DevOps efforts are benefiting from a rise in the use of internal platforms that provide for self service. In addition, companies that adopt DevOps in a big way also are finding change management is a lot easier.
That's the word from the latest annual survey[1] of 35,000 technology professionals released by Puppet, which finds a shift to internal platforms to move DevOps forward. "The platform model can make application teams more efficient by allowing them to focus on their core competency of building and delivering products - providing a balance between standardization and team autonomy," according to the report's authors, Alanna Brown (Puppet), Nigel Kersten (Puppet), and Michael Stahnke (CircleCI).
Internal platform usage is widespread, with 63 percent of respondents saying their companies have at least one self-service internal platform -- and most report even having at between two and four platforms. Almost a third of respondents have at least 25 to 50 percent of their developers using an internal platform
High DevOps evolution correlates strongly with high use of internal platforms, the researchers suggest. Highly evolved firms are six times as likely to report high use of internal platforms as firms at a low level of DevOps evolution. Such sites also are more likely to offer self‑service offerings for developers, the survey's authors also observe. Such capabilities include CI/CD workflows, internal infrastructure, public cloud infrastructure, and audit logging.
Top challenges to providing an internal DevOps platform include a lack of time, a lack of standardization, and a lack of technical skills within their teams. "Many of these challenges are mutually reinforcing," Brown and her co-authors suggest. "Lack of empowerment from leadership is often due to a team's inability to express the benefits of a platform in terms that leadership cares about. Lack of time