April 30, 2024
Today, we introduced Spotify’s newest services and products for corporations adopting Backstage, the open supply framework for constructing inside developer portals (IDPs). Whether your organization wants a extremely custom-made IDP constructed from scratch or an out-of-the-box answer that’s able to go ASAP, we need to make it simple for anybody to maximise the worth they get from their Backstage developer portal. You can watch at present’s Spotify for Backstage roadmap webinar under to see how our newest instruments assist different corporations construct like Spotify — by prioritizing developer expertise and developer productiveness.
Every firm is a tech firm
No matter what enterprise you’re in, you’re constructing software program to run it and software program to innovate it — so that you’re actually within the software program enterprise now. Whether you’re a web based retailer or an airline or a financial institution, each firm is a tech firm. And all tech corporations are dealing with the identical drawback: software program growth is getting an increasing number of advanced.
Why has it develop into so advanced?
Yesterday, it was the proliferation of microservices, the explosion of cloud tooling, and the rise of DevOps — the place you’re chargeable for all the things you construct, from how a service is deployed to how safe it’s, to how a lot it prices to run. Today, it’s generative A.I. and code era instruments that give groups the ability to construct sooner than ever, whereas additionally rising software program sprawl at a beforehand unimaginable charge. And tomorrow? There will likely be a brand new know-how, simply as thrilling and transformative as microservice, clouds, and LLMs, and simply as more likely to spur on extra sprawl.
But it doesn’t even need to be one thing as refined or world-changing as A.I. It might merely be that your mum or dad firm acquired one other firm, and so your engineering org simply doubled in measurement and inherited a wholly separate tech stack. Suddenly, you must make sense of a thousand new parts inbuilt 100 new methods by 100 new engineers — rising the cognitive load of all of your groups and testing the bounds of context-switching and their persistence.
So what’s the answer? This is the place Backstage is available in…
Taming the chaos and empowering groups with a Backstage IDP
Backstage started life at Spotify as a software program catalog — a listing of all of the parts our groups had been constructing, from backend providers to web sites and libraries, emphasizing possession and discoverability. And then we simply saved including to it. Because the platform had a easy, extensible plugin structure, Backstage might evolve to tame chaos and complexity wherever it discovered it — till ultimately it grew to become a hub for all the things engineering: aka, an inside developer portal (or IDP).
As a single pane of glass for all of your tech infrastructure, a Backstage IDP streamlines software program growth — selling the wholesome components of groups constructing software program (possession, tech requirements, data sharing, self-service, and collaboration), whereas minimizing the irritating components (silos, fragmentation, lack of discovery and documentation, dependency bottlenecks, and unclear requirements).
At Spotify, we noticed how a lot Backstage might enhance developer effectiveness firsthand. Not solely did Spotify’s frequent Backstage customers construct sooner, however additionally they created higher-quality software program in comparison with different builders. According to that inside examine, our Backstage customers are 2.3x extra energetic in GitHub, create 2x as many code adjustments in 17% much less cycle time, and deploy software program 2x as typically — and their software program is deployed for 3x as lengthy. We had been onto one thing.
An open platform that prioritizes developer expertise
Since open sourcing the Backstage framework and donating it to the CNCF, the broader tech neighborhood has skilled the advantages of improved developer expertise and productiveness for themselves. As a part of final month’s KubeCon in Paris, the CNCF held its third BackstageCon — a testomony to the platform’s continued development and recognition. The open supply framework has over 2,200 challenge contributors and over 3,000 adopting corporations. Based on that, we estimate over two million individuals are utilizing our homegrown developer portal at present.
The third-party Backstage ecosystem is prospering as effectively. Consulting corporations like Frontside, Thoughtworks, and Adaptavist present a variety of providers and assist for Backstage adopters. Popular tech providers proceed to construct plugins for Backstage, together with new ones coming quickly from Rootly, DX, LinearB, Snyk, and Swimm. And new corporations are adopting Backstage each week.
But we need to see this ecosystem develop even additional. And we expect Spotify has much more to supply Backstage adopters of all sizes and styles.
DevEx at scale: Spotify’s secret sauce
Developer expertise has lengthy been a principal ingredient of Spotify’s success. And that has put us in a novel place to develop into a pioneer within the subject of DevOps and platform engineering. Very few corporations get to check what they construct in a real-world setting like ours, on the international scale we function in.
We construct developer instruments based mostly on the insights we achieve from:
- Our inside R&D neighborhood of demanding Spotifiers. We have lots of of groups who depend upon this software program day-after-day to get their jobs finished, whether or not they’re delivery progressive options like AI DJ or combating hordes of spam bots.
- A various open supply neighborhood of contributors and finish customers. Spotify’s engineers keep the open supply framework along with a world neighborhood of hundreds of contributors, whereas additionally supporting a Discord channel with over 13,000 members.
- Our enterprise clients and third-party companions. Other corporations have been utilizing our bundle of Spotify-built plugins and assist providers. So, we be taught by seeing our instruments and strategies being utilized to corporations that may generally be very completely different from our personal.
All of this suggestions, expertise, and understanding goes into what we ship. We suppose this distinctive perspective provides distinctive worth to the Backstage ecosystem, one thing nobody else can provide. And that’s what you’ll see within the merchandise we introduced at present.
Say hey to Spotify for Backstage
Different corporations want completely different sorts of IDPs. There are the DIY corporations who have to construct a extremely custom-made IDP from the bottom up, those that want an IDP that’s fast to arrange and simple to keep up proper out of the field, and plenty of others who fall someplace in between.
Our merchandise for Backstage are designed to supercharge your developer expertise, it doesn’t matter what type of enterprise you’re in, how huge or small your organization is, or the place you’re in your DevEx journey.
In the webinar, you’ll hear Spotify’s Backstage crew discuss:
- Spotify Plugins for Backstage: Level up your customized portal with our newly up to date bundle of confirmed, Spotify-built plugins, together with Soundcheck, Role-Based Access Control, Skill Exchange, and Insights.
- Spotify Portal for Backstage: Get a full-featured IDP designed by Spotify, that’s each quick to rise up and operating, and simple to keep up. How quick? Watch the reside demo of how one can arrange Portal in lower than 5 minutes, with no coding required.
To be taught extra about all of those merchandise, watch at present’s roadmap webinar or head to backstage.spotify.com to get began.