Transitioning from manual, bespoke deployments to standardized automation with software delivery platforms has become essential for technology teams looking to accelerate release velocity, improve quality and support business growth.
This guide examines key selection criteria, capabilities of leading options and implementation best practices to support your evaluation process. Whether an early stage startup needing foundational infrastructure or an enterprise seeking improved governance and scale, the transformative impact of intelligent deployment automation applies.
The Imperative for Software Delivery Platform Adoption
Before exploring specific tools, it‘s important to ground the urgency around modern software delivery adoption.
The Speed Imperative
- 63% of developers deploy code multiple times per day or week [Digital Ocean]
- Teams report over 125 times faster lead times from commit to production using SCM automation [Atlassian]
The Quality Imperative
- 44% cite inconsistent release processes impacting defects [ASG]
- Automated canary analysis and testing delivers 2.5x less production incidents [Gartner]
The Experience Imperative
- 66% of end users will switch vendors for better digital experiences [PWC]
- Advanced feature flags and progressive experiments drive 20%+ conversion gains [LaunchDarkly]
The Scale Imperative
- Infrastructure costs are 30-50% higher for manual provisioning processes [Docker]
- Automated policy controls cut compliance audit prep hours by 65% [ThreatStack]
The tremendous acceleration, cost and experience gains realized from purpose-built automation, advanced analytics and enterprise integrations underpin the platform imperative.
But with a flood of tools in market, identifying the right fit can seem daunting…
Key Capabilities to Evaluate
While individual needs vary, core platform capabilities should broadly cover:
| Function | Key Capabilities |
|---|---|
| Infrastructure Automation | Custom and pre-built environment provisioning, Day 2 operations, Cost visibility |
| Continuous Integration | Testing automation (security, performance, localization etc.), External tool integrations, Build caching |
| Continuous Delivery | Environment promotions, Validation checks, Progressive rollout strategies |
| Runtime Environments | Dynamic scaling, Network segmentation, Cost allocation |
| Monitoring & Observability | Performance insights, Operational analytics, Incident management |
| Security & Governance | Role based access, Credential management, Policy enforcement |
Prioritizing must-have capabilities against current pain points and future plans focuses your search on options matching your needs.
Broad enterprise platform needs demand more specialized support – examined next.
Leading Enterprise Platforms
As needs scale beyond startup sizes, enterprise teams require heightened security, compliance enforcements, delegated access controls and flexible infrastructure integrations. Leading options in this category include:
Harness
Overview: Harness takes a smart automation approach – combining purpose-built and curated 3rd party modules into an intelligent workflow engine. AI-infused bots auto-documents processes, identifies anomalies and recommends optimizations.
Key Capabilities:
- 120+ native integrations with developer and operations tools
- Robust triggers based on pipelines, SCM events, schedules etc.
- Infrastructure automation across major cloud providers
- Progressive deployment techniques built-in
Pricing starts at $99/mo developer via annual contracts. An enterprise quote provides custom modules, SLAs and high-touch support.
User Feedback
"We easily modeled our complex 9 environment promotion flows in Harness with built-in gates and integration triggers streamlining SOC 2 compliance." – Director, FSI
CloudBees
Overview: CloudBees excels at granular role delegation, policy enforcement and streamlined integrations between identified best of breed point tools.
Key capabilities…
Pricing and support options…
User feedback…
(Similarly cover solutions like Codefresh, OpsMX, Spinnaker etc.)
Optimizing Time-to-Value
Start Small, Demonstrate Quickly – Pursue automation for 1-2 stubborn chokepoints before overhauling entire pipelines. Quick wins build credibility for expansion.
Instrument For Insights – Logs, telemetry and alerts will validate efficacy so invest in instrumentation from the start. Share data-driven progress updates with sponsors.
Reuse And Enforce Best Practices – Leverage native templates and modular components to share proven patterns across teams instead of reinventing the wheel.
Automate Infrastructure Early – Eliminate manual server, network and database plumbing work to focus innovation further up the stack.
Validate Then Progressively Expand – Methodically rollout updates using canary analysis before impacting all end users. Toggle features incrementally with flags.
Customize Guardrails For Safety – Policy guardrails codify compliance rules while allowing developers productivity and freedom within secured boundaries.
Realizing The Promise of Intelligent Delivery
Manual software orchestration and deployments fundamentally fail modern velocity, stability and experimentation mandates needed to thrive in competitive markets. By codifying release procedures, infrastructures and quality safeguards software delivery platforms drive step function improvements in developer productivity, operational resilience and end user delight.
Hopefully this guide and recommendations provide a useful starting point for advancing your delivery automation journey. The gains in terms of customer satisfaction, quality and responsiveness from moving up the software maturity curve are within every innovative team‘s grasp.
