DevOps vs SRE vs Platform Engineering: What’s The Difference

The world has changed a lot, especially the way we think, the way we search, the way we shop, and the way businesses sell their products/services to their customers. Businesses rely on digital technologies to expand their presence and attain a competitive advantage.   

A few years back, everything was performed manually, but introducing digital software and cloud solutions makes business processes faster and more efficient.   

Today, large-scale enterprises and unicorn brands can only imagine their lives by incorporating technology in business processes because technology has become the need of the hour.   

In this blog, we will delve deeper to make you understand the distinction between DevOps vs SRE vs platform engineering that can help businesses to achieve collaboration, automate business tasks and increase efficiency.  

DevOps Vs SRE Vs Platform Engineering

Here are the 3 approaches ( DevOps vs SRE vs platform engineering) to facilitate better collaboration, efficiency, and automation –

1. Site Reliability Engineering (SRE)  

The concept of site reliability engineering was introduced by Google in the early 2000s. Moreover, SRE is used to automate IT operations tasks performed manually by system administrators.   

SRE brings software engineering principles to operations, development, and infrastructure processes. Thus, The objective of using SRE is to create high-quality, scalable software.   

SRE is responsible for ensuring that the system works optimally by applying software engineering principles to monitoring tasks such as automation, testing, and monitoring.   

It focuses on reducing the friction between the development and operations teams. Hence, SRE is closely related to adopting DevOps principles.   

Google introduced SRE to manage operational challenges in managing large and complex teams. Also, SRE practices and tools were introduced by Google, such as the Borgh cluster management system and monarch monitoring system, to improve the reliability of services.   

Ben Treynor shares his thoughts about SRE – SRE is “what happens when you ask the software engineer to build an operations team.   

Earlier, what happened? The development team would throw a code on the operations team, and the IT team is responsible for maintenance and deployment. But SRE practices focus on bringing the development and operations teams together.  

Pros of SRE   

a. Better collaboration between team   

SRE teams focus on breaking down the silos and encouraging cross-functional communication.In addition, SRE teams work closely with the software development team to ensure that the software they develop is scalable and reliable.   

Hence, shared responsibility fosters better communication and collaboration between the development and operations teams.   

b. Speedy fixing of issues  

Developing quick apps and delivering speedy apps always keeps a business stand out from the competitors; however, it may sometimes increase the vulnerabilities of disregarding bugs and other threats that could provide a bad experience to the user.   

Hence, SRE teams are responsible for detecting and solving such problems to do reliable app releases.   

c. Accurate metrics reporting   

SRE engineers check the overall health of an application by employing security measures related to bugs, efficiency, and production and then turn these metrics into tangible results such as average length of downtime, etc.   

Cons of SRE   

a. Huge investment required   

SRE requires a good amount of investment in tools, infrastructure, and personnel. Thus, It can be challenging for organizations who are having a tight budget and limited financial resources   

b. Skillset requirements   

SRE teams require skills that are a combination of software engineering, operations, and data analysis.   

Sometimes, it might get difficult for companies to find talented personnel who combine all these skills, and it becomes time-consuming for organizations to find such human resources.   

2. DevOps   

Patrick Debois and Andrew Shafer introduced the concept of DevOps at the Agile conference conducted in 2009. Introducing such a philosophy aimed to break the siloes between the software development and operations teams by focusing on a collaborative culture.  

The full form of DevOps is development and operations. So, DevOps refers to the best practices that an organization should adopt to deliver high-quality and scalable applications.   

DevOps methodology facilitates the faster development of applications by integrating people, processes, and technology. Additionally, The DevOps approach emphasizes bringing down the development and operations team.   

DevOps methodology was adopted because the traditional software development model had many loopholes. The process of software development occurs in sequential stages, from gathering requirements, to design, development, deployment, testing, and maintenance.   

Also, developing software takes a lot of time, increasing the time to market an application. Not only that, but traditional software development models do not adapt to project requirements changes. Hence, it lacks flexibility.  

Therefore, DevOps practices were adopted so that an app is built, tested, and deployed automatically.   

Pros of DevOps 

a. Faster Delivery of services   

As DevOps focuses on developing software in a shorter development lifecycle, businesses prefer DevOps over other software development approaches.   

Research studies say,” Traditional software development processes take 40% more time. But, in DevOps, there is always a scope of continuous feedback, automation, and fast delivery of applications.  

b. Breaking down the siloes   

The prime objective of DevOps is to break down the siloes between the development and operations teams. Thus, DevOps focuses on eliminating the word “This is not my job.” Every team member is accountable for their tasks.   

c. Ensures rapid development of applications   

When an organization adopts DevOps practices, products are rapidly developed because every team member is involved, such as Q/A testers, product managers, and developers.   

Cons of DevOps   

a. Lack of standardization  

There is no such standardization for DevOps in the industry. Customizing workflows and toolkits can be time-consuming for companies adopting DevOps practices. Hence, DevOps is a relatively new approach to software development, and there is no standardized set of practices.   

Hence, it makes it challenging for organizations to adopt DevOps practices.   

b. Cost   

Adopting DevOps practices is expensive as the organization needs to invest in tools, training, and personnel to implement DevOps practices. Hence, it could be difficult for small organizations to have limited budgets.   

Read this ultimate guide to know the top 10 benefits of DevOps 

3. Platform Engineering   

It is a more recent concept, and is an extended version of DevOps practices and SRE practices adopted to improve the platform’s performance.   

This is a new concept that focuses on improving the delivery of applications. It refers to the process wherein the engineers can add value to the development processes by leveraging cloud platforms.   

As Gartner says, “By 2026, 80% of software engineering organizations would establish platform teams to accelerate the application delivery process”. Hence, it focuses on bridging the gap between the development and operations teams.   

Here are some key tasks that platform engineers do –  

• Develop and maintain software platforms   
• Ensures that platforms are reliable and secure   
• Providing technical support and assistance to developers   
• Finally, Platform Engineers Monitors the performance of platforms   

Pros of Platform Engineering   

a. Scalability   

Platform engineering allows developers to scale their applications. In addition , Platform engineers ensure that by providing robust architecture, applications can handle increasing traffic and workload demands without compromising quality.   

b. Speed up the development process.   

Platform engineering speeds up the development process by standardizing the set of tools and platforms that developers can use to build and deploy their applications. Platform engineering focuses on automating routine tasks such as testing, deployment, and scaling.  

 Hence, allowing the developers to get rid of writing code and developing new features.   

Cons of Platform Engineering   

a. Complexity   

Platform engineering is a complex concept wherein developers must have specialized knowledge. Hence, it creates barriers for new developers to get expertise in that.   

b. Cost   

Investment in platform engineering is expensive as it requires organizations to invest significantly in tools, infrastructure, and personnel training. Thus, It can be a burden for small-scale organizations which have limited resources.   

To Sum Up

The above guide helped you understand DevOps, SRE, and platform engineering.   

If your organization wants to deliver scalable projects and utilize automation features to accelerate software development processes, then you can choose these practices to develop robust applications.   

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