An application programming interface (API) provides programmatic access to service functionality and data within an application or a database. It can be used as a building block for the development of new interactions with humans, other applications or smart devices.
Gartner defines API management as the set of people, processes and technology that enables an organization to publish APIs safely and securely, either internally or externally.
It allows organizations that create APIs or use others' APIs to monitor activity and ensure the needs of the developers and applications using the API are being met. Organizations are implementing strategies to manage their APIs so they can respond to rapid changes in customer demands.
Degui Xu, part of the solutions engineering team at Kong, says APIs have always played a critical role in the digital transformation journey of organisations, helping unlock their business capabilities internally to drive innovation and externally to drive growth through revenue and better customer experience.
“On the one hand, more transactions have moved online and customers demand better and more integrated online experiences. On the other, businesses have tried to innovate faster to respond to the impacts caused by COVID-19,” he added.
Concentration of use cases of API
Xu acknowledged that APAC’s banking and financial services sectors have led the use of APIs.
“The reason is mainly that financial institutions have been forced to evolve right under this new era of transparency, and they need to innovate faster, especially to fight off competitions from new FinTech startups,” he continued.
He was careful to comment that this phenomenon is not unique. Elsewhere around the world, the same thing is happening.
Prevailing misconception
Xu says people associate API as a technology concept best left to the IT team. And because of this mentality, API development, especially the early history, have resulted in some misalignment between IT and business.
Early developments suggest teams of programmers working in isolation create APIs that perform low-level computing services like system-level APIs. “Or the APIs that have been traditionally exposed to other operations deliver little business value.
Xu believed that APIs should be viewed as strategic assets that must be aligned with business strategy to deliver true value to the organisation.
Challenges ahead
The changing technology landscape presents challenges and opportunities for technology professionals.
Xu said that to innovate faster, there is a massive shift in how companies are building their software.
“Companies are moving from their monolithic application into a microservices architecture where they break down their legacy application to smaller microservices to be more agile, to move faster, to deliver services better and faster to their end-users,” he elaborated.
This means that companies that used to manage 10s of legacy applications, now need to deal with maybe hundreds or even thousands of microservices.
Also, previously where APIs were only secure at one phase of their use, typically the external access layer, now you need to manage the end-to-end connectivity of microservices.
The shift to microservices architecture exposes the manual approach to deploying and configuring APIs has revealed another weakness in the overall design – the infrastructure simply cannot scale.
Xu said “anything that can be automated, needs to be automated. It means IT teams need to adopt new tools, new processes and change the way of working, from manual to automation.”
The last cautionary tale is on balancing between reliability and innovation. He cautioned that as companies increase the speed with which they innovate, they must be careful not to break anything in the process.
“Over investing in the reliability of APIs could slow down innovation. The recommendation is to start small, maybe start with a Greenfield project first, if possible,” he suggested.
Benefits of API to digital transformation
Xu is confident that APIs bring many benefits to digital transformation – both internally and externally.
Externally, he noted that APIs can help organisations to unlock business capabilities that likely has existed for years but just not exposed. “By exposing APIs to the systems, you already have, they enable organizations to innovate faster, you can quickly create new applications services faster,” he added. Done right, APIs have the potential to enable businesses to scale better.
“Externally, APIs helped to create an ecosystem where different companies can come together to exchange business-critical information to build new partnerships, and maybe create new business models, new revenue streams from a business context,” he continued.
Click on the PodChats player and listen further to Xu as he dives deeper into the opportunities and challenges that API presents to organisations as part of their digital transformation initiatives.
- How prevalent is API use in Asia today?
- In a typical enterprise – private or public – where is the concentration of API use?
- Has it grown significantly since the start of the pandemic?
- What is the biggest (one only) misconception that non-IT people have of APIs?
- For IT people, what is the biggest challenge when it comes to API?
- Within the context of digital transformation initiatives (projects), what are the top 3 benefits of using APIs?
- What are the top 3 mistakes organisations are making when employing APIs?
- Coming into 2022, what trends will influence the expanded use of APIs in enterprises?
