Three big mistakes with APIs and microservices

1© 2018 Rogue Wave Software, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1
Three big mistakes with APIs and
microservices
October 25, 2018

Ian Goldsmith
VP Product Mgmt - Akana
Rogue Wave Software
Presenters
Randy Heffner
VP & Principal Analyst
Forrester

© 2018 FORRESTER. REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED.
Three Big Mistakes With
APIs And Microservices
Guest speaker:
Randy Heffner, VP & Principal Analyst
October 25, 2018

4© 2018 FORRESTER. REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED.
Digital transformation is the new norm
Source: Forrester Business Technographics® Business and Technology Services Survey, 2017
Base: Services decision-makers at enterprises globally, n=2,809
When told. . .
• “A digital transformation fundamentally changes the way
customers, employees, and partners interact with and generate
value from your company...the digital transformation goes beyond
creating digital touchpoints and revitalizes the ways the business
creates and captures value for customers.”
. . .74% of decision makers that say:
• We are currently undergoing a digital transformation
• We completed our digital transformation in the past 12 months
74%

Transformation triggers business reconfiguration
Source: Forrester’s Business Technographics® Business and Technology Services Survey 2017
What will be/is/was the scope of your firm's most recent digital transformation?
Base: Services decision-makers involved in their company's digital transformation, n=2,809
35%
Business model change
36%
Modernizing our existing
business application
portfolio
32% Re-engineering our
business processes
32% Working with partners to
create new value

Reconfiguration centers on business capabilities
Sales Factory
design
Supply
chain
Customer
service Logistics
Competitive
intelligence
Concept
testing
Market
strategy
Product
design
Customer care Manufacturing
Product innovation
Marketing Finance HR IT
Corporate management
Your company
Operations
statement
Balance
sheet
Cash flow
Market
stature
Operations
statement
Balance
sheet
Cash flow
Market
stature
Top-level business outcomes
Operations
statement
Balance
sheet
Cash flow Market
stature
Capability-level
business outcomes
Your business, set and successful, represented
by a simplified business capability map

Sales Factory
design
Supply
chain
Customer
service Logistics
Competitive
intelligence
Concept
testing
Market
strategy
Product
design
Product innovation
Your company
Operations
statement
Balance
sheet
Cash flow
Market
stature
Operations
statement
Balance
sheet
Cash flow
Market
stature
Top-level business outcomes
Operations
statement
Balance
sheet
Cash flow Market
stature
Capability-level
business outcomes
Your business, after disruption hits

Sales Factory
design
Supply
chain
Customer
service Logistics
Competitive
intelligence
Concept
testing
Market
strategy
Product
design
Product innovation
Your company
Rebuild sales to
open new
channels
Your business responses will either enhance,
rebuild, or replace capabilities large and small.
Marketplace
Embedded
sales
Direct sales
Specialist
product
design firm
Outsource product
design to digital-
capable firm
Analytics
Use AI & ML to
enhance supply
chain effectiveness
APIs
Open up customer
service status and
account management

And then this guy tells me...
You mean...I’m trying to rebuild and refactor my entire enterprise,
and you’re saying that a million small APIs will magically do that?
Mistake #1: A microservice is just a small API

So what’s a microservice?
Source: “Microservices Have An Important Role In The Future Of Solution Architecture” Forrester report
Deployment package
User experience
Application controller
Business logic
Data access
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3
Application
controller A
Application
controller B
Customer Product Cart
Rating Order Account
Rating data
access
Order data
access
Acct data
access
Deployment packages
Customer Product Cart
Rating Order Account
Incremental
change
Deployment
options
Implementation
diversity
Runtime
robustness
Microservice: A relatively small, separately deployable, self-contained application unit

Order
management
microservice
Other
microservice
components
Microservice
component:
SubmitOrder
Other
applicationsMobile apps
Microservices in relation to APIs
Business API:
submitOrder
Other
microservices Business
partners
Initiate billing
component
Ship & notify
component
Order validation
component
Private API Private API Private API
Credit
microservice
Shipping
microservice
Notification
microservice
Inventory mgt
microservice
Other
APIs
Business APIs as entry points for
accessing a microservice
APIs as microservice entry points
Inside a microservice, private APIs
and messaging may connect between
components
APIs as internal connective tissue
Each large-grained microservice is a
cohesive, independent group of
business functionality
Large-grained microservices
A large-grained microservice may
comprise multiple, separately
deployable microservice components
Fine-grained microservice components
REST, MQ,
gRPC,
Redis, et al

And then another guy says to me...
You mean...I need a fully functioning, rebuilt enterprise, and you’re
telling me all I need is just headless functions?
Mistake #2: Microservices are just SOA done right

So what’s an API (nee SOA service)?
Source: “Keep API Strategy On Track With An API Taxonomy” Forrester report
Open access
Blended
solutions
Contract-based
collaboration
Boundary
containment
API: A network-callable access point for achieving a defined unit of work
Open web
APIs
B2B APIsInternal
APIs
Product
APIs
Business
APIs
Application
APIs
Infrastructure
APIs
Data APIs Transaction APIs
Integration
User
interface
Application
components
Utility functions
Platform
management

Ordering
Then what’s microservice architecture?
Reference: “Digital Business Design Is the New Integration” Forrester report
Microservice architecture:
Technical and business design principles
for assembling an agile digital business
from fully functional business
capabilities...
...by assembling microservices into
lightly-bound solutions Customer
Product Cart
OrderCatalog
...by assembling lightly-bound solutions
into fully-functional business capabilities
Customer care
OrderingSales Customer
service

Web application page
Major structures of a microservice-based solution
Source: “Designing Microservice Apps For Containers And Cloud Platforms” Forrester report
Page section Page section
Page
section
Page section
Page
section
Page section
Service
Service
ServiceServiceService
A solution comprising many different
types of microservices built on
different types of platforms
Microservice-based application
Vertical collection of visual and non-
visual microservices, often managed
as a product by a single team
Microservice app