PLATFORMS AND MANAGED SERVICES

LEARNING GOALS Frameworks give you code to build with, and standards give you agreements to follow. Platforms and managed services give you finished services that run for you. In this chapter, you will learn about hosted agent platforms, evaluation and observability platforms, gateways that route and meter model calls, and how to decide between buying a service and building the same thing yourself. THE RESTAURANT VERSUS HOME COOKING PICTURE Imagine you need to feed a hundred guests. You could cook everything at home, which means buying groceries, preparing recipes, washing dishes, and managing the oven. You would control every detail, but you would spend enormous time and effort. Or you could hire a caterer, who brings the food, the equipment, and the staff. You would spend money instead of time, and you would depend on the caterer's menu and schedule. A managed service is a caterer for software. A managed service is a product where another company runs, maintains, and updates some piece of infrastructure for you, and you pay for the use of it. A platform is a larger, broader offering that bundles several such pieces together. The central question of this chapter is the one every household and company faces: when should we buy, and when should we build?