About the Operated Platform Landscape

The Operated Platform Landscape defines the capabilities required to run production systems responsibly. It's an educational standard that happens to inform how platforms should be built.

This landscape is:

• A standard, not a product
• Opinionated but open
• Focused on self-hosted, open-source solutions
• Hosted on ProdVPS, but maintained as a neutral capability standard

This landscape is deliberately focused. It does not:

• Cover every possible tool or vendor
• Recommend specific tools (examples are illustrative, not endorsements)
• Replace your judgment about what fits your context
• Guarantee completeness, it's a living standard

28 of the 63 capabilities are marked as "Elite." These aren't optional nice-to-haves, they're what separate professionally-run platforms from basic implementations.

Elite capabilities involve proactive discipline: restore drills (not just backups), artifact signing (not just builds), post-incident reviews (not just monitoring). They're harder to implement but provide disproportionate value.

7 of the 63 capabilities leverage local LLMs to augment ops discipline. All AI-powered capabilities are marked as Elite tier.

These capabilities use local, self-hosted LLMs via Ollama—no cloud APIs, no data leaving your infrastructure, no recurring costs. Full control and privacy.

Philosophy: AI augments discipline, it doesn't replace it. These capabilities enhance teams that are already doing the fundamentals well. They require LLM infrastructure (Ollama + appropriate models) but provide disproportionate value for mature platforms.

This is what makes the landscape 10× more valuable than a static chart. When you click a capability, the landscape visually highlights:

• Required: Capabilities that must exist first
• Enhanced by: Capabilities that make this one more effective
• Enables: Capabilities this unlocks

This visually teaches: "You can't do X unless you already did Y."

The landscape is a standard. Implementations are products or platforms that embody it.

ProdVPS is being built against this standard. Rather than claiming readiness prematurely, coverage is shown transparently, what exists today, what’s in progress, and what’s still being built.

Other platforms can map their coverage to this standard. That makes platforms comparable and helps teams make informed decisions.

Throughout the landscape, you'll see tool examples like "Forgejo", "Restic", or "Prometheus". These are contextual examples to illustrate the capability, not recommendations. All examples are open-source tools.

The landscape is about capabilities, not tool choices. Use what fits your context.

This landscape is most valuable when used as a diagnostic and planning tool:

1. Start with the assessment: Use the self-assessment tool to see where your platform stands today
2. Identify gaps: Focus on capabilities you're missing, especially foundational ones
3. Follow dependencies: Use the dependency graph to understand what needs to come first
4. Prioritize Elite capabilities: These provide disproportionate value for mature platforms
5. Track progress over time: Re-assess quarterly to measure improvement

Don't try to implement everything at once. Pick 2-3 high-impact capabilities per quarter and do them well.