Unify Cloud Cost Visibility with Harness CCM Backstage Plugin

What is Backstage?

Backstage is an open-source platform developed by Spotify that helps manage and centralize software development infrastructure. It's designed to serve as a developer portal, providing a unified interface for accessing tools, services, documentation, and resources within an organization.

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Why Backstage Matters

Backstage is gaining traction for centralizing the developer experience, offering a unified portal for tools and services. Its service catalog improves discoverability, while templates automate workflows and reduce developer effort. As an open-source platform, it supports customization and integrations, making it a key solution for improving productivity and standardizing practices in modern software development.

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Within this powerful ecosystem, we're excited to introduce Harness's Cloud Cost Management Plugin. This new addition to the Backstage platform brings comprehensive cloud cost visibility directly into your developer portal, addressing a critical need in modern software development.

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Introducing Cloud Cost Management Plugin for Backstage

As organizations increasingly rely on cloud infrastructure, managing and optimizing cloud costs has become a crucial aspect of software development. However, many teams struggle with limited visibility into their cloud expenses, difficulty in aligning costs with business contexts, and the time-consuming process of accessing and interpreting cost data.

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Cloud Cost Management’s plugin offers several powerful features to enhance your Backstage experience:

• Unified Cost Visibility: Access CCM Perspectives in a single, unified portal where developers can find everything they need, significantly reducing the time spent searching for resources.
• Custom Resource Grouping: Utilize Perspectives to group your resources in ways that are more meaningful to your business needs, allowing for better cost allocation and understanding.
• Detailed Cost Breakdown: Gain higher visibility into costs, including service and system-level cost information, providing developers and teams with granular insights into their cloud spending.
• Savings Tracker: View overall Harness savings, helping teams understand the impact of their cost optimization efforts.
• Team-Specific Cost Awareness: Drive cost awareness for individual teams by providing relevant, team-specific cost information directly within their Backstage environment.

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Each of these features was carefully designed to empower development teams with the information they need to make cost-effective decisions and manage cloud resources more efficiently.

Getting Started: Installation and Usage

Installing and configuring the Harness Cloud Cost Management Plugin for Backstage is straightforward. Follow these steps to get started:

1. Install the plugin in your Backstage instance: 

yarn add @harnessio/backstage-plugin-harness-ccm

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2. Import and use the plugin in your Backstage app: 

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import {

  isHarnessCcmAvailable,

  EntityCcmContent,

} from '@harnessio/backstage-plugin-harness-ccm';

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const ccmContent = (

  <EntitySwitch.Case if={isHarnessCcmAvailable}>

    <EntityHarnessCcmContent />

  </EntitySwitch.Case>

);

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3. Configure the Perspective. Add the following annotation to your component’s YAML file:

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apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1

kind: Component

metadata:

  annotations:

    harness.io/perspective-url: <harness_ccm_perspective_url>

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Replace <harness_ccm_perspective_url> with your actual Harness Perspective URL. The plugin will use the group by, aggregation, time range, and visualization settings defined in this Perspective.

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Advanced Capabilities with Harness IDP Integration

Harness’s Internal Developer Portal (IDP) offers a seamless integration with the CCM plugin, enhancing the development process with cost management insights.

• CI/CD Pipeline Integration: Automatically check cost implications after deployments and view forecasted costs based on deployment patterns.
• Feature Flag Integration: Understand how toggling feature flags affects cloud costs, helping you make informed release decisions.
• Infrastructure as Code Management (IACM) Integration: Track real-time cost implications after infrastructure changes to enhance cost management and inform decision-making.

By embedding cloud cost visibility directly into daily workflows, the CCM plugin ensures developers can make informed, cost-conscious decisions without needing to switch between tools.

Elevate Cost Management with Harness CCM for Backstage

Harness’s Cloud Cost Management (CCM) Plugin for Backstage brings real-time cost tracking and financial insights directly into the developer’s environment. This integration allows teams to make cost-efficient decisions, optimize cloud spend, and accelerate software delivery—all within a unified portal, driving productivity and financial control.

Explore the Plugin

To learn more about the Harness Cloud Cost Management plugin, check out the plugin repository on GitHub. Sign up for free to start using Harness CCM and IDP today.

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