APIOps, a dynamic fusion of API-first design principles and streamlined operational strategies, is reshaping the landscape of software development. This approach prioritizes the creation of application programming interfaces (APIs) as a foundational step, enabling modularization, reusability, and alignment with business goals. Through seamless orchestration of the API lifecycle, APIOps embraces continuous integration, deployment, and management practices. This methodology empowers cross-functional teams to collaborate effectively, expediting project timelines and enhancing product quality. By decoupling frontend and backend development via APIs, developers can work concurrently, fostering agility and innovation without compromising stability. An APIOps approach has the potential to revolutionize software engineering, increase developer productivity, and thus efficiently deliver user-centric applications. In this presentation, Sven explores: How API-first and APIOps make your APIs great APIOps' principles, benefits and capacity to drive transformative development practices Kong’s APIOps support and how to get started

1. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich 1
Embracing APIOps for Enhanced
Developer Productivity
Munich, 2023-09-28
Sven Bernhardt
ELEVATING DEVELOPMENT
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity

2. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
THAT‘S ME
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 2
Sven Bernhardt
Cloud-Native enthusiast, API & integration geek. Always curious how new
technologies and concepts can help to make things more valuable and efficient.
@sbernhardt
https://svenbernhardt.wordpress.com/
Chief Architect / Integration Evangelist
OPITZ CONSULTING Deutschland
GmbH

3. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
APIS ARE ESSENTIAL TO ENSURE EVOLVABILITY AND FLEXIBILITY
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 3

4. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich Seite 4
This is what it looks like sometimes/often/always in application
landscapes...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXaw70X7wb4&t=2s
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity

5. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
APIS ARE CRITICAL BUSINESS ASSETS
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 5
¢ APIs should deliver business value
¢ Focus on potential consumers
¢ How will a consumer use my API?
¢ What kind of resources and operations are
needed by the consumers?
¢ …
¢ APIs should be consumer-centric and thus
be consumable
¢ Well-designed, secured and compliant
¢ Documented, discoverable and accessible
¢ Performant, reliable and scalable
Source: https://konghq.com/blog/what-is-apiops/
Compliant
Functional Findable
The intersection of the three
characteristics defines
consumable APIs!

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APIS SHOULD BE CONSISTENTLY MANAGED
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 6
Design
Review & build
Deploy
Promote,
deprecate, retire
Operate &
observe
Learn & evolve
Starting point: Design the API spec and
push to Git
Validate the API Spec, generate SDKs
and build the API services
Generate declarative API config and
deploy it to the Gateway
Publish API spec and documentation to a
Developers Portal, manage API versions
Operate and observe an API
depending on usage behavior
(e.g. scale automatically, etc.)
API ideation &
planning
Learn & evolve API based on
real-world usage
Back to design due to
consumer feedback
during development

7. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 7
CHALLENGE: BALANCE BETWEEN SPEED AND CONSISTENCE
https://opitzcloud.canto.global/b/I3FO4

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DECENTRALISED API MANAGEMENT: FOCUS ON SPEED
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 8
API Platform
Dev
Team 1
Dev
Team 2
Dev
Team n
API Standard 1
API Standard 2
API Standard n
Decreasing
consistency

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CENTRALISED API MANAGEMENT: FOCUS ON CONSISTENCE
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 9
API Platform
Dev
Team 1
Dev
Team 2
Dev
Team n
API
Platform
Team
Review loop
Review loop
Review loop
API
Guidelines
API
Guidelines
API
Guidelines
Decreased
speed

10. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 10
AUTOMATION TO BALANCE SPEED AND CONSISTENCE
https://opitzcloud.canto.global/b/OQR0O

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APIOPS APPROACH: FOCUS ON SPEED AND CONSISTENCE
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 11
API Platform
Dev
Team 1
Dev
Team 2
Dev
Team n
API
Platform
Team
API
Guidelines
API
Guidelines
API
Guidelines
Automated deployment
Governance layer
Defines
Guidelines, Rules
& Restrictions
Automated, direct
feedback
Automated, direct
feedback
Automated, direct
feedback

