Summary of "Backstage Integration: Build Developer Infrastructure Portals That Scale!"

This webinar, hosted by Futurum Group and sponsored by Stackgen, focuses on the challenges and opportunities in building scalable developer infrastructure portals, particularly Integrated Developer Platforms (IDPs), to improve developer velocity and reduce reliance on traditional ticketing processes.

Key Technological Concepts and Analysis

Ticketing vs. Self-Service Automation
- Traditional ticketing for infrastructure provisioning is time-consuming and blocks developer progress.
- Despite cloud adoption, service catalogs, and DevOps practices, ticket volumes have increased due to the growing complexity and cognitive load on developers.
- Self-service portals and automation are seen as solutions but often fall short when developers need flexibility beyond the "happy path."
Developer Infrastructure Portals & IDPs
- IDPs aim to provide developers with a consolidated, integrated platform to self-serve infrastructure and deployment needs.
- Many existing IDPs offer static templates and workflows that cover common scenarios but struggle with customization or edge cases.
- The platform must balance automation with flexibility, allowing developers to deviate from standard templates without reverting to ticketing.
Platform engineering as a Discipline
- Platform engineering focuses on improving developer experience and velocity by providing a developer-centric platform.
- It is more than just a set of tools or a culture; it is a strategic function that bridges development and operations (Dev to Ops).
- Platform engineering teams manage infrastructure provisioning, service catalogs, governance, compliance, and automation.
- The discipline is crucial for scaling software delivery in modern enterprises, especially beyond 150-200 engineers per organization.
Challenges Addressed by Platform engineering
- High cognitive load on developers due to diverse deployment options and complex infrastructure.
- Need for integrated governance and compliance (e.g., FedRAMP, SOC 2) baked into platforms.
- Automation of infrastructure as code (IaC) generation and maintenance.
- Providing escape valves for developers when automation or standard processes don’t fit their unique needs.
Emerging Role of AI and Agentic Automation
- AI is leveraged to improve developer self-service by automating form-filling, reducing errors, and predicting governance needs.
- AI agents help generate Terraform modules either deterministically or via generative AI, tailored to organizational standards.
- Predictive governance and compliance enforcement are envisioned as next-generation Platform engineering capabilities.
- AI can reduce the reliance on tribal knowledge and improve developer onboarding by guiding correct infrastructure choices.
Stackgen’s Approach and Product Features
- Originated as an infrastructure-as-code automation company, focusing on automating IaC generation from application source code.
- Expanded focus to broader Platform engineering needs, including developer self-service and governance.
- Core product components include:
  - Stack Builder: AI-powered agent for developer self-service and IaC generation, supporting natural language prompts and integration with tools like Backstage.
  - Stack Guard: Policy management and governance agent that automates compliance enforcement through policy-as-code.
  - Additional agents for remediation, incident management, and security (DevSecOps) are in development or preview.
- Stackgen emphasizes customer-centric development, evolving the product based on enterprise feedback.
- Provides tooling that integrates with existing developer portals (e.g., Backstage) to enhance self-service capabilities beyond static templates.
Backstage Integration Example
- Demonstration of a Backstage instance with a service catalog and self-service project scaffolding.
- Highlights limitations of static templates and the need for underlying engines to support customization.
- Shows how Stackgen’s automation can generate Terraform code and allow developers to spin up infrastructure rapidly while maintaining compliance.

Guides and Tutorials Highlighted

Demonstration of Backstage with Stackgen integration:
- Service catalog browsing.
- Self-service creation flow for Node.js service scaffolding.
- Automation of Terraform infrastructure provisioning.
Use of AI agents for form filling and policy generation:
- Natural language prompts to generate compliant infrastructure.
- Automation of governance policies in policy-as-code formats.
Customer use cases and learning:
- Importance of reducing ticket volume by automating 90% of form entries.
- Role of Platform engineering in supporting developer velocity and compliance.

Main Speakers / Sources

Guy Courion – Analyst at Futurum Group, webinar host and moderator.
Danni Vijaya Kumar – Principal Product Manager at Stackgen, focuses on cloud discovery, lifecycle management, and governance.
Arnav Sarcar – Founding Engineer and Solutions Engineering Lead at Stackgen, expert in Platform engineering and automation.

Conclusion

The webinar emphasizes that while the ticketing problem in infrastructure provisioning has persisted for decades, modern Platform engineering combined with AI-driven automation offers a promising path forward. Integrated Developer Platforms must evolve beyond static templates to provide flexible, AI-enhanced self-service portals that reduce cognitive load and increase developer velocity.