apidays LIVE Helsinki & North: API Ecosystems - Connecting Physical and Digital March 16 & 17, 2022 How good are your APIs? Really? Chris Phillips, Senior Technical Staff Member at IBM

1. API Days 2022
How good are your APIs?
Really?
Chris Phillips
IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
IBM Master Inventor

2. 2
API Days 2022
Who I am
• Chris Phillips
• IBM Senior Technical Staff Member
• IBM Master Inventor
• API Guru
• Author of the API Connect White Paper for v2018 and
v10
• IBM Cloud Integration Architect for the WW SWAT Team
• IBM 14.5 years
• Over 12.5 years in Integration
• Blog: http://chrisphillips-cminion.github.io
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjphillips
• Twitter: @cminion
2
Pipelines :: How and why to use them to deploy Products and
APIs into API Connect
https://chrisphillips-
cminion.github.io/apiconnect/2020/09/18/pipelines.html
Applying API Governance Part 1 :: How can consumers find the
right APIs?
https://chrisphillips-
cminion.github.io/apiconnect/2020/07/31/apigov1.html
Mix and Matching your API Flavours – API Design Patterns
https://chrisphillips-
cminion.github.io/api/2019/05/28/APIFlavours.html
WhatsApp Chatbot with Twilio via API Connect
https://chrisphillips-
cminion.github.io/apiconnect/2019/12/09/WhatsAppToTwillo.h
tml

3. What makes a good API?
• Accessible
• Meets the need of your consumers

4. 4
API Days 2022
How is API “good”ness
measured?
Agenda
1. Rate and change of adoption
2. Minimizing api development and deployment
time
3. Usage Tracking
4. “Doesn’t matter; we were told to do it
[by the business]"

5. 2022 SERIES OF EVENT
New York
JULY
(HYBRID)
Australia
SEPTEMBER
(HYBRID)
Singapore
APRIL
(VIRTUAL)
Helsinki & North
MARCH
(VIRTUAL)
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DECEMBER
(HYBRID)
London
OCTOBER
(HYBRID)
Hong Kong
AUGUST
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JUNE (VIRTUAL)
India
MAY
(VIRTUAL)
APRIL (VIRTUAL)
Dubai & Middle East
JUNE
(VIRTUAL)
Check out our API Conferences here
Wa nt t o t a lk a t one of our conference?
Apply t o spea k here

6. 5
API Days 2022
1. Rate and change of adoption
aka
- Keeping the barrier of entry low
- Not betraying your existing
consumers
Good Practices
- Good Development Practices and Principles
- Version Control
- Very few breaking changes
- Developer Portal
- Remove the back-office cost
- Take into consideration value of
- Making a breaking change vs the cost to the
consumer
- Monetization returns vs the cost to the
consumer
Think like your consumer
- How much does it cost to you to onboard a
consumer?
- How much does it cost to you to maintain a
consumer?
- How much does it cost a consumer to continue using
your APIs?

7. 6
API Days 2022
2. Minimizing api development and deployment time
aka
- Decreasing pressure on
development teams
- Allowing developers to focus on
the build
Good Practices
- Clear and Centralized Documentation
- Internal and external
- Clear error codes and reasons
- Consumer Testing tool
- Automated test and deployment
- Functional
- Linting
- Where do consumers go for support?
- Where can consumers test their APIs?
- How do you cope with developer churn?

8. 7
API Days 2022
3. Usage Tracking
aka
- Justify your existence
- Validate the strategy
For both Providers and Consumers
- Who many people are using your APIs or
applications
- If no one is using it, is it worth the
cost?
- Which consuming applications generate
the most traffic?
- What patterns of usage can you see?
Good Practices
- Analytics accessible to both consumers and
providers
- Analytics offloaded to centralized data
warehouse
- Analyse and Understand the data
- Don’t just and collect it!

9. 8
API Days 2022
4. “Doesn’t matter; we were told to do it
[by the business]"
aka
- No Requirements
- API Strategy is expected with no
success criteria
With No Requirements there is near zero chance of success

10. API Days 2022
How good are your APIs?
Really?
One question to finish with

11. 10
API Days 2022
Thank You
• Chris Phillips
• IBM STSM
• IBM Master Inventor
• Author of the API Connect White Paper for v10
and 2018
• Blog: http://chrisphillips-cminion.github.io
• LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisjphillips
• Twitter: @cminion
10
Pipelines :: How and why to use them to deploy Products and
APIs into API Connect
https://chrisphillips-
cminion.github.io/apiconnect/2020/09/18/pipelines.html
Applying API Governance Part 1 :: How can consumers find the
right APIs?
https://chrisphillips-
cminion.github.io/apiconnect/2020/07/31/apigov1.html
Applying API Governance Part 2 – How do I optimize my teams
and infrastructure to provide the best API factory with
decentralised teams?
https://chrisphillips-
cminion.github.io/apiconnect/2020/08/26/APIGov2.html
Mix and Matching your API Flavours – API Design Patterns
https://chrisphillips-
cminion.github.io/api/2019/05/28/APIFlavours.html
WhatsApp Chatbot with Twilio via API Connect
https://chrisphillips-
cminion.github.io/apiconnect/2019/12/09/WhatsAppToTwillo.ht
ml