How to use the Kiban Tech and Tools Radar
Introduction
Technology is advancing rapidly, with new technologies and innovations constantly emerging.
It is essential for a development and technology company like Kiban to continually improve and keep track of the latest valuable innovations. It is important to actively seek out innovations and new technologies and periodically question established technologies and methods.
But, it is also important to wisely choose which technologies to use in our daily work and in the different projects we are carrying out. As we all know: There is no silver bullet.
What is the Kiban Tech and Tools Radar?
This Tech Radar provides an overview of different technologies, including tooling, frameworks, tools, and packages, as well as platforms, that we consider 'new or noteworthy.' The radar does not cover all established technologies; instead, it focuses on items that have recently gained significance or undergone changes. Items previously featured in the radar are not listed on the homepage but remain available in the complete overview and search.
How it is created
The items in the technology radar are suggested by different teams, many of which are related to the work and challenges faced by the teams in various projects. In fact, we do not include anything on the radar that we haven't personally tested at least once.
Numerous valuable discussions have taken place in various expert groups regarding the classification and details of each technology and innovation. The culmination of these discussions is reflected in the latest technology radar.
How should it be used
The radar serves as an overview of technologies that we believe everyone in the teams should be aware of at present.
Its goal is to guide and inspire daily work within the teams. Additionally, it aims to provide valuable information and a high-level perspective to enable decisions to be made with a deeper understanding of the subject matter, resulting in more informed and coordinated choices.
We also hope that developers and engineers outside of Kiban will find the information in our technology overview inspiring.
We categorize the items into four quadrants, and sometimes, when it's not entirely clear where an item belongs, we choose the best fit.
The quadrants are:
- Platform and Infrastructure: In this category, we focus on technologies related to cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP), container orchestration (Kubernetes), databases, storage, networking, and SaaS platforms used by platform engineering teams.
- IaC and Automation: In this category, we focus on technologies related to Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Bicep, Pulumi), CI/CD pipelines, GitOps, configuration management, orchestration, and automation tooling used in DevSecOps workflows.
- Languages and Frameworks: In this quadrant, we group programming and scripting languages, frameworks, libraries, SDKs, and runtime dependencies relevant to platform engineering, automation scripts, and DevSecOps tooling.
- Security and Observability: In this quadrant, we cover technologies related to application and infrastructure security (SAST, DAST, secrets management, policy as code, identity and access), as well as monitoring, logging, tracing, and alerting.
Each of the items is classified in one of these rings:
- Adopt: We wholeheartedly recommend this technology. It has been extensively used in many teams for an extended period, proving its stability and utility. Technologies we have high confidence in to serve our purpose, also in large scale. Technologies with a usage culture in our Kiban production environment, low risk and recommended to be widely used.
- Trial: We have successfully implemented this technology and suggest taking a closer look at it in this category. The aim here is to scrutinize these items more closely with the intention of elevating them to the 'Adopt' level. Technologies that we have seen work with success in project work to solve a real problem; first serious usage experience that confirm benefits and can uncover limitations. TRIAL technologies are slightly more risky; some engineers in our organization walked this path and will share knowledge and experiences.
- Assess: We have experimented with this technology and find it promising. We recommend exploring these items when you encounter a specific need for the technology in your project. Technologies that are promising and have clear potential value-add for us; technologies worth to invest some research and prototyping efforts in to see if it has impact. ASSESS technologies have higher risks; they are often brand new and highly unproven in our organisation. You will find some engineers that have knowledge in the technology and promote it, you may even find teams that have started a prototyping effort.
- Hold: This category is somewhat unique. Unlike the others, it advises discontinuing or refraining from using certain technologies. This does not necessarily imply that they are inherently bad; it often may be acceptable to use them in existing projects. However, we move items here when we believe they should no longer be employed, as we have identified better options or alternatives. Technologies not recommended to be used for new projects. Technologies that we think are not (yet) worth to (further) invest in. HOLD technologies should not be used for new projects, but usually can be continued for existing projects.
Contributing to the Kiban Tech and Tools Radar
Contributions and source code of the Kiban Tech and Tools Radar are on: