What is API Management?

API management is a collection of processes that allows a company to manage and monitor the APIs that connect apps and data across the enterprise and across clouds. To assist a business in getting the most out of their API solutions. API management tools often include a developer portal, an API gateway, API lifecycle management, analytics tools, and support for API monetisation.

Whatever you’ve been working on, if it requires an API, you’re probably already aware of some of the functions that API administration can perform. API Management is the group of functions or features that aid with creating, securing, monitoring, and supporting of APIs and the services that power them.

API management services are available as SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions in the cloud, on-premises in a private cloud, or via a hybrid cloud strategy. It’s one of those technologies that quickly become necessary for creating, protecting, publishing, and maintaining APIs. If you’re reading this, you’re either unfamiliar with API Management or have a hazy understanding and wish to learn more. You’ve arrived at the right page!

Why Would You Want to Use an API Management Platform?

There are a number of compelling reasons to use an API Management system, including:

Security Concerns Are Easier to Establish and Maintain

As more APIs are developed, security gets more complicated. As more services are developed, the security measures utilised may differ based on the developer, team, or department.

This puts more pressure on developers to adhere to current organizational norms, but it also puts an additional burden on support and maintenance teams, who may need to be aware of all of the unique implementations.

Coding and Service Simplification

When you use an APIM solution, you may design your services to accomplish only what is required and manage them outside of the codebase. Security, rate limitation, and transformations do not need to be baked into the code.

This means that the services are easier to manage since they are simpler, and that the API administration is likewise easy to configure, and that it can be deployed to both new and old APIs quickly and universally.

By abstracting the security layer from the API service and relocating it to the APIM layer, these worries are alleviated, and providing effective and uniform security throughout the API portfolio becomes much easier, less expensive, and less likely to result in security breaches due to developer errors.

A Better Understanding of API Usage

Another area where metrics, reporting, and monitoring can grow more complicated as more APIs are established is metrics, reporting, and monitoring. If you don’t have a precise measure of this vital information, it can have an impact on things like:

1. Customer/user happiness is harmed as a result of latency, which has a negative impact on the user experience.
2. Current system difficulties are being recognized.
3. Due to a lack of knowledge about the actual amount of traffic/errors APIs are facing, support budgets may be insufficient.
4. Poor metric collecting and reporting has a slew of other consequences.

Related post: The API Economy: Growth through Interconnectivity

What Is the Value of API Management?

API management is primarily concerned with centralized control of your APIs, which includes analytics, access control, revenue, and developer workflows. API management combines reliable, flexible, high-quality, and quick solutions.

At the very least, an API management solution should include access control, rate limitations, and usage regulations to meet these aims and ensure that both public and internal APIs are consumable and safe. The following features are commonly seen in API management solutions:

Data Analysis

It’s critical to understand what’s going on with your APIs, including which consumers or apps are calling particular API and how frequently. It’s also crucial to understand how many APIs have failed and why they failed.

API Monetisation Is Supported

Use contracts to monetize access to the microservices powering the APIs. API management enables you to create use contracts based on metrics like API calls. Users can be categorised and assigned to different access tiers, and different standards of quality can be provided to various sections.

Management of the API Lifespan

APIs should be managed from start to finish, from design to deployment through decommissioning.

A Portal for Developers

For API management, a developer portal is a popular best practice. API documentation, as well as developer onboarding activities such as signup and account management, are often available through developer portals.

A Gateway for APIs

For all customers, the API gateway serves as a single point of access. Through the application of policies, the gateway also controls how clients interact with APIs.

These features are taken into account during API development so that traffic control, security, and access policy enforcement can be provided by self-managed or cloud components. On an infrastructure platform designed for performance, customer control, and future expansion, well-crafted APIs can be shared, secured, distributed, regulated, and monetised.

Related post: The Future of Insurance APIs

How Do I Assess the Effectiveness of My API Management Efforts?

Consider these 5 key API performance objectives when defining success in your organisation:

Quality

The consistent compliance of the API’s behaviour to developer expectations is referred to as quality. It’s a means of gauging how happy developers are with the API.

Dependability

Dependency means developer access to the API. Downtime is an important statistic for determining reliability. Another measure is quota, which specifies how many API calls a developer can make in a given amount of time. A quota protects an API against misuse while also making management easier.

Speed

Access latency and throughput can be used to assess speed. Techniques like throttling and caching can be used to control speed.

Cost

The purpose of cost estimation is to provide developers the most bang for their buck. The other four objectives all contribute to the cost of the APIM in some way.

Flexibility

When it comes to API adoption, flexibility refers to the alternatives available to developers. Greater API flexibility necessitates more effort (and money) on the part of the entity in charge of the API.

APIs and API management is becoming a more essential component of many modern businesses. A unified API management solution should be used by any business that uses APIs or relies on them to offer services.

APIs really aren’t new, but with the growth of applications and services required in the digital world, as well as new customer-centric IT organisations, firms across all business sectors demand better API management solutions today more than ever before.

Related post: APIs on FHIR: Are We Close to Reaching Global Healthcare Interoperability?

API Strategy & Product Selection

We can help forge your API strategy with consultative product selection, through unmatched proficiency of integration technology. Using our API Platform Capability Matrix below, you can ensure that your organisation’s short, middle and long-term goals are aligned with the right solution.

Are You Looking for an API Management Solution You Can Trust?

Prolifics UK specialises in connecting applications like Salesforce and SAP to your legacy systems. API services connect in days for secure innovation and faster delivery. Providing API Assessments from architecture to operations, we will assess the key areas of your organisation’s API and integration capabilities and produce an actionable report.

We can also provide you with everything from frameworks to code management as well as security testing & deployment resources – all delivered on-demand at a fraction of what it would cost internally. To get started, contact us today.

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