By Jonny Williams – Chief Digital Adviser at Red Hat
Software defines business in the 21st century. 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% and driven by several factors. Chief among those factors are the increasing adoption of cloud computing – hyperscalers have expanded their presence in the country, investing in local infrastructure and localising their services, as well as the trend of AI and ML technologies outright 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, pursuing projects, delivering outcomes, and exploring AI/ML are integrated into development processes, leading to the next generation of AI-enabled applications and solutions.
The state of platform engineering
Platform engineering, a practice derived from DevOps principles that aim to improve developer experience and self-service via portals and platforms, 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.
But 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. The race is now on to integrate these capabilities into new and existing applications, and thus AI emerges as the ideal partner for developers.
The benefits of mature, well-run platforms
Platform engineering is no longer just a trend and is instead a strategic component of software delivery 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 close collaboration between teams, provide the development team with a roadmap, and measure performance through clear metrics that reflect gains made on their path to maturity.
The result of these efforts benefit 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 projects. At the same time, platform engineering is critical for unlocking the full enterprise value of AI/ML, while AI/ML itself enables the practice and helps enshrine it in organisations’ digital infrastructure. Case in point, many businesses now view generative AI (GenAI) as strategically important for platform engineering. They 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 with the help of portals that transform the development process and provide teams with a platform for all their tools, services, and documentation. Critically, portals consolidate the development process and centralise resources so that everything needed for a specific project is immediately and readily available. They also promote standardisation, which is important as businesses’ IT grows and becomes more complex, and offer organisations the chance to build modern applications even if they have minimal development experience.
If software defines business in the 21st century, then 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 the 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
