Build your Software Catalog
with Backstage
Get your Internal Developer Portal started
with Backstage on AWS
The Software Catalog: foundation of the Internal Developer Portal
An internal developer portal organizes information about your organisation's Tech Stack. So you can quickly train new developers. So they can find important documentation, apply the organisation's standards and policies when creating or enhancing applications.
Gartner predicts that by 2026, 75% of organisations with platform engineering teams will provide internal developer portals to improve developer experience and accelerate product innovation.
The Software Catalog provides a single view for managing all your software (microservices, libraries, data pipelines, websites, ML models, etc.)
What is Backstage
Backstage was created by Spotify's engineering team to solve their own need for an Internal Developer Portal. It was so successful they decided to open source it.
Backstage is now an incubation project under the Cloud Native Computing Foundation.
Backstage has been adopted by many leading companies, and has a thriving user community.
Learn more about the Backstage project at https://backstage.io
What you will learn
At the completion of the course, you'll be able to:
- Install Backstage on AWS
- Map your Organisation’s Tech Stack to Backstage's data model
- Create a Software Catalog that lists all your organisation's applications, APIs and databases
Who the course is for
This course is for platform engineers, cloud engineers or aspiring tech professionals who want to establish a working instance of Backstage to demonstrate to colleagues, compile a catalog of all your organisation's applications, but without having to read all the documentation first.
What you will need
All you need to start is:
- A willingness to learn
- Familiarity with standard tools like Visual Studio Code
- Administrative rights to install software on your own PC or Mac
- An AWS account
Live Online
Join from wherever you are.
Instructor-led
Got stuck installing Backstage on your own? No problem! We will work through this in class to get you un-stuck.
3 bite-size sessions
Conducted over 3 well-paced two-hour sessions.
Sandbox
Access to a working instance of Backstage during the course. After the course, you will have access to your own instance on your own infrastructure.
Course Content
- About the course
- Implementation Methodology - laying the foundation
- Why do you need an Internal Developer Portal?
- What is in an Internal Developer Portal
- Introducing Backstage
- The Software Catalog
- Entities
- The Scaffolder
- TechDocs
- Plugins
- Deployment introduction
- Install local tools
- Create your Backstage app locally
- Setup AWS environment
- Establish secrets and security
- Install the TechDocs plugin
- Create the Docker image
- Setup AWS environment
- Deploy Docker image to AWS
- Mapping your Organisation to Backstage Entities
- Descriptor File
- Registering Components in the Backstage UI
- Automating Catalog ingestion
- Navigating the Software Catalog
- Requirements for Production
- Opportunities enabled by your Software Catalog
Join the next cohort
Session 1:
Fundamentals
16 January 2024
We look at why your organisation needs an Internal Developer Portal. Then we will see why Backstage is a great solution, its key features such as the Software Catalog, Entities, the Scaffolder, TechDocs and Plugins. And we walk through an Implementation Methodology to achieve successful adoption in your organisation.
Session 2:
Installation
23 January 2024
We go step-by-step through installing Backstage, first on your own local PC or Mac, then create a Docker image, and deploy it on AWS. We show how to deploy on both a single server and a Kubernetes cluster. And we'll point to the additional steps you need to take to deploy Backstage in production.
Session 3:
Catalog Building
30 January 2024
We show how to map your organisation's Tech Stack to Backstage's data model, set up the Descriptor files (metadata), and register your components in Backstage's Software Catalog. We show how you can build on the foundation that the Software Catalog provides, the opportunities for accelerating delivery and applying best practices.
Global timings to suit your location
Each of the three sessions is held at the same time each Tuesday.
You have two options to suit your time zone:
Option 1: EMEA-Eastern Americas Friendly
Evening in South East & South Asia, afternoon in Europe, Middle East & Africe, morning in Americas
16, 23 & 30 January
APAC
- Singapore/Malaysia/HK: 9pm-11pm
- Philippines: 9pm-11pm
- Vietnam/Indonesia/Thailand: 8pm-10pm
- Bangladesh: 7pm-9pm
- India: 6:30pm-8:30pm
- Pakistan: 6pm-8pm
EMEA
- UK/Portugal: 1pm-3pm
- Central Europe/Morocco: 2pm-4pm
- Greece/Egypt/Finland: 3pm-5pm
- South Africa/Rwanda: 3pm-5pm
- Saudi Arabia/Kuwait/Qatar: 4pm-6pm
- Turkey/Kenya: 4pm-6pm
- UAE: 5pm-7pm
Americas
- U.S. Eastern Time: 8am-10am
- Brazil /Argentina: 10am-12pm
Option 2: Australia, South East Asia-friendly
Office hours in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia, evening in Americas
APAC (16, 23 & 30 January)
- Singapore/Malaysia/HK: 10am-12pm
-
Philippines: 10am-12pm
- Vietnam/Indonesia/Thailand: 9am-11am
- Australia East Coast (SYD/MEL): 1pm-3pm
- New Zealand: 3pm-5pm
Americas (15, 22 & 29 January)
- U.S. Eastern Time: 9pm-11pm
-
US Central Time: 8pm-10pm
-
U.S. Pacific Time: 6pm-8pm