One of the world's prominent energy firms has embarked on a significant transformation of its development infrastructure by adopting an Internal Developer Platform (IDP).
This extensive case highlights the company's approach to overcoming existing challenges, removing operational barriers, and boosting developer productivity.
The challenges faced
The company's development ecosystem was hindered by several inefficiencies that affected team productivity and overall output. These issues included lengthy provisioning times for development resources, which caused delays and bottlenecks.
These issues included lengthy provisioning times for development resources, which caused delays and bottlenecks
Additionally, the processes for resource allocation were cumbersome, relying on complex, manual workflows that impeded the development process. Onboarding for new projects was similarly protracted, taking between four to six weeks, which delayed the time it took for developers to become productive.
Moreover, inconsistent practices across different teams resulted in non-uniform development standards and technical drift. Engineers also faced a high cognitive load due to the need to manage knowledge spanning multiple domains, which added strain to their workload. Complex infrastructure requirements further increased the support overhead, stretching the engineering resources available.
The solution journey
To address these issues, the company partnered with RiverSafe, collaborating with its DevOps team to create a more automated and developer-friendly platform. In the first phase, the company implemented OpenShift to simplify cloud operations and create a unified development framework. This included providing developers with pre-configured workspaces, which reduced setup times and manual tasks.
Additionally, the automation of resource provisioning removed the need for manual intervention, thus streamlining workflows. Security and observability were enhanced across the platform with embedded guardrails and tools for chaos engineering. Furthermore, the company established automated CI/CD pipelines to facilitate faster deployment cycles.
Building the full IDP
Building on the foundation set by OpenShift, the organisation advanced towards developing a full-scale IDP
Building on the foundation set by OpenShift, the organisation advanced towards developing a full-scale IDP. This involved simplifying deployments through the introduction of one-click deployment capabilities. The IDP integrated tools like ArgoCD and Crossplane to enable GitOps, and tools such as Grafana and Loki for real-time monitoring.
Resilience and testing processes were streamlined with advanced tools, including ChaosMesh for resilience testing and PACT for contract testing. Standardised development workflows were established, with centralised operational management ensuring consistency across the board.
Achievements and benefits
The transformation yielded significant quantitative improvements. Deployment times were slashed from two weeks to just two minutes, greatly accelerating the development cycle. Similarly, onboarding times were reduced from four to six weeks to only 30 minutes, allowing new projects to commence much faster. The automation and streamlined processes led to a marked reduction in support requirements.
In terms of qualitative benefits, the standardisation across the development environment created a more consistent and efficient setting for developers. Engineers experience a reduced cognitive load, as they can now concentrate on core development tasks instead of managing multiple domains. Additionally, automated guardrails have enhanced security and compliance measures, solidifying security practices across the devOps landscape.
