16 Types of Technology Platform

John Spacey, updated on February 20, 2019

A technology platform is an environment for building and running applications, systems and processes. These can be viewed as toolsets for developing and operating customized and tailored services. The following are common types of technology platform.

Operating Systems

Operating systems provide the basic services required to use hardware. These are the lowest level of platform. Almost all software runs on an operating system such as linux with the only exceptions being low level firmware and embedded systems.

Computing Platforms

Platforms built on top of operating systems that provide computing functionality in areas such as cloud computing and virtualization. For example, a cloud computing platform that allows you to scale your services by adding and removing virtual machines as required.

Database Platforms

Cloud platforms for deploying and managing various types of database such as relational, NoSQL and in-memory databases.

Storage Platforms

Platforms for scalable storage of objects and files including APIs and value added services such as resilient storage that is backed up in multiple locations.

Application Platforms

Application platforms are environments and toolkits for developing and deploying applications, a class of software that is primarily designed to be used by people. For example, a platform that allows developers to build dynamic web applications by executing code and integrating with databases, systems and APIs.

Mobile Platforms

Mobile platforms include mobile operating systems and environments for building mobile apps. They also include cloud platforms for building mobile backends that provide services to mobile apps. This may include specialized APIs that are useful for mobile app developers in areas such as location services and voice recognition.

Web Platforms

Platforms that provide services that are useful to websites and web-based software as a service such as web servers, web application servers, content delivery networks and edge computing.

Content Management Systems

Platforms for publishing and managing content, media and documents. These are often used internally in organizations as an intranet site and document management system. They are also commonly used to publish web content such as a newspaper, blog or corporate website.

Media Platforms

Platforms for media publishing and analysis with tools such as video transcoding, streaming and recognition.

API Platforms

Cloud platforms for deploying APIs that are typically built around an API gateway that performs functions such as load balancing, latency reduction and rate limiting.

Analytics

Services for capturing, processing, analyzing and visualizing data. This may include tools for ingesting, processing, querying and managing big data.

Security

Security services such as firewalls, identity & access management, directory services, certificates, compliance reporting, encryption, key management and threat detection.

Robotics

Robotics platforms may include an operating system for robots with a framework for developing and deploying backend systems and services for robots on cloud infrastructure.

Internet of Things

Internet of things platforms may include an operating system for devices and a cloud platform with specialized APIs for internet of things in areas such as device management, IoT security and analytics.

AI Platforms

Services that are based on AI such as a voice synthesis service and tools for building your own AI such as a machine learning API. This may also include environments for running your AI that are optimized for machine learning such as a machine learning database.

Game Platforms

Environments that are optimized for running game services such as backends for mobile games or massively multiplayer online games. These may include services such as 3D game engines, AR and VR APIs.

Overview: Technology Platform
Type	Types Of Software
Definition	An environment for building and operating applications, systems and processes.
Related Concepts	Types Of Software » Applications » Systems » Operating Systems » Firmware » Embedded Systems »