Even after a decade of evangelizing, at least 80% of companies are struggling to adopt DevOps and hybrid cloud at scale. Platform engineering, the new kid on the block, takes an average of 3 years to implement and show tangible results, and, if you decide to do it yourself, an extra 20 people are dedicated to the project. And finally, we cannot ignore the devastating effect cloud usage has on the environment, resulting in larger-than-aviation carbon footprint numbers and billions of dollars in waste. Something needs to be done, and it needs to happen now. Cycloid has the answer – it’s sustainable platform engineering.
In this interview, Cycloid founder, Benjamin Brial, explains why companies should stop leaving sustainability as an afterthought and start tackling it from the get-go (with platform engineering support).
Why should we tackle global cloud usage?
This might be shocking information, but the carbon footprint from cloud infrastructure has reached 3.7% of all global carbon emissions – that’s more than commercial aviation. The reason why I focus on the cloud is that the IT world is huge, and we cannot possibly address every aspect of sustainability. Cloud infrastructure usage is the area where we believe we can make the most impact, and what is easiest for companies to implement with platform engineering.
Can global cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure) be more sustainable?
Experience shows that we cannot fully rely on cloud providers. While the public providers do address cloud sustainability and pledge to make their practices “greener”, there is still so much we don’t know. Often their carbon footprint data is opaque, outdated, or completely inaccurate. And let’s not forget that they’re already underwater with too many tools and automation to manage, not to mention answering the needs of a volatile market.
So what is sustainable platform engineering?
In short, it’s an approach that uses best practices of platform engineering to ensure environmentally conscious cloud usage. If you want to truly impact cloud consumption, you need to tackle it at the orchestration layer. This means developing a centralized platform that will act as a cornerstone between your tools, automation, and cloud, while also allowing you to keep control over who deploys, how, how much, and which cloud, as well as put quotas on resources and cloud usage. The platform will help you make sure that sustainability is included across all areas of software delivery and cover any blind spots.
Gartner has recently created a “platform engineering” category, our ambition is to take the leadership in this category and make it sustainable by embedding and enforcing the sustainability aspect. That’s the only way we can make an impact.
What goes into a sustainable platform engineering approach?
A few things:
- A GitOps-led infrastructure revolution. By modernizing your infra lifecycle management and moving it to the Git, you’ll make it faster and easier to control – meaning, a lot fewer resources will get wasted.
- A comprehensive self-service developer portal. Opening up tools, cloud and automation to anyone through a user-friendly developer self-service will foster autonomy, independence, and happiness among your teams.
- Continuous optimization approach. True sustainability is never static – you will always have to keep an eye on your processes and cloud usage to make sure you’re as efficient as you can be.
How much of an impact can sustainable platform engineering make?
Let’s not pretend that “sustainable platform engineering” is going to turn your business into a zero-emissions enterprise. The IT sector is big and there’re too many variables that require interventions on levels other than organizational. However, what you will find is that decreasing cloud infrastructure usage is one solid environmental topic that companies can tackle on their own by making changes to infra management.
Why infrastructure management?
Contrary to what marketing has you believe, it’s actually the infrastructure department that can handle this best. Cloud sustainability leaders and FinOps can definitely contribute – but it’s hard to make a real change without having the big picture. Simply providing data and evangelizing is not enough, there needs to be a company-wide push. The infrastructure sits at the core of all IT processes, which is why they’re best suited for the job.
How can companies optimize their infrastructure lifecycle management?
The obvious solution is to move to a GitOps-first approach. This means adopting more sophisticated automation, moving IaC, while improving security, governance, and observability over your deployments. Easier said than done, right? The journey varies for companies, but in general, these are the steps I’d advise you to take:
- Find the center of excellence. Who will have the last word on the way your infra is managed? Ensure clear hierarchy, define user permissions, roles and KPI metrics.
- Build a service catalog. GitOps is great, but it’s built by tech people for tech people. Making automation user-friendly and transparent in a self-service portal will make it a tool truly for everyone on your team.
- Create governance guardrails to keep resources in check. Centralizing your resource and cloud usage will help you find the culprit project, resource, or team, and therefore eliminate waste faster.
How can Cycloid help with platform engineering?
Cycloid exists to help organizations accelerate the delivery of a platform engineering approach without compromising on quality to secure a stronger, swifter, and more sustainable platform for users. Enabling teams to facilitate a move to GitOps and Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC), Cycloid promotes mass engagement and adoption with a UX-strong self-service portal that allows teams to continuously optimize and iterate their automation, clouds, and tools. Additionally, our FinOps and GreenOps module encourages a culture of sobriety that flows through an organization from the bottom up, enabling smarter, more environmentally conscious cloud consumption decisions at every level of a business.
About Cycloid
Cycloid sustainable platform engineering improves developer and end-users experience (DevX) and operational efficiency through modules dedicated to governance, deployment, operations, and FinOps/GreenOps. The platform facilitates change management and opens up DevOps and cloud adoption for everyone. Cycloid helps organizations build their own opinionated developer platform and define the governance and level of flexibility required. Cycloid’s Git-based, lock-in free platform easily complements existing ecosystems and streamlines the software delivery process. For more information, visit https://www.cycloid.io/
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