As organizations continue to embrace digital transformation, many are adopting multi-cloud strategies to leverage the unique strengths and capabilities of different cloud platforms. This approach allows organizations to avoid vendor lock-in, enhance flexibility, and optimize IT costs. However, managing APIs across multiple cloud platforms is no small feat. It introduces a new layer of complexity, as each cloud platform has its own set of APIs, each with unique characteristics and idiosyncrasies. This article aims to provide a high-level overview of API governance in a multi-cloud environment ..read more

The global headless commerce market is projected to grow from $751.6 million in 2022 to $5,528.5 million by 2032, stressing the increasing adoption of this API-driven architecture. To stay competitive, businesses must prioritize optimizing their API integration strategies to unlock the full potential of headless commerce. Headless commerce architecture decouples the frontend user interface from the backend platform, allowing businesses to independently develop and customize each component. At the heart of this approach lies seamless communication between these systems, achieved through APIs. O ..read more

No developer likes an API that takes too long to respond. Worse, poor service uptime makes it challenging to rely on APIs for stable integrations. Low quality can stunt the developer experience and lead to unhappy end consumers. As such, retaining high performance is key to creating successful API products. Yet, after years of steady improvements, overall cloud API performance seems to have reached a ceiling. This partly stems from variances across cloud hosting service providers and their regions. However, it could also be due to higher processing demands due to new working conditions and new ..read more

An API is only as good as it is useful. Developer experience (DX) is often what determines whether or not a user adopts an API. When a developer is looking for a solution to a problem, they don’t want to spend a great deal of time learning a whole new tool. They want to plug the API into their existing workflow to quickly see if it will solve their problem. Good DX makes that possible. A great developer experience can mean many different things, though. DX can encompass everything from API documentation to how easily an API can integrate with an API management platform and much more. With this ..read more

We’ve been building HTTP APIs for system integration for 25+ years. Roy Fielding proposed REST in 2000, and although our architectures are more varied, one common element remains: the network. These networks that connect people, software, and devices through the Internet are true marvels of technology. We have devised incredible ways to use them. We stream our content, purchase our groceries, hail our cabs, and prompt increasingly capable AI systems to answer our questions — which then make even more network requests themselves to meet our demands. When it comes to integrating or extending sof ..read more

API-as-a-Service, or APIaaS, is a rising technology solution in the tech space. But just what is it, and when is it appropriate? In this article, we’ll examine this offering and see where it might make sense — and where it doesn’t. APIs as Value-Adding Systems APIs are many things, but more than anything else, they are a powerful enablement tool. At their most basic, APIs are an intermediary to help connect and translate disparate systems. While this sounds simple on the surface, the reality of that connective process is massive. Put another way, APIs take that which is isolated and create an ..read more

We review key insights from Bruno Pedro’s new book, Building an API Product, published by Packt. Each year, more and more people outside of the tech world are using APIs. According to Postman’s 2023 State of the API report, 53% of respondents reported filling some other role in an organization. These include chief technology officers (CTOs), managers, and directors. The proliferation of less tech-savvy API consumers requires ‘developers to think of API products in a new light. Increasingly, APIs are becoming business products in their own right. 60% of API developers report that they must th ..read more

Our 2024 Austin API Summit was notable for many things, but one thing that stuck in my mind (along with many great stories about AI) was a comprehensive introduction to TypeSpec. TypeSpec is an API description language that describes itself as “API-first for developers” and aims to differentiate itself from similar description languages. The appearance of TypeSpec in an API landscape largely allied to OpenAPI may surprise many people. Using OpenAPI to create rich API descriptions has become the de facto choice for REST APIs in the API economy, so a new API description language may seem unneces ..read more

It’s common to fulfill all of a company’s API management needs with one product that supplies all the required functionality. I mean things like endpoint routing, rate limiting, developer portals for client registration and configuration, documentation, observability, and so on. When talking to clients and prospects at Curity, however, we noticed that companies have started replacing the popular large products with smaller ones that provide only part of the functionality. Some big names in the API industry, like Kin Lane and Erik Wilde, are already talking about “the unbundling” of API managem ..read more

APIs are one thing more than anything else — they are complex. In practice, even managing simple APIs at scale becomes challenging, requiring intelligent tooling to handle. To help manage this complexity, two categories of tools are often adopted: API gateways and service meshes. Below, we’ll explore the ins and outs of API gateways and service meshes and consider when these tools are necessary. We’ll examine some specific use cases in which each is useful and endeavor to answer one simple question: should you use an API gateway or a service mesh? The Beauty of Orchestration When we talk about ..read more