Every so often, somebody in the tech industry proposes a new way to quantify software engineers’ productivity. Most recently, a leading consulting firm published a report that has reignited a recurring debate—is it even possible to effectively measure developer productivity, and if so, how? Whereas functions like sales and support have had rigorous metrics for years, software engineering has long been the exception.

To be a true system of record, your IDP needs to be a source of truth for all the data in your stack. While Cortex offers 50+ out of the box integrations, and the ability to bring in custom data, we know there are occasions where you’ll also want to visualize or take action on data sourced from other places including internally developed tools or repositories. That’s why we’re excited to officially launch the Cortex plugin framework plus UI customization. Now users can.

Kubernetes (k8s) adoption has skyrocketed since its 2014 introduction, becoming one of the most popular open source container orchestration platforms for its power and flexibility. K8s reduce costs by improving efficiency, optimizing resource use, and eliminating redundancies. But cost savings in Kubernetes can be tricky to maintain. In fact, a 2021 survey of 178 organizations showed that costs associated with k8s can actually increase from insufficient monitoring, resulting in overspend.

The first fifteen minutes of an incident set the tone for the rest of the resolution process. But what makes the difference between a rapid response and a stressful scramble—clear ownership—hasn't always been easy to ascertain. In this article, we’ll cover how Cortex, an internal developer portal, can be your team’s source of truth to accelerate the incident management process, and reduce MTTR.

We've upgraded the Team catalog experience with the same level of dimensionality as the Services, Resources, and Domains Catalogs. Now users can add more information about teams like relevant custom data, links, and integrations, and drill down into aggregate team activities and performance.

Updating a software version, moving to Kubernetes, onboarding a new CI/CD tool... some of these decisions could have enormous productivity upside for your team, while others carry significant risk if not executed by a certain deadline. In either event, getting everyone aligned with what to do, when—is never an easy task. Learn what to avoid for speedy migrations, and how Cortex helps.

Working on software infrastructure for the sake of infrastructure is rarely a good use of time. That probably sounds obvious, but perhaps the next question is less straightforward: what should engineering platform teams do instead?

This is the second of a two-part blog on things to consider when mapping your information architecture. In the first, we shared some tips on how to approach this process based on best practices from the Cortex Customer Engineering team. In this blog, we’ll share how new and existing features in Cortex accelerate creation of a more resilient information architecture.

The path to engineering excellence has no shortage of tooling for improving developer experience. But what has been missing is an understanding of where to begin. Developed from hundreds of engineering team conversations, the Cortex Engineering Maturity Curve has become a trusted guide for IDP evaluation and onboarding—meeting customers where they’re at for faster time to value.

In modern software engineering, traditional metrics to measure developer productivity cannot accurately measure the quality or efficiency of the development team. So here is an article about the most effective metrics to measure and improve developer productivity.