The APAC Service Catalog Spectrum
APAC engineering organizations that have scaled to 50+ microservices typically face the same operational challenges: unclear service ownership (who do I page for this APAC service?), inconsistent production readiness (some APAC services have runbooks, most don't), and difficulty prioritizing engineering improvement (which APAC services are most likely to cause incidents?).
Service catalog platforms address this by creating a structured registry of APAC services with ownership, health signals, and maturity scoring — and increasingly, frameworks for building the internal tooling that operates those services.
Three platforms cover the APAC service catalog and IDP spectrum:
OpsLevel — service catalog with automated engineering scorecards and maturity-level frameworks for APAC fleet quality improvement.
Clutch — open-source framework for building custom APAC internal operational tools as a React-based extensible UI.
Cortex — engineering intelligence platform combining catalog, scorecards, and initiative tracking with executive dashboards.
APAC Service Catalog Fundamentals
What belongs in an APAC service catalog
APAC Service Catalog Entry — apac-payments-service
Ownership:
APAC Team: Payments Infrastructure SG
APAC On-call: PagerDuty schedule "APAC-Payments-Oncall"
APAC Tech lead: [email protected]
Slack channel: #apac-payments-eng
Technical metadata:
Repository: github.com/apac-corp/apac-payments-service
Language: Go 1.22
Tier: APAC-P1 (revenue-critical)
APAC dependencies: apac-auth-service, apac-fraud-service
APAC consumers: apac-checkout-service, apac-mobile-api
Operational state:
APAC runbook: confluence.apac-corp.com/payments-runbook
APAC SLO: 99.95% availability, p99 <200ms
APAC monitors: datadog.apac-corp.com/payments-dashboard
Last APAC incident: 2026-03-14 (payment gateway timeout)
Maturity score: 78/100 (Silver tier)
✓ Has APAC on-call rotation
✓ Has APAC runbook
✗ Missing APAC security scan in CI
✗ APAC SLO not yet defined in Prometheus rules
APAC service catalog vs IDP
Service Catalog (OpsLevel, Cortex, Backstage):
Focus: KNOWLEDGE about APAC services
Core artifact: APAC service registry + metadata
Primary user: APAC SRE, on-call, new engineer
Value: "Who owns this? How do I contact them? What does it do?"
Internal Developer Platform (Backstage + plugins, Clutch):
Focus: ACTIONS on APAC infrastructure
Core artifact: APAC tooling UI + workflow automation
Primary user: APAC developer doing day-to-day operations
Value: "How do I provision a new service? How do I rotate APAC secrets?"
Best practice: APAC teams use both
→ Catalog: OpsLevel or Cortex (scorecard focus)
OR Backstage (extensible catalog focus)
→ IDP layer: Backstage plugins or Clutch features
for APAC operational self-service
OpsLevel: APAC Engineering Maturity Scorecards
OpsLevel APAC scorecard definition (YAML)
# APAC: OpsLevel service standards scorecard
# Defines Bronze → Silver → Gold maturity requirements
name: APAC Production Readiness
description: "APAC Corp engineering standards for production services"
levels:
- name: Bronze
description: "APAC basic production hygiene"
checks:
- name: "APAC service has owner"
type: has_owner
- name: "APAC service has on-call"
type: has_service_config
config:
property: pagerduty_service_id
- name: Silver
description: "APAC standard production readiness"
checks:
- name: "APAC runbook exists"
type: has_documentation
config:
category: runbook
- name: "APAC CI passes in last 7 days"
type: repo_file
config:
file_path: ".github/workflows/*.yml"
- name: "APAC Snyk security scan passing"
type: tool
config:
name: snyk
category: security
- name: Gold
description: "APAC high-reliability service standards"
checks:
- name: "APAC SLO defined in monitoring"
type: has_service_config
config:
property: datadog_monitor_id
- name: "APAC no critical CVEs in last scan"
type: custom
config:
url: "https://api.snyk.io/apac/..."
