Surviving Backstage with Roadie: A Developer''s Nightmare or Dream? - YouTube
Discover the power and pitfalls of Backstage, the ultimate tool for boosting productivity in your organization. In this video, we dive deep into Backstage's ...
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The Pros and Cons of Using Backstage for Your Organization
- Backstage is a highly extensible front-end tool that can serve as a portal to your internal system.
- It is one of the most contributed and used projects in the CNCF landscape, with many organizations adopting it.
- Backstage's ability to represent almost anything in a user interface is impressive, but its design may feel outdated.
- The tool does not publish binaries or have official container images, making installation challenging.
- Users must have knowledge of TypeScript to deploy Backstage and face constant maintenance issues.
- Building custom images for plugins is necessary, and finding non-official Helm charts may still require image rebuilding.
- Backstage gives users control over customization, but this can result in complexities and potential issues.
- Choosing to use Backstage can be a highly rewarding or disastrous experience, depending on the user's technical capabilities and tolerance for challenges.
- Using Backstage as a service, like Roadie, can alleviate some of the inherent problems and offer additional benefits.
- This summary is not a review, but rather an exploration of the potential advantages and drawbacks of using Backstage or its service counterparts.
Benefits and Challenges of Using Roadie (Backstage) for Repository Management
- Enables the creation of repositories with all necessary resources for developers.
- Automates workflows for building binaries, running tests, and deploying applications.
- Provides visualization of application status and relevant information for developers.
- Allows interaction with pull requests and workflows/pipeline runs.
- Integrates with Aro CD or flux for application deployment.
- Provides the option to attach a database to the application.
- Supports easy catalog definition and management.
- Offers the ability to fetch service catalog and other files automatically.
- Can be integrated with GitHub for streamlined repository management.
- Allows customization and easy deployment of manifests to repositories.
- Provides a user-friendly form-based interface for managing repositories.
Summary of Ro Operations for Manifest Generation
- Ro allows users to fill in fields and generate a manifest upon button press.
- A template is created with parameters and steps.
- Parameters define form fields, while steps outline actions for Ro to execute.
- Properties section complaints: not using open API schema and inability to discover existing schemas.
- Steps include creating log messages, fetching template files, transforming and renaming manifests, and creating pull requests.
- Manifest template is parameterized with curly braces for values.
- Ro automatically adds templates from backstage directory in git repos.
- Users can choose a GitHub template in Ro and input desired values.
- After reviewing, a manifest is created and a pull request is generated.
- Addition of the pull request plugin allows for visibility of pull requests in Ro.
Using the GitHub plugin in Roi to review and merge pull requests
- Search for the GitHub plugin in Roi.
- Select the plugin called "router" and click the "create and reload layout" button.
- Open the new tab "GitHub pull requests" to see the pull requests made in the associated repo.
- Click on a pull request ID to view the files included in the pull request.
- Merge the pull request without further review.
- Check if Argo CID detects the new manifest in the main branch and applies it to the cluster.
- Verify if a new repository with the source code and Kubernetes manifest is created in a separate branch.
- Open the repository and select the initial PR to follow the instructions in the description.
- Merge the PR to the main line of the newly created repo.
- Open the catalog in Roi and select the "crossplane GH demo component" to view details about the component.
- Access the "cicd" link in the top menu to view the workflow runs.
- Click on a workflow run for more information.
- Note that there may be some issues with viewing GitHub actions results in Roi.
Issues with the Kubernetes Plugin in Roi
- Workflow runs are executed but the links to actual runs do not work.
- The Kubernetes plugin in Roi has hardcoded resource definitions and cannot visualize custom resources.
- The plugin does not dynamically discover available resource definitions in the cluster.
- The visualization of Kubernetes resources in the plugin is considered the worst the user has ever seen.
- Many backstage plugins, including the Kubernetes plugin, are often half-baked and semi-useless.
- As a result, the user may need to rely on CLIs to see what's going on in the cluster and ignore Roi.
Feedback on Backstage and Roi (Google Cloud)
- Backstage and Roi effectively manage resources in Google Cloud.
- There is much more to explore with Backstage and Roi.
- Roi is easier to use and requires less maintenance compared to Backstage.
- The speaker strongly recommends using Roi over Backstage.
- Further information on Backstage and Roi can be requested in the video comments.
Exploring the Advantages and Drawbacks of Using Backstage and Roi for Resource Management
- Backstage is a highly extensible front-end tool used as a portal to internal systems.
- It is one of the most contributed and used projects in the CNCF landscape.
- Backstage's ability to represent almost anything in a user interface is impressive.
- However, its design may feel outdated.
- Installing Backstage can be challenging as it does not publish binaries or have official container images.
- Knowledge of TypeScript is required for deploying Backstage.
- Constant maintenance issues may be faced by users.
- Building custom images for plugins is necessary, and finding non-official Helm charts may require image rebuilding.
- Backstage allows users control over customization, but this can result in complexities and potential issues.
- Using Backstage as a service, like Roadie, can alleviate some problems and offer additional benefits.
- Roadie enables the creation of repositories with all necessary resources for developers.
- It automates workflows for building binaries, running tests, and deploying applications.
- Roadie provides visualization of application status and relevant information for developers.
- Interaction with pull requests and workflows/pipeline runs is possible.
- Roadie integrates with Aro CD or flux for application deployment.
- It supports easy catalog definition and management.
- Roadie offers the ability to fetch service catalog and other files automatically.
- It can be integrated with GitHub for streamlined repository management.
- Backstage and Roadie allow customization and easy deployment of manifests to repositories.