Today, APIs are the fundamental components of every software product. APIs are the key elements to maintain application stability and operation.
Since they act as connectors among services, with the high volume of connections and new functionalities to develop, API management complexity increases.
With correct governance, you can build an API ecosystem that can become the engine of a deep digital transformation and open new business opportunities. Otherwise, you might risk ending up with a fragmented and inhomogeneous collection of functionalities and with big security threats.
For this reason, now more than ever, it is fundamental to have clear and simplified governance of the entire life-cycle of your APIs: development, distribution, access control, monitoring, scalability, and dismissal.
“Effective API programs lay the foundations for digital transformation by enabling organizations to build a platform and develop an ecosystem.” Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Full Life Cycle API Management (2019).
For this reason, it is essential to strategically build your API Platform, capable of ensuring clear and simplified governance of the entire API lifecycle, and related products and services.
API Platform: the Market offer
There are different solutions on the market to control this kind of complexity, although they solely offer basic and simple tools to manage documentation, safety, and API compatibility.
This is not enough: solutions of this type ignore fundamental issues ranging from the orchestration of services that use APIs, to API security policies, to systems monitoring, to the management of different languages, up to the decoupling of data.
Furthermore, pre-packaged market tools are unable to adapt, evolve and update over time to keep up with new needs.
This is what is missing: the possibility to integrate the solution into the company structure, transforming it into a real strategic asset to manage and orchestrate the offer of products, services and APIs over time. So, you would miss the opportunity to create your own API Platform.
API Platform: the possible solutions
An alternative might be implementing your own API Platform internally.
This solution tends to be too expensive and ineffective, as it implies long times for the design and development of the solution, and huge complexity that can hardly be managed internally. Also, once implemented, the API Platform might lead to high maintenance costs, together with difficulties to manage maintenance and updating operations autonomously.
A third path, maybe more advantageous, is to buy a ready-to-use solution that allows you to quickly and easily build your own API Platform, customized to your business needs.
Mia-Platform approach
At Mia-Platform we prefer the third approach: we have developed an out-of-the-box solution that can be customized and rapidly integrated into the company structure.
Our API Platform solution has some essential functionalities that can be combined and personalized according to your needs to obtain visibility and governance over your digital pltaform.
In this way, you will be able to build your API Platform, consisting of:
- a Console for visibility of all projects from a single point, integration with internal and external touchpoints, and the definition of guidelines to standardize the work of your development teams;
- a marketplace of ready-to-use but customizable microservices based on specific business needs;
- Fast Data components, which allow you to create an event-based architecture to manage data flows and create Single Customer Views available 24/7 for all channels – both internal and external;
- an application infrastructure based on Kubernetes, to avoid the risk of lock-in with a specific technology vendor and release the potential for innovation in development teams.
Conclusions
Strategically building an API Platform solution is today essential to properly develop and manage an ecosystem of digital services and products at an enterprise level. Build your API Platform and widen your offer with Mia‑Platform.
