Unlocking Platform Engineering: Gartner’s 2024 Trend and Practical Evaluation Guide

What Is Platform Engineering?

According to Gartner, platform engineering is a mechanism and architecture for building, operating, and supporting self‑service internal developer platforms (IDPs) that improve developer experience and accelerate product teams’ value delivery. Its core goal is to design and construct generic services and tools—such as application deployment, monitoring, and logging—to simplify development and boost overall software delivery efficiency.

One major implementation is the Internal Developer Platform (IDP), which bundles tools, capabilities, and processes to provide frictionless self‑service, reduce cognitive load, and enable users to accomplish critical work at minimal cost.

Why Platform Engineering Is Timely

Amid China’s rapid digital transformation, platform engineering is crucial for strengthening technological capabilities. Numerous policy documents encourage enterprises to build internal development and operation platforms.

For example, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission’s guidance calls for agile R&D‑operations transformation and the establishment of enterprise‑level one‑stop R&D collaboration platforms. The Securities Association’s three‑year plan emphasizes unified source‑code management and standardized DevOps tool platforms to embed security controls throughout the software lifecycle.

Surveys by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) show that nearly 70% of enterprises have DevOps tools, with many already developing custom DevOps toolchains and internal platforms such as continuous delivery, automated testing, and automated operations platforms.

CAICT is leading the creation of the "DevOps Capability Maturity Model – Part 13: Platform Engineering Capability Requirements," the first standard targeting platform‑engineering maturity.

New Multi‑Level Platform Engineering Assessment Scheme

CAICT has upgraded the DevOps Capability Maturity Model to include three assessment levels:

1. Module‑Level Assessment

Based on the "DevOps Capability Maturity Model – Part 8: System and Tools," each module can be evaluated independently. Example modules are illustrated in the accompanying diagram.

2. Platform‑Level Assessment

Also based on Part 8, assessments are conducted per platform domain, with domains shown in the diagram.

3. Platform‑Engineering‑Level Assessment

This combines Part 13 (Platform Engineering Capability Requirements) and Part 8 (System and Tools) to evaluate based on platform service scenarios, as depicted in the following diagram.

Numerous leading Chinese banks, securities firms, and technology companies have already participated in the standard‑setting work and undergone these assessments, achieving domestic leading levels of DevOps and platform engineering capability.