By Jonny Williams, Chief Digital Adviser for the UK Public Sector at Red Hat.
“Software is eating the world”, as Marc Andreessen once stated, all the way back in 2011. More than a decade later, this has proven to be true as software now defines the modern enterprise. There is no sector or industry left that has not been impacted by digitalisation, and the result is many organisations scrambling to make software development a cornerstone of their transformation strategy.
South Africa’s software development market is expected to be worth $3.4 billion by 2030, growing at an annual rate of 6.2%. This growth is driven by several factors, including the increasing adoption of cloud computing. Hyperscalers have expanded their presence in the country, investing in local infrastructure and localising their services, and AI and ML technologies are reshaping what it means to be an intelligent enterprise.
Improving business performance through software development requires enterprises to empower their developers and create an environment that spurs innovation. In the age of hybrid and multi-cloud computing, teams should not have to worry about looking after infrastructure. Instead, they should focus on outcomes, deliver value and explore innovation through emerging technologies such as AI/ML. These must be integrated into development processes to support the creation of next-generation AI-enabled applications, products and services.
The state of platform engineering
Platform engineering, an approach derived from DevOps principles, aims to improve developer experience and enable self-service via portals and platforms. This came as a response to the growing complexity of software development. Too many choices, not enough efficient processes. Platform engineering aims to build robust infrastructure and automate repetitive tasks, all driven by the goal to enhance operational efficiency and make value delivery easier.
Over time, platform engineering has evolved, playing an important role in shaping software development processes. One Red Hat survey found that early success with platform engineering drives further investment and engagement, with 22% of surveyed organisations reporting it as extremely successful and 72% as moderately/very successful. Collaboration needs, security concerns and operational bottlenecks were cited as key motivators for platform engineering adoption, which speaks to the necessity of the practice.
The evolution of platform engineering is still ongoing as developers start to rely on AI models as part of the development process and the portals that they use. As a result, AI emerges as the ideal partner for developers, and the race is now on to integrate these capabilities into new and existing applications.
The benefits of mature, well-run platforms
Platform engineering is no longer just a trend. It’s now a strategic component of software and product delivery. The growth of cloud computing and distributed architectures demands that organisations become more critical of what processes they can automate and streamline, lest they suffer from time and expenditure losses both in the present and future.
To unlock the full potential of their cloud and IT investments, businesses need to adopt certain practices that best enable their developers. For one, they need to encourage effective interactions between teams, provide their internal platform users with a roadmap, and measure performance through clear metrics that reflect gains made on their path of continuous improvement.
The result of these efforts benefits both teams and the overall enterprise. Platform engineering can lead to improved team productivity, satisfaction and talent acquisition, and accelerate the go-to-market time for products and services. At the same time, platform engineering is critical for unlocking the full enterprise value of AI/ML, while these technologies in turn enable the approach and help enshrine it in organisations’ digital infrastructure. Case in point, many businesses now view generative AI (GenAI) as strategically important for platform engineering. GenAI capabilities can be used for purposes such as code generation and documentation, ultimately enhancing and accelerating the application development process.
Maintaining visibility and unlocking insights
IT infrastructure is more complex and distributed than ever before, which is why South African enterprises need to prioritise optimisation and efficiency where possible. Part of that is enabling development teams and ensuring they are not subject to conflicting goals, inconsistent technology stacks and cultures that compromise productivity and performance.
Businesses can do all of this with the help of Internal Developer Portals that transform the development process and provide teams with a unified starting point to access all their tools, services and documentation. Critically, portals consolidate the development process and centralise resources so that everything needed for a specific piece of work is immediately and readily available. They also promote standardisation, which is important as IT stacks grow and become more complex. These portals offer organisations the chance to build modern applications even if they have minimal development experience.
Indeed, software has eaten the world, completely redefining business in the 21st century. It’s up to businesses to explore the potential of software as it best suits them. The trend of AI is not going away anytime soon, and to maintain agility and competitiveness, businesses need to explore and invest in solutions that not only create value, but also help transform their organisations and the approach of their development teams.
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Also Read: Red Hat and Oracle Extend Collaboration to Accelerate Hybrid Cloud Transformation
