We are thrilled to announce Olivier Liechti's participation at Inner Source Summit 23. Olivier delivered an engaging talk titled "InnerSource Summit 23 Lessons: Building Your Portal with Backstage." The presentation delved into the powerful capabilities of Backstage as a platform for creating Inner Source portals.
In his talk, Olivier Liechti kicked off by highlighting the crucial role InnerSource Portals play in fostering collaboration for both project contributors and owners within large organizations. Emphasizing the need to enhance project discoverability, Olivier explored various patterns associated with these portals. Additionally, he provided an overview of Backstage, a flexible development platform that enables diverse use cases in portal construction.
The presentation unfolded in three key parts:
Understanding Inner Source Portals
Olivier highlighted the collaborative nature of InnerSource portals, catering to various use cases such as gig marketplaces and participant platforms. The talk illustrated how portals, starting small, can evolve into feature-rich spaces supporting stakeholders like project owners, contributors, and business sponsors.
Getting to Know Backstage: A Developer's Friend
Olivier introduced Backstage, originally created at Spotify to solve challenges in fast-growing tech organizations. He emphasized that Backstage is not just a tool but a development platform, allowing users to customize and extend their portals. Backstage's core features include a software catalog, documentation publishing, scaffolding for new projects, and a powerful plugin system.
Three Key Things in Backstage Implementation
Olivier discussed three essential themes when building portals on Backstage: simplifying the user interface (UI), making the system model more flexible, and being smart about content. He showcased how the UI can be made more user-friendly, explained the benefits of the system model, and discussed strategies for effective content management.
During the presentation, Olivier demonstrated a live portal built on Backstage, featuring personalized content, a project catalog, and interactive maps that provided a unique perspective on the software ecosystem. In discussing Backstage's community impact, Olivier emphasized its growing popularity, with over 2,000 organizations leveraging the platform. He underscored Backstage's role as a development platform, offering complete control for efficient and tailored implementations. Concluding the session, Olivier extended an invitation for collaboration and discussion, directing attention to Avalia Systems' open-source layer on top of Backstage, known as DX Hub.
The company is enthusiastic about engaging with the community and further exploring innovative solutions in UI design, model extensions, and content strategies for InnerSource portals. For those seeking assistance with Backstage implementation, Avalia Systems is ready to lend support and expertise.
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