To K8S and Beyond – Maturing Your Platform Engineering Initiative

CNCF Platform maturity model

• Was donated to the CNCF by Syntasso
• Constantly evolving since 1.0 in November 2023

Overview

Entire matrix is available from CNCF

• Levels (from tactical to strategic)
  • Provisional
  • Operational
  • Scalable
  • Optimizing
• Dimensions:
  • Investment: How are funds/staff allocated to platform capabilities
  • Adoption: How and why do users discover this platform
  • Interfaces: How do users interact with and consume platform capabilities
  • Operations: How are platforms and capabilities planned, prioritized, developed and maintained
  • Measurement: What is the process for gathering and incorporating feedback/learning?

Goals

• Understand
  • Outcomes & Practices
  • Where are you at
  • Limits & Opportunities
  • Behaviors and outcome
• Balance People and processes

Typical Journeys

Steps of the journey

1. What are your goals and limitations
2. What is my current landscape
3. Plan baby steps & iterate

Scenarios

• Bad: I want to improve my k8s platform
• Good: Scaling an enterprise COE (Center Of Excellence)
  • What: Onboard 20 Teams within 20 Months and enforce 8 security regulations
  • Where: We have a dedicated team of centrally funded people
  • Lay the foundation: More funding for more, larger teams -> Switch from Project to platform mindset
  • Do your technical Due diligence in parallel

Key Lessons

• Know what your ultimate goals and constraints are
• Know your landscape
• Plan in baby steps and iterate
  • Lay the foundation for building the right thing and not just anything
  • Don’t forget to do your technical dd in parallel

Conclusion

• Maturity model is a helpful part but not the entire plan