Platform Orchestrators: What, Why, and How

What is a Platform Orchestrator?

A platform orchestrator is a crucial layer in platform engineering, focusing on managing and optimising platform components, infrastructure, and application workflows.

Platform orchestrators bridge the gap between infrastructure automation and developer experience by seamlessly coordinating services, policies, and business processes across multiple environments.

According to Daniel Bryant's blog, "Platform Engineering: Orchestrating Applications, Platforms, and Infrastructure", unlike infrastructure orchestration or infrastructure composition, which handles lower-level resources related to compute (and storage, networking, etc.), platform orchestration is about reducing complexity and improving the lifecycle management of platform components for developers.

Why Use Platform Orchestrators?

Platform orchestrators provide developers with an efficient, self-service interface to access resources, automate infrastructure, and deploy applications. This makes it easier for teams to focus on delivering customer value while reducing cognitive load.

A well-implemented platform orchestrator allows organisations to manage and scale their digital platform consistently, ensuring that services and infrastructure are reliable, compliant, and capable of supporting growth.

Orchestrating platforms allows teams to manage a wide array of services and infrastructure from a single source of truth, helping to minimise technical sprawl. It ensures that policies, workflows, and resources are applied consistently across environments.

How to Implement Platform Orchestration?

Start with Clear Goals: Define the goals for your platform orchestrator—whether it’s reducing manual processes, automating infrastructure, or optimising the developer experience. Key outcomes should include faster delivery, reduced risk, and increased efficiency.
Leverage Platform Engineering Layers: Platform orchestration focuses on the middle layer between infrastructure and applications. By understanding the interaction between these layers, organisations can apply the right tooling and patterns for effective orchestration.
Use Best Practices and Tools: Select and integrate the appropriate tools for your orchestrator. Technologies like Backstage, Terraform, and Kratix can help manage the lifecycle of applications and platforms efficiently. Make sure these tools reduce the cognitive load for developers rather than adding complexity.