions illustrated the shift towards more sophisticated and automated platform management.
• Scaling Data Infrastructure (Oded Poncz, Dragonfly): This sponsored session challenged conventional wisdom on scaling data infrastructure in the cloud, urging a rethink of traditional approaches to meet the demands of modern applications.
• Cost Optimization and Global Scaling (Rafael Borrego Ropero, Rithum & Tom Oketch, Thoughtworks): Rithum's cost-saving logging solution and Thoughtworks' insights into global scaling of IDPs underscored the importance of both efficiency and scalability in platform design.
• LLMs and the Future (Chiradeep Vittal): The session on platform engineering in the age of LLMs sparked crucial discussions about the implications of large language models on platform teams and the future of development.
• Other notable blueprint sessions: covered data virtualization (Anandaganesh Balakrishnan, American Water), runtime vs. infrastructure coupling (Arsalan Ellahi, Kiwibank), serverless adoption (Ran Isenberg, CyberArk), extending IDP reference architectures (Max Körbächer, Liquid Reply), cost-effective endpoint implementation (Atif Siddiqui, Silicon Valley Bank), and unified Kubernetes cluster management (Caio Medeiros, Citi & David Espinosa, Red Hat).

See Detailed Session List with Video Recordings: Blueprint and Architecture Highlights from PlatformCon 2024

Impact: Measuring and Maximizing Platform Value

The "Impact" track focused on measuring and maximizing the return on investment (ROI) of platform engineering initiatives. Speakers shared real-world case studies, emphasizing the importance of aligning platform goals with business objectives.

• Antifragile Platforms (Manuel Pais): This session stressed building robust platforms resistant to economic and organizational changes.
• Maturity Models (Nicki Watt, OpenCredo & Abby Bangser, Syntasso): The application of the CNCF platform maturity model and the creation of a custom maturity model provided practical guidance for organizations at different stages of their platform journey.
• Inner Sourcing and Stakeholder Engagement (Paula Kennedy, Syntasso & Jamil Jadallah, BrainGu): The role of inner sourcing in enhancing platform value and techniques for driving stakeholder engagement were key discussions.
• Cost Optimization and ROI (Rohit & Akash Srivastava, MiQ, Sridhar Kotagiri, Thoughtworks & others): Several sessions explored cost optimization strategies and methods for quantifying the ROI of platform engineering initiatives. This included practical examples of significant cost reductions and frameworks for calculating ROI upfront.
• Other notable impact sessions: covered mapping platform strategies (Steve Pereira, Visible), measuring platform impact (Ralf Huuck, Logilica), orchestrating external data sources (Raja Chattopadhyay & Thiaga Manian, Capital One), DevEx investment vs. business value (Vilas Veeraraghavan, Truckstop), and achieving business velocity through platform engineering (Juan Jose Behrend, Pomelo).

See Detailed Session List with Video Recordings: Impact Highlights from PlatformCon 2024: Measuring the Value and ROI of Platform Engineering

Culture: Fostering Collaboration and Adoption

The "Culture" track explored the crucial role of culture in successful platform adoption. Speakers emphasized the importance of building trust, driving adoption, and creating a positive developer experience.

• Scaling Platform Teams (April Lea, REA Group): This session explored the application of product thinking to platform teams and strategies for scaling effectively.
• Platform Adoption Strategies (Kaspar von Grünberg, Humanitec): Practical tips and lessons learned from successful and unsuccessful platform initiatives were shared, offering valuable insights into driving adoption.
• Building Trust and Fostering Community (Cansu Kavili Örnek & Anna Ciula, Red Hat, Ama Asare, Thoughtworks & others): Several sessions addressed the importance of building trust, engaging stakeholders, and fostering a sense of community to encourage platform adoption.
• Other notable culture sessions: focused on the importance of women in platform engineering (Swarna Mani, Rithum), "invisible" platform engineering (Punit Lad, Thoughtworks), user-centric platform blueprints (Karla Rodriguez), the evolution of QA in SRE and SLOs (Ludovico Besana), shifting from infrastructure to developer experience (Markus Eisele), and navigating the complexities of mandatory platform adoption (Alexander Kaserbacher & Kim Nena Duggen, embarc).

See Detailed Session List with Video Recordings: Culture Highlights from PlatformCon 2024: Embracing the Mindset for Platform Success

Toolbox: Practical Tools and Techniques

The "Toolbox" track showcased a variety of tools and techniques for building and operating effective platforms. Sessions focused on specific technologies and their application in the context of platform engineering.

