{"id":8344,"date":"2024-04-15T11:45:47","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T11:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rax-stg-wp-aws.com\/blogs\/the-latest-rackspace-technology-innovation-in-platform-engineering-azure-custom-actions-for-backstage\/"},"modified":"2026-11-03T19:29:34","modified_gmt":"2026-11-03T19:29:34","slug":"the-latest-rackspace-technology-innovation-in-platform-engineering-azure-custom-actions-for-backstage","status":"publish","type":"blogs","link":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/blogs\/the-latest-rackspace-technology-innovation-in-platform-engineering-azure-custom-actions-for-backstage\/","title":{"rendered":"The Latest Rackspace Technology Innovation in Platform Engineering: Azure Custom Actions for Backstage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Introduction and high-level overview of Backstage<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/backstage.spotify.com\/\">Backstage<\/a>, an open-source platform by Spotify, has significantly reshaped the landscape of software development and operations. It functions as a developer portal, centralizing and streamlining the management of software development processes. By integrating various infrastructure tools and services, Backstage offers a unified and intuitive interface that enhances productivity and simplifies the developer experience.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The challenge of working in an Azure environment <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>While Backstage excels at automating and organizing workflows, there is very little out-of-the-box functionality that is specific to working within an Azure environment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Our solution: Azure Custom Actions<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Rackspace Technology\u00ae has developed several custom actions to demonstrate the ability to create and manipulate objects within an Azure-specific workspace. These utilize Azure SDKs to allow both authentication and object initiation.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/blog_technical_images\/26784-body-Rackspace-Blog-Image-Azure-Custom-actions-for-Backstage-BRA-TSK-10565-2-1-1.png\" alt=\"Azure custom backstage pic 1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>What these actions offer<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/rackerlabs\/azurebackstagecustomactions\">Azure Custom Actions<\/a> offer some basic templates and constructs to show how to use a basic backstage action and then output any resultant values that need to be consumed by other processes. Authentication is enabled via a provided ID and secret for the service principal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Intended use<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Rackspace custom actions collection is intended to be used as a technology demonstrator which can be easily expanded and customized as the scenario dictates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elevate platform engineering by streamlining Azure-specific workflows and developer operations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8346,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","nid":"26784","content_type":"blog","created_by":"10130","authored_on":"2024-04-09T11:45:47+00:00","field_article_industries":"","tag_category":"Technical","field_blog_author_text":"by Phil Oakley, Cloud Engineer, Rackspace Technology","seo_description":"Azure Custom Actions for Backstage by Rackspace Technology enhance the Azure platform engineering experience while enabling seamless authentication and object management through Backstage\u2019s developer portal.","field_featured_image":"","insights_image":"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/blog_technical_images\/26784-insights_image-microsoft-technical-blog-1-insights.jpg","field_partners":"Microsoft","rxt_platforms":"Applications","product":"","publisheddate":"2024-04-15T11:45:47","rxt_solutions":"Applications, Cloud Native Development, SaaS Optimization","opengraph_tag":"","x_tag":"","teaser_flag":"Technical Blog","seo_titile":"Platform Engineering: Azure Custom Actions for Backstage | Rackspace Technology","field_topics":"Public Cloud","field_slug":"platform-engineering-azure-custom-actions-for-backstage","footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[182,183,204],"class_list":["post-8344","blogs","type-blogs","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-microsoft","tag-public-cloud","tag-technical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blogs\/8344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blogs"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blogs"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8344"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blogs\/8344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17120,"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blogs\/8344\/revisions\/17120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rackspace.com\/en-gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}