This document discusses how APIs can act as digital connectors for enterprises. It notes that business is often shortsighted in prioritizing quick wins over future-proof solutions. The document advocates for an agile, iterative approach focused on the consumer where APIs are designed at every layer from frontend to backend. It outlines how microservices architectures and RESTful APIs have become the standard for building flexible systems and encouraging innovation. The key is providing documentation, samples and support to help developers adopt the new API-led approaches.

1. APIs as your digital connector
Nuwan Bandara
Assoc. Director / Solutions Architect, WSO2

2. The age of the consumer
Source: Forrester Research

3. The age of the consumer
Source: operator
Source: ShopStyle

4. Following the consumer

5. Following the consumer

6. Business is shortsighted
 Business wants to deliver the best experience
to the customer with the lowest investment
and as fast as possible
 Teams often compete for budget and not
often most future proof idea get
implemented

7. Minimum Viable Product
Great ideas can be synchronous. One who
executes it first, wins the race

8. The agile enterprise
 Enterprises thrive to be more adaptive
 They understand that the market need
changes by the day
 Organizations have to enable organic
growth via new channels
 New challengers, but new opportunities

9. Reality of enterprise systems landscape
 Enterprise systems are complex
 Enterprise systems are bureaucratic
 Cannot afford the luxury of complete re-write or
having a clean slate
 Comes with years of baggage

10. Mainframes
… with monoliths
Distributed systems
… with monoliths
… then SOA
Cloud servers
… with monoliths
… then SOA
… then micro-services
Waterfall Scrum XP (Agile*)
The sliding window effect of EA

11. Micro-services finally deliver on the promises of SOA
Explicit boundaries
Shared contract and schema, not class
Policy-driven
Autonomous
Wire formats, not Programming
Language APIs
Document-oriented
Loosely coupled
Standards-compliant
Vendor independent
Metadata-driven
Modelled Around Business Domain
Culture Of Automation
Hide Implementation Details
Decentralize All The Things
Deploy Independently
Consumer First
Isolate Failure
Highly Observable

12. The ESB no longer sits in the middle

13. Services (API) gateway has earned its place

14. REST/JSON/Swagger is the new normal
 Messaging style/format is widely standardized to
REST/JSON
 API documentation for discovery is standardized
around swagger
 Wider language and framework support (MSF4J,
Spark, Springboot etc.)

15. Client
A
SDK SDK
API
Impl
Client
B
…
…
1
2
3
Frontend team
Backend team
Client
A
SDK SDK
Impl
Client
B
…
…
1
2
2
Frontend team
Backend team
API API API
Mock
Impl Impl
Mock Mock
Data Services
API always comes first

16. API comes at every layer
Frontend JS
UX API
Business
API
Application
API
Data API Infra API
Device
optimized
Business
rules
Business
content
Products &
services
CRM
ERP
HR
Master
Marketting
History
Relations
Devices
Virtual
Automation
OpsIntegrationWorkflow

17. The right solutions architecture
 Is iterative – continuous improvement
 Goal driven
 Caters to the business
 Thinks beyond MVP – extensible
 Futuristic technology selection
 Right vendor selection
 Flexible & resilient
 Can accommodate change
 Right assumptions
 Right tradeoffs

18. QoS drives the deployment
 High availability
 Redundancy
 Data replication
 Caching
 Internal vs external
 Geo distribution / location
sensitive
 Deployment automation
 Systems update
 Recovery latency

20. Hand holding starts
 Marketing the API platform
 Tutorials, samples, case studies and talks
 Sponsored hackathons
 Partnerships

21. TfL’s Data in Motion Hackathon
https://blog.tfl.gov.uk/2016/10/04/data-in-motion-hack-week-event-review/

23. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vala-afshar/the-2016-state-of-digital_b_12074114.html
 APIs walk the talk in digital
transformation journey
 APIs give the intelligence in
a consumer driven market
 APIs give the visibility to
your organization
regardless of the size
 APIs encourage sharing
and innovation

24. References
 Choosing an API and SOA Governance Architecture (Gartner research) - https://goo.gl/MTsE4g
 Building a Digital Business Technology Platform (Gartner research) - https://goo.gl/vzN34e
 API Management: The missing link for SOA success - https://goo.gl/HKDHs0
 Building Microservices: Using an API Gateway - https://goo.gl/jBVk6m
 Microservices in Practice - Key Architectural Concepts of an MSA - https://goo.gl/cbQMnl
 Docker, and Why Containers Matter - http://www.slideshare.net/relistan/docker-and-why-
containers-matter
 2016 State of Digital Transformation - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/vala-afshar/the-2016-
state-of-digital_b_12074114.html

25. Images & iconography
 http://agilitrix.com/2015/01/laloux-culture-model/
 The noun project - https://thenounproject.com
 http://wso2.com/whitepapers/microservices-in-practice-key-
architectural-concepts-of-an-msa/
 https://dzone.com/articles/an-api-first-development-approach-1

26. Questions / Discussion