- name: "APAC post-incident review for last incident"
type: has_documentation
config:
category: post_mortem
- name: Platinum
description: "APAC exemplary engineering practice"
checks:
- name: "APAC chaos experiment run last 90 days"
type: custom
- name: "APAC load test in CI pipeline"
type: repo_file
config:
file_path: "tests/load/**"
OpsLevel APAC maturity dashboard output
OpsLevel — APAC Corp Engineering Maturity Dashboard
Period: 2026-04-24 | Services: 127 APAC services
Maturity Distribution:
Platinum: 8 services (6%) ████
Gold: 31 services (24%) ████████████
Silver: 52 services (41%) ████████████████████
Bronze: 28 services (22%) ███████████
None: 8 services (6%) ████ ← APAC priority for immediate uplift
Top APAC scorecard failures (most common missing checks):
1. "APAC Snyk security scan" — 47 services missing
2. "APAC SLO defined in monitoring" — 38 services missing
3. "APAC runbook exists" — 31 services missing
4. "APAC on-call rotation" — 19 services missing
APAC initiative: "All P1 services to Gold by 2026-Q2"
Scope: 22 P1 services
Currently Gold+: 14/22 (64%)
Remaining: 8 P1 services — apac-checkout, apac-auth, 6 others
→ OpsLevel auto-assigned Jira tickets to 8 APAC service owners
Clutch: APAC Internal Operational Tool Framework
Clutch APAC feature — Kubernetes pod restart
// APAC: Clutch feature for Kubernetes pod restart
// packages/app/src/apac-pod-restart/index.tsx
import React from "react";
import { useApacWorkflow } from "@clutch-sh/workflow";
import { ApacButton } from "@clutch-sh/core";
interface ApacPodRestartProps {
apacCluster: string;
apacNamespace: string;
apacServiceName: string;
}
const ApacPodRestart: React.FC<ApacPodRestartProps> = ({
apacCluster,
apacNamespace,
apacServiceName,
}) => {
const { execute, apacLoading, apacResult } = useApacWorkflow(
// APAC: Clutch gRPC backend call
"clutch.k8s.v1.K8SAPI/RestartApacPods",
{
cluster: apacCluster,
namespace: apacNamespace,
name: apacServiceName,
}
);
return (
<div>
<p>APAC Service: {apacServiceName} ({apacCluster})</p>
<ApacButton
onClick={execute}
disabled={apacLoading}
variant="warning"
>
Restart APAC Pods
</ApacButton>
{apacResult && (
<p>APAC Pods restarted: {apacResult.restarted_count}</p>
)}
</div>
);
};
export default ApacPodRestart;
// APAC: action logged in Clutch audit trail
// APAC: SSO-authenticated user required
// APAC: shows in Clutch internal tool UI alongside other APAC features
Cortex: APAC Engineering Intelligence and Initiative Tracking
Cortex APAC cortex.yaml service descriptor
# APAC: cortex.yaml — checked into each APAC service repository
# Similar to Backstage catalog-info.yaml
x-cortex-tag: apac-orders-service
info:
title: APAC Orders Service
description: Handles APAC order creation, status, and fulfillment
x-cortex-tier: 1 # APAC P1 — revenue critical
x-cortex-owners:
- type: group
name: apac-orders-team
- type: slack
channel: "#apac-orders-eng"
x-cortex-oncall:
pagerduty:
id: APAC_PAGERDUTY_SERVICE_ID
x-cortex-slos:
- name: "APAC availability"
objective: 99.95
errorBudgetType: time
identifier: apac-orders-availability
x-cortex-links:
- name: APAC Runbook
type: runbook
url: https://confluence.apac-corp.com/orders-runbook
- name: APAC Dashboard
type: metrics
url: https://datadog.apac-corp.com/orders-dashboard
x-cortex-git:
github:
repository: apac-corp/apac-orders-service
Cortex APAC initiative tracking
Cortex Initiative: "APAC Security Hardening Q2 2026"
Start: 2026-04-01 | Target: 2026-06-30
Owner: APAC CISO + Platform Engineering
Initiative requirements (auto-scored):
✓ Snyk integration enabled
✓ No critical CVEs in last scan
✓ SBOM generated in CI pipeline
✗ Secret scanning (Gitleaks) in CI
✗ Container image signing (Cosign)
APAC Initiative Progress (2026-04-24):
Total APAC services in scope: 89
Fully compliant: 34 (38%)
Partially compliant: 41 (46%) ← 2-3 checks missing
Non-compliant: 14 (16%) ← 4+ checks missing
APAC Team progress:
Payments team: 7/9 services compliant (78%) ✓ on track
Identity team: 3/8 services compliant (38%) ⚠ behind
Data platform: 2/12 services compliant (17%) ✗ at risk
→ Cortex auto-creates Jira epics for Identity and Data Platform teams
→ APAC CTO receives weekly progress email with trend chart
APAC Service Catalog Tool Selection
APAC Team Need → Tool → Why
APAC scorecard-driven maturity → OpsLevel Automated checks;
(50-200 services, quality uplift) → maturity levels;
APAC Slack/Jira
APAC initiative tracking → Cortex Initiative tracking;
(100+ services, CTO visibility) → executive dashboards;
APAC cortex.yaml
APAC internal operational tooling → Clutch React extensible;
(build self-service APAC workflows) → audit logging;
APAC SSO built-in
APAC extensible catalog + plugins → Backstage Largest APAC ecosystem;
(platform, docs, tech radar) → community plugins;
APAC TechDocs
APAC lightweight service registry → Port Quick APAC setup;
(start simple, grow later) → no-code APAC catalog
Related APAC Platform Engineering Resources
For the internal developer portal tools (Port, Backstage, Camunda, Conductor) that serve as the broader IDP foundation these catalog platforms extend, see the APAC internal developer portal guide.
For the DORA metrics tools (LinearB, Sleuth, Swarmia) that complement service catalog maturity with APAC deployment frequency and change failure rate data, see the APAC DORA metrics guide.
For the SLO management tools (Pyrra, Sloth, OpenSLO) that define the APAC SLO requirements that service catalogs enforce as maturity scorecard criteria, see the APAC SLO management guide.
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