• Workload Specification and Observability (Ben Meier & Susanne Tünker, Humanitec & Mirko Novakovic, Dash0): The use of Score for workload specification and OpenTelemetry for observability were highlighted.
• Ephemeral Environments and Multi-Tenancy (Kurt Madel, Loft Labs & Lukas Gentele, Loft Labs): The creation of ephemeral pull request environments and effective multi-tenancy strategies in Kubernetes were addressed.
• Cost Optimization and GitOps (Dor Azouri, Pointfive & Jesse Suen & Kent Rancourt, Akuity): Techniques for optimizing S3 storage costs and implementing multi-stage deployment pipelines using GitOps were discussed.
• Other notable toolbox sessions: covered accelerating cloud-native development (Tim Quinlan, Coder), securing and efficiently running application infrastructure (David Ben Shabat, Quali), harnessing the power of CDKTF (Jean Burellier, Sanofi), embracing GitOps at Spotify (Tim Hansen), Kubernetes package management (David Desmarais-Michaud, Nesto), Platform Orchestrators (Daniel Bryant), HashiCorp Vault (Hila Fish), building scalable deep learning pipelines (Rustem Feyzkhanov, Instrumental Inc.), streamlining microservice environments (Nissan Itzhakov, Riskified), deploying GitHub runners (Karan Thakur, Moss), building in-house CLIs (Kevin Beaulieu), securing CI/CD pipelines (Prabesh Thapa, Capsule), building IDPs with Kubernetes operators (George Hantzaras & Dan McKean, MongoDB), component testing (Sandeep Kapalawai, Maersk), detecting abusive behavior (Vijay Murganoor, Meta), raising the level of abstraction with Kubernetes operators (Tom De Wolf, ACA Group), and leveraging KubeVela and Crossplane (Tiago Reichert & Guilherme Greco, AWS).

See Detailed Session List with Video Recordings: Toolbox Highlights from PlatformCon 2024: Tools and Techniques to Amplify Platform Engineering

Stories and Live Panels: Real-World Experiences and Expert Discussions

The "Stories" and "Live" sessions provided valuable real-world insights and facilitated engaging discussions among experts. Many sessions showcased successful platform implementations, highlighting the challenges and triumphs encountered along the way. Live panels addressed critical issues such as DevSecOps integration, the impact of AI, best practices, and the future of platform engineering. Notable discussions included fireside chats with Kelsey Hightower and Kaspar von Grünberg, and panels featuring experts from various organizations like Google, Thoughtworks, Red Hat, and more.

See Detailed Session List with Video Recordings: Stories from PlatformCon 2024: Real-Life Insights and Successes in Platform Engineering

Workshops: Hands-on Learning

The workshops offered hands-on learning opportunities, providing attendees with practical experience in building and deploying platform components. Topics ranged from hands-on sessions with Cilium, to building MVPs, and exploring various tools and technologies.

See Detailed Session List with Video Recordings: Workshops and Live Panels from PlatformCon 2024: Hands-On Learning and Interactive Discussions

Beyond the Portal: The Broader Scope of Platform Engineering

While developer portals are undeniably crucial for providing a user-friendly interface to the Internal Developer Platform (IDP), PlatformCon 2024 consistently emphasized that they represent only one aspect of a much larger and more complex system. Many sessions highlighted the need for a holistic approach, moving beyond the creation of a visually appealing portal to address the underlying architectural and cultural challenges.

The successful implementation of a platform requires a deep dive into several critical areas:

• Robust Architecture: A well-defined architecture, incorporating principles of domain-driven design (DDD) and microservices, is essential for scalability, maintainability, and security.
• Automated Workflows: Automation is paramount for streamlining processes, reducing manual effort, and accelerating deployments. This includes CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code (IaC), and automated testing.
• Comprehensive Observability: Robust monitoring and logging are critical for understanding platform performance, identifying bottlenecks, and ensuring reliability.
• Strong Security Posture: Security must be baked into every layer of the platform, encompassing secure coding practices, access control, secrets management, and vulnerability scanning.
• Supportive Culture: Successfully adopting a platform requires a cultural shift, fostering collaboration between development and operations teams and encouraging a self-service mindset. This includes empowering developers and providing adequate training and support.

Without a thorough consideration of these elements, a developer portal, however well-designed, will only address a fraction of the challenges in achieving effective platform engineering.

Takeaways for Businesses and DevOps Teams

PlatformCon 2024 provided attendees with actionable insights, from the technical implementation of IDPs to high-level platform strategies. Teams learned ways to improve developer workflows, prioritize security, and drive platform sustainability. For organizations of all sizes, the event underscored the importance of investing in platform engineering as a strategic priority.

Overall Takeaways:

PlatformCon 2024 highlighted the continued growth and evolution of platform engineering, emphasizing robust architecture, holistic measurement, strong culture, and staying current with tools and technologies. The widespread adoption of the 2023 IDP reference architecture, coupled with the focus on developer portals, underscored the movement toward more streamlined, efficient, and user-friendly internal developer platforms. However, the conference also strongly emphasized that the creation of a developer portal is just the beginning. A truly effective platform requires a holistic strategy that addresses architecture, automation, observability, security, and culture.

Conclusion

PlatformCon 2024 marked a significant milestone in the journey of platform engineering. The event’s impressive turnout, cutting-edge content, and the continued impact of the IDP reference architecture set the tone for the future. With such rapid advancements, PlatformCon has proven that platform engineering isn’t just a trend—it’s the future of DevOps.

See you at PlatformCon 2025!