How Backstage streamlines software development and increases efficiency

Even
the
best
organizations
face
challenges
about
the
scale
and
scope
of
governance
and
efficient
streamlining
of
their
resources
across
the
enterprise.
These
challenges
can
lead
to
a
frustrating,
fragmented
and
disjointed
developer
experience.

Meanwhile,
different
groups
of
developers
within
the
organization
inevitably
bring
different
views
about
what
one
centralized
code-base
and
tooling
set
should
look
like.
It
is
crucial
to
align
these
different,
well-meaning
standards,
while
enabling
our
developers
to
cross
silos
and
organizational
boundaries
to
gain
efficiencies.
A
developer
portal
like
Backstage
can
help. 

The
power
of
a
developer
portal

The
power
of
Backstage
lies
in
the
organization
that
it
can
bring
to
your
software
development
lifecycle.
It
acts
as
an
abstraction
layer
to
the
complexity
of
provisioning
and
deploying
microservices
that
are
both
consistent
and compliant.
From
specifying
business
units,
domains,
teams
and
other
information
about
your
developer
landscape,
Backstage
can
start
associating
those
resources
together.
Those
associations
happen
regardless
of
where
the
code
might
live.
Different
repositories?
No
problem.
Different
EMUs?
No
big
deal.
If
you
can
express
the
structure
of
your
organization
to
Backstage
using
its
easy-to-learn
taxonomy,
Backstage
will
help
you
tame
complexity,
bringing
organization
to
your
developer
teams.

Organizational
boundaries
between
developer
teams
might
make
dependencies
seem
opaque,
but
because
Backstage
expresses
those
relationships
automatically
inside
its
system,
there’s
no
more
worrying
about
loose
ends.
Backstage
will
map
out
the
picture
for
you
in
an
intuitive
way.
Infrastructure
teams
no
longer
need
to
lose
time
to
constant
custom
provisioning
requests
from
disparate
groups;
the
menu
is
right
in
front
of
everyone.

The
reasons
for
adopting
a
developer
portal
include:

• 
  Centralized
  tooling
  by
  providing
  one
  spot
  to
  access
  and
  use
  tooling.
• 
  Improved
  collaboration
  with
  a
  shared
  environment
  for
  accessing,
  sharing
  and
  managing
  software
  components.
• 
  Enhanced
  discoverability
  of
  components
  and
  resources
  for
  reuse,
  reducing
  duplication
  of
  work
  and
  creating
  more
  consistent
  practices.
• 
  Standardization
  by
  providing
  templates
  and
  best
  practices
  for
  service
  creation.
• 
  Automation
  
  and
  integration 
  for
  routine
  tasks
  through
  integration
  with
  various
  CI/CD
  and
  monitoring
  tools,
  including
  through
  a
  growing
  community
  of
  plug-ins.
• 
  Visibility
  
  and
  governance
  into
  the
  software
  development
  lifecycle
  through
  insight
  to
  project
  status,
  dependencies
  and
  more.
• 
  Developer
  experience
  through
  simplification
  in
  project
  management,
  collaboration
  with
  team
  members
  and
  access
  to
  tooling
  that
  promotes
  higher
  productivity
  and
  job
  satisfaction.

GitOps
for
repo
data

Backstage
allows
developers
and
teams
to
express
the
metadata
about
their
projects
from
yaml
files.
Those
yaml
files
are
written
to
look
like
Kubernetes
resources,
so
developers
can
quickly
and
easily
create
them.
Since
the
yaml
files
are
versioned(because
they’re
in
Git),
this
also
means
they
always
should
express
the
most
current
information
about
your
repos.
Now,
imagine
the
scenario
where
a
project
is
consolidated
into
another
project.
For
Backstage,
this
is
no
problem.
Because
the
Backstage
yaml
files
(which
have
the
information
about
the
project)
become
part
of
the
normal
release
cycle,
as
your
code
is
updated,
so
is
Backstage.

By
putting
our
Backstage
configuration
into
the
repository
and
making
it
a
normal
part
of
the
release
cycle,
updates
to
Backstage
happen
almost
automatically.
This
automation
of
 updating
documentation
and
advertising
 gives
time
back
to
the
developers.
This
leads
to
increased
developer
productivity
and
seamless
organizational
communications.

