The document discusses best practices for API management, emphasizing the importance of APIs in extending brand presence and reaching a larger market with fewer resources. It outlines strategies for building effective APIs, including understanding customer needs, creating a supportive developer environment, and ensuring API security and lifecycle management. Ultimately, it advocates for developing robust API platforms to enhance business ecosystems and improve client engagement.

1. Best Practices
The Role of API
Management
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2. The API Economy
--Based on directory of 6,000 web
APIs listed at ProgrammableWeb,
May 2012
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3. APIs are an Effect, not a Cause
• Extend/embed your
brand
• Enable new
channels/devices to
reach:
– Partners
– App Developers
– Employees (BYOD)
• Create stickiness for
your products or services
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4. Extend your brand
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5. Accelerate New Channels
• In the beginning
companies reached their
customers using:
–
–
–
–
The phone
Snail mail
Advertising
Yellow Pages
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6. Accelerate New Channels
• Then they invested in web
sites
• Initially just marketing
themselves
• Then eCommerce
• Those that didn’t….aren’t
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7. Accelerate New Channels
• With the cellphone and mobile
internet came more pressures
• Companies extended their
web presence with mobile
(WAP) versions of their
existing site
• Limited success
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8. Accelerate New Channels
• The iPhone effect
• Mobile web browsers are not
adequate…
• ..so companies build their
own Apps to provide a rich
experience to their consumers
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9. Accelerate New Channels
• If building your own
App helps reach your
own consumers….
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10. Accelerate New Channels
• If building your own
App helps reach your
own consumers….
• A Developer
Community building
tens, hundreds, or
even thousands of
Apps…
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11. Accelerate New Channels
• If building your own
App helps reach your
own consumers….
• A Developer
Community building
tens, hundreds, or
even thousands of
Apps…
• Can reach consumers
in ways you can’t even
dream of
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12. Accelerate New Channels
• Building the enterprise
Website reached 20%
of your market…
• For 80% of your total
development
investment
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13. Accelerate New Channels
• Building APIs reaches
the remaining 80% of
your market.
• For only 20% of your
total development
investment
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14. Accelerate new channels
• APIs =
– more apps,
– more developers,
– more partners
• Through
Federation
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15. Create stickiness
• Customers are fickle
• Exposing your business in greater ecosystems
[via APIs] builds dependence on your product
or service
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16. Review
• Extend/embed your brand
– Use well defined APIs to control the rendering of your
syndicated/shared content
• Enable new channels/devices
– Significantly reduce technical hurdles to business integration of
partners or new sales channels
– Use federation to rapidly expand the eco-system of your
business
• Create stickiness to your products or services
– Make your products or services relevant in related activities to
build dependence on your offering
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17. Review
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18. Best Practices
• Build the right API - Your API must
be a product
• Build it the right way – Build from
the outside in
• Run it successfully – Protect, secure,
Manage, Measure
• Share it aggressively – Publish,
support, syndicate
• -> Build an API Platform
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19. The Enterprise API Platform
• Think about your
customers’ needs, the
apps that will meet those
needs, and the APIs that
will be needed to support
them
• There will likely be a
technology and capability
gap between the APIs and
your backend systems
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20. 1 - Rehashing mashups?
• There are hundreds of
technologies out there to
build APIs
• Two key factors:
– The number, type and
abilities of development
resources at your
disposal.
– The presence of, and
complexity of, the
backend services and
data sources
• Having backend services
(SOA) greatly increases
your time to market
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21. 2 - Sandbox
• The Sandbox should
provide a simple test
platform for developers.
• For sensitive
data/transactions it may
provide a dummy
application front-end
• Could also support App
verification
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22. 3 - developer.yourcompany.com
• The Developer Portal is
the focal point for your
API initiative
• Describes the value of
the API
• Hosts technical and
legal documentation
• Support the developers
• Lifecycle and workflow
of Apps and Apis
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23. 4 – API Security and Management
• Support all non-functional
requirements
–
–
–
–
–
API Security, incl. OAuth
Traffic Monitoring
QoS Management
Caching
App Management &
Provisioning
– Policy and Plan
Management
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24. 5 – Lifecycle Management
• Your API initiatives will
have to integrate with
your existing SDLC
• The dependencies on
backend services and
systems will drive the
need for an integrated
approach to lifecycle
and operations
management
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25. On-premise or in the Cloud
• The API Platform, or
components of it are
now available as a PaaS
offering
• This allows you to
accelerate time-tomarket and lower your
initial setup costs
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26. Product Overview
Copyright © 2001-2012 SOA Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All content subject to confidentiality agreement between SOA Software and Customer.
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27. SOA Governance & API Management
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28. Thanks…
•
•
•
•
•
Alistair Farquharson, CTO, SOA Software
alistair.farquharson@soa.com
https://twitter.com/afarqu
@atmosphere_api
@SOASoftwareInc
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