Seeds & Services: A Plant-Based Glossary
It's difficult to explain technical concepts to non-technical people. And especially difficult to explain Platform Engineering concepts to non-technical people let alone to other technical people. So I've been using garden-based metaphors to help explain things. People can relate to farming/gardening and, just like before, the machines will soon kick many of us off the ranch.
From Seeds to Services
The Garden Foundation (Infrastructure)
| Metaphor | Technical Meaning | Plant Meaning | Concrete Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garden/Farm | Organization/business ecosystem | Cultivated ecosystem with multiple plant species | A software company with multiple product lines and services |
| Soil | Platform/runtime environment | Growing medium providing physical support and nutrients | Kubernetes cluster where applications run |
| Plots/Beds | VPCs/Network segments | Designated growing areas with specific conditions | AWS Virtual Private Cloud separating production from development environments |
Plant Life (Applications)
| Metaphor | Technical Meaning | Plant Meaning | Concrete Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seeds | Container images | Embryonic plant structures containing genetic instructions | Docker images stored in a container registry like Docker Hub or ECR |
| Plants | Running containers/applications | Living organisms that grow, process resources, and respond to environment | A deployed microservice handling authentication |
| Fruits | Tangible outputs/business value | Developed structures containing seeds and resources | Generated reports, processed transactions, or customer insights |
Resources (Compute)
| Metaphor | Technical Meaning | Plant Meaning | Concrete Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunlight | Electricity/power | Primary energy source for photosynthesis and growth | Data center power allocation for your cloud infrastructure |
| Enzymes | CPU/Processing power | Biological catalysts that enable metabolic reactions | CPU allocation for a compute-intensive ML model training job |
| Sap | Memory resources | Fluid carrying nutrients and signals throughout the plant | RAM allocated to a database instance for caching frequently accessed data |
Flow Systems (Data & Communication)
| Metaphor | Technical Meaning | Plant Meaning | Concrete Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water | Data flow throughout the system | Essential transport medium for nutrients | API requests flowing between microservices |
| Carbon Dioxide | Input data for processing | Raw material absorbed from environment for processing | Raw customer data entering a data pipeline |
| Oxygen | Data outputs/responses | Processed output released back into environment | Processed analytics results delivered to a dashboard |
Plant Communication & Connectivity
Chemical Signaling (VOCs)
Plants communicate through volatile organic compounds (VOCs) - chemicals released into the air that other plants can detect and respond to. TBD
Mycorrhizal Networks
Underground fungal networks that connect plant roots and facilitate resource sharing - nature's original internet.
TBD
Electrical/Calcium Wave Signaling
Plants use electrical signals and calcium waves to communicate across their structures.
TBD
Sound/Vibration Communication
Plants can produce and respond to sounds and vibrations in their environment.
TBD
Root Networks
The underground infrastructure that supports and connects plants.
TBD
Plant Lifecycle & Growth
TBD
Monitoring & Maintenance
TBD
Platform Engineering Elements
TBD
Human Elements
TBD
Using This Glossary
This glossary is designed to help you think about technical systems in a more intuitive, organic way. Feel free to use these metaphors in your own discussions and documentation to make complex concepts more approachable.
The Science Behind the Metaphors
These metaphors aren't just poetic - they're based on real plant biology. Plants communicate through chemical signals, fungal networks, electrical impulses, and even sound waves, creating complex adaptive systems similar to our technical infrastructures.