Platform Engineering Masterclass with IDP, GitOps and DevOps

Explore the evolution of software deployment from pre-DevOps to DevOps and platform engineering, examining why each deployment model emerged and why platform engineering became essential in enterprise environments.

Explore the pre-devops phase and the waterfall model, where siloed development, on-prem constraints, and high-risk, low-frequency releases dominated. See how programmable infrastructure and cloud-enabled agile at scale enabled devops.

Explore the pre-devops era of organizational silos, where development, quality assurance, and operations operated in isolation, relying on manual builds, ticket-based handoffs, and reactive monitoring.

Explore how agile and cloud revolutions sparked DevOps, enabling ci/cd, infrastructure as code, and containerization, with observability and platform engineering.

Explore how platform engineering elevates DevOps with self-service templates and golden paths inside an internal developer platform, enabling GitOps-driven deployments via Argo CD.

Explore a basic ci cd pipeline using GitHub actions for ci and Argo CD for cd, with Kubernetes deployment and git as the source of truth.

Set up a private GitHub repo with a personal access token, provision a local Kubernetes cluster with Minikube, and install Argo CD to enable GitOps driven CI/CD.

Set up a dockerized python flask app and a github actions ci workflow. The pipeline builds and pushes the image to ghcr and updates the Kubernetes deployment.yaml.

Register a docker registry secret ghcr-secret to enable pulling private ghcr.io images for the deployment. Register the ArgoCity application to monitor the deploy folder and deploy to the cluster.

Demonstrates end-to-end CI/CD and GitOps with Argo CD, showing how code changes trigger pipelines, update deployment manifests, sync deployments, and ensure healthy pods.

Learn Crossplane, a Kubernetes-native infra management tool that provisions AWS infrastructure via Kubernetes YAMLs, using CRDs and controllers, and compare it with Terraform and Cloud Function for modern platform engineering.

Explore how cross plane acts as a Kubernetes-based control plane for platform engineering, provisioning infrastructure via Kubernetes YAMLs, and automatically reconciling drift to the desired state.

Crossplane contrasts with Terraform and CloudFormation, using a pull-based reconciliation and Kubernetes controller model, while providing yaml-based abstractions that enable platform engineers to deliver self-service, GitOps-driven multi-cloud infrastructure.

Explore crossplane components, including provider, provider config, XRD (composite resource definition), service catalog, and composition. See how claims drive provisioning through functions in the composition, demonstrated in a Kubernetes-based demo.

Demonstrates how Crossplane uses YAMLs to provision infra via provider, config, XRD, and local cluster files, with the controller handling the claim flow.

Learn how internal developer platform (idp) acts as a self-service abstraction for developers, enabling autonomous build, deployment, and operation of applications within an internal network.

This lecture contrasts DevOps workflows with platform engineering and IDP, showing how golden templates in backstage enable self-service app deployments in minutes while DevOps remains in the back end.

Explore Backstage UI, learn how catalog, docs, and other plugins organize applications, templates, and documentation, and see how assets link to GitHub, APIs, and CICD.

Explore backstage frontend architecture as a plugin-driven, modular system where an app orchestrates plugins, routes, and utility APIs to render a customizable developer experience.

Explore the backstage backend architecture, built with Node.js and TypeScript, featuring plugin-based core services, extension points, and modules that manage data, authentication, and integrations.

Install backstage on Docker using Node 20, mount host volumes, and expose port 3000 while exploring app.config.yml and related files toward authentication and eventual GitHub integration.

Enable github authentication for backstage by creating an auth app, securing client id and secret, configuring env vars and appconfig, and wiring backend and frontend plugins with resolvers and whitelisting.

Implement a Backstage authentication whitelist by mapping Backstage users to GitHub users, create users.yaml and groups.yaml, and reference them in config local.yaml to enable whitelist-based access.

Explore how Backstage software catalog centralizes, registers, and renders all components from code in your repo, with catalog-info.yml and UI-based registration.

Discover how backstage templates enable rapid, automated scaffolding using reusable blueprints and cookie cutters to generate repos, ci-cd manifests, and skeleton code from parameterized templates.

Install and verify the backstage GitHub action, and set up a GitHub integration token. Create org-software-templates repo with template.yml and a skeleton folder, and copy a Python microservice for placeholders.

Demonstrates part 3 of implementing backstage templates within platform engineering, highlighting practical approaches to template-driven workflows in IDP, GitOps, and DevOps environments.

Set up backstage for production-grade persistence in docker, using volumes and a database to preserve changes across restarts, and build the app from scratch with a host-build approach.

Demonstrate a production-grade backstage setup on Docker with GitHub authentication, config updates, resolvers, and environment variables, two of three prerequisites completed.

Set up a Postgres database for backstage persistence using docker compose, configure appconfig.yaml and environment variables, and verify state persistence across restarts.

Create a production-grade backstage environment by building a bundle, packaging it into a docker image, and running a container with persistent data on port 7007.

Demonstrate an end-to-end platform engineering workflow combining IDP, DevOps, and GitOps on Kubernetes with backstage for self-service provisioning. See templates render and ci-cd pipelines drive deployments.

Execute the end-to-end demo flow from backstage IDP login with GitHub through template rendering, app repo creation, GHCR image build, and Argo CD deployment.

Configure Backstage on Kubernetes by using config maps mounted as volumes or rebuilding Docker images via CI/CD, including Helm charts and Minikube Docker environment, deployment updates, and template changes.

Install and configure Argo CD and cross plane in a Kubernetes cluster, set up namespaces and UI access, secure initial admin credentials, and verify components via Helm and port forwarding.

Explore cross-plane components, including the controller, compositions, and XRD (composite resource definition), and learn how claims trigger provisioning of namespaces and apps via provider configs across Kubernetes and cloud providers.

Set up and clone a private platform repository, generate a GitHub token, register the repo with Argo CD, and scaffold infrastructure and cross-plane folders for app-of-app deployments.

Register the crossplane infrastructure as an Argo CD application, configure a Kubernetes provider and XRD, and define composition with a GHCR image pull secret.

Demonstrate provisioning and deprovisioning of resources using cross-plane with argo cd, as claims trigger compositions and xrdS to create namespaces and local cluster resources.

Demonstrates template-driven setup for a cross-plane platform, creating app and platform repos, rendering skeleton templates, and configuring CI/CD artifacts with ArgoCity, Crossplane, and Backstage integration.

Uncomment and configure the template in backstage, rebuild dependencies, and push updated images to minikube, then test a live demo deployment and troubleshoot CI issues.

Rebundle the backstage template, rebuild the docker image with version 15, install dependencies, compile typescript, build the backend, and deploy via minikube, ci pipeline, and rgo-cd.

Explore how DevOps, GitOps, and IDP practices converge to form platform engineering, highlighting golden paths, platform team structure, and the cultural shift to a product mindset.

GoldenPaths standardize how to build and deploy software across teams by providing templates for CI/CD, infrastructure, security, and observability, discovered from recurring patterns and delivered via self-service IDP templates.

Adopt a product mindset for the platform, treating internal developers as customers and delivering self-service, standardized workflows that reduce cognitive load and accelerate building and deploying software.

Explore how a product oriented platform team is structured, with platform engineers, DevOps and SRE engineers, security engineers, developer experience engineers, and a product owner who defines roadmap and backlog.

Discover how platform engineering builds internal developer platforms to reduce friction, boost productivity at scale, and advance GitOps and DevOps practices for faster, reliable software delivery.