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APIOPS IS BUILT UPON THE PILLARS DEVOPS AND GITOPS
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 12
¢ Principles:
¢ Fast flow of work in the value stream
¢ Fast feedback to remediate problems quickly
¢ Culture of continuous learning, sharing, and
experimentation
¢ Principles:
¢ Declarative description
¢ Versioned and immutable
¢ Pulled automatically
¢ Continuously reconciled

13. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
APIOPS = GITOPS WITH FOCUS ON APIS
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 13
¢ Principles:
¢ API-first design
¢ API spec as a single source of truth
Commit API
spec to Git
API design
guidelines
Validate
Build
Test
Merge
User story
GitOps
Agent
API Platform
watch
observe &
sync
push
check &
generate

14. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
Design
Review & build
Deploy
Promote,
deprecate, retire
Operate & observe
Learn & evolve
CONSISTENTLY MANAGE THE API LIFECYCLE USING GIT
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 14
Outcome: Validated spec & SDKs
Outcome: Validated implementation
Outcome: API endpoints,
declarative config
Outcome: Managed API
endpoints
Outcome: Shared spec in Git

15. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
APIOPS FLOW – COMMIT STAGE
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 15
Lint Diff
Structural
linting
Breaking
change check
Provide
Mock (*)
Provide mocks
for review
Commit stage
User story
(*) In case API implementation
is not ready yet
inso-cli oasdiff
Kong Mock
Plugin
Validate
Compliance
check
Commit API
spec to Git
API design
guidelines

16. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
APIOPS FLOW – BUILD STAGE
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 16
Commit API
spec to Git
Confor
mance
test
Generate client
and server
stubs
Execute API
conformance
tests
Build stage
API design
guidelines
User story
openapi-
generator
inso-cli
Build
API
services
Build the API
backend
services
Commit
stage
Genera
te SDKs
Generate API
Gateway config
(K8s or decK)
inso-cli
Generate
API config

17. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
APIOPS FLOW – BIG PICTURE
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 17
Commit API
spec to Git
API design
guidelines User story
Commit
stage
Build
stage
Deploy
stage
kubectl
Publish
stage
Manage
stage
Kong
Developer
Portal
Improve
stage
Depending on the
requirements, you may
have a manual approval
step before deploying

18. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
BUSINESS BENEFITS OF APIOPS
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 18
¢ Increased speed as everything is automated in the
delivery pipeline, which allows for rapidly
onboarding, operating and scaling
¢ Improved consistency through automated / self-
service governance throughout the delivery pipeline
¢ Lower cost because automation relieves the QA
teams
¢ Adopting APIOps increases
¢ Flexibility
¢ Agility and
¢ Ability to innovate

19. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
IT BENEFITS OF APIOPS
Developers
¢ Increased Developers
productivity
¢ Fewer push backs and less
frustation
¢ Centralized discovery and
documentation
Operators
¢ Automated configurations
with Git as Single-Source-of-
Truth
¢ Automated QA
¢ Consistent, automated
rollback mechanism
Architects
¢ Faster time-2-market
¢ Improved consistency
¢ Increased security and
resiliency
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 19
¢ Increased confidence while releasing changes
¢ Solid foundation to extend delivery pipeline to further use cases

20. © OPITZ CONSULTING 2023 / Öffentlich
IMPORTANT: PROVIDE AN INTUITIVE
SELF-SERVICE API PLATFORM
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 20
¢ Establish API Platform team responsible for:
¢ Providing API platform
¢ Providing automation scripts
¢ Helping with onboarding
¢ Constantly improves the platform
¢ Responsibility of the teams:
¢ Ownership of the APIs
¢ Ownership of the Gateways (depending on
the size)
Source: https://konghq.com/blog/enterprise/federated-api-management

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Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 21
Q & A

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IN CASE OF ANY QUESTIONS…
Elevating Development: Embracing APIOps for Enhanced Developer Productivity 22
Sven Bernhardt
Chief Architect / Integration Evangelist | Kong
Champion | Oracle ACE Pro
OPITZ CONSULTING Deutschland GmbH
Kirchstrasse 6, 51647 Gummersbach, Germany
Phone: +49 172 2193529
Mail: sven.bernhardt@opitz-consulting.com
X: @sbernhardt
Blog: https://svenbernhardt.wordpress.com