Backstage
as
a
proxy

Another
great
feature
is
how
Backstage
manages
microservices.
Instead
of
consuming
existing
APIs,
Backstage
can
act
as
an
API
proxy
.

Backstage’s
API
functionality
helps
bridge
the
gap
between
microservices.
Imagine
that
an
application
is
made
of
five
different
microservices.
Backstage
can
put
all
those
behind
an
API
proxy,
which
will
help
present
them
as
a
single
microservice.
This
is
like
APIGEE
or
APIM,
but
“in-house.”
Rather
than
paying
a
cloud
to
host
that
proxy
for
you,
you
can
move
that
proxy
into
Backstage
and
present
it
as
a
single
product.

This
also
helps
with
microservices
that
are
spread
across
two
different
clouds.
Instead
of
maintaining
two
sets
of
routable
endpoints
to
compose
one
application,
Backstage
will
help
present
a
“single
pane
of
glass”
to
people
who
want
to
use
your
services.

The
gain
here
is
that
Backstage
now
smooths
over
the
presentation
of
the
proxy.
Have
you
ever
sat
and
waited
for
a
firewall
ticket
to
be
opened,
or
a
service
account
to
be
created?
Or
have
you
had
your
services
broken
because
one
of
the
many
APIs
it
depends
on
changed
versions?
Hosting
an
API
proxy
in
Backstage
will
solve
these
issues
for
you,
letting
you
focus
more
on
development.

The
benefits
of
templates

Backstage
also
offers
templates
that
help
accelerate
development.
Not
only
do
templates
advertise
best
practices
and
standards
that
your
org
has
adopted,
but
Backstage
also
helps
developers
get
started
by
creating
repositories
for
them.
Templates
can
also
codify
workflows.

If
your
organization
has
a
workflow
where
developers
can
create
new
Kubernetes
clusters
in
the
“Dev
Project,”
Backstage
will
empower
developers
to
build
their
environments
without
having
to
learn
about
Terraform.
Templates
can
also
be
used
to
interface
with
workflows
because
templates
are
written
in
Typescript.
Complex
workflows
can
be
captured
in
templates,
such
as
requiring
a

Service
Now
ticket
to
be
in
an
approved
state
before
allowing
the
deployment.

Instead
of
having
a
developer
perform
hours
of
rework
because
the
project
did
not
meet
organizational
standards,
the
template
functionality
in
Backstage
can
ensure
the
repository
is
created
correctly.
Backstage
templates
also
save
developer
time
by
decomposing
changes
and
workflows
into
easy-to-consume
forms.

Why
care
about
developer
efficiency?

While
this
post
discusses
just
a
handful
of
practical
examples
of
how
IBM®
can
drive
efficiency
gains
in
your
enterprise
through
internal
developer
portals
like
Backstage,
it’s
hard
to
question
the
impact
developers
can
have
on
a
business: 

• Developers
  have
  the
  potential
  to
  raise
  
  global
  GDP
  by
  USD
  3
  trillion
  over
  the
  next
  decade.
  This
  potential
  stems
  from
  their
  role
  as
  force-multipliers
  in
  the
  technology
  sector,
  emphasizing
  the
  importance
  of
  leveraging
  
  existing
  software
  engineering
  talent
  effectively
  to
  spur
  economic
  growth
  and
  innovation.

• Access
  to
  skilled
  developers
  is
  increasingly
  seen
  as
  a
  constraint
  to
  company
  growth,
  more
  so
  than
  access
  to
  capital.
  
  Among
  over
  1,000
  C-level
  executives
  surveyed,
  55%
  cited
  access
  to
  talent
  as
  a
  constraint,
  with
  software
  engineers
  (53%)
  mentioned
  more
  often
  than
  access
  to
  capital
  (52%).

• 
  On
  average,
  developers
  spend
  13.5
  hours
  of
  their
  41.1-hour
  work
  week
  addressing
  technical
  debt
  and
  an
  additional
  3.8
  hours
  fixing
  bad
  code.
  This
  results
  in
  a
  significant
  productivity
  loss,
  with
  nearly
  $85
  billion
  wasted
  annually
  worldwide
  due
  to
  the
  time
  spent
  on
  bad
  code
  and
  maintenance
  issues.

With
IBM,
you
can
empower
your
developers
and
bring
standardization
and
efficiency
to
your
software
development
lifecycle.

Reach
out
to
IBM
today
to
discuss
the
organizational
power
of
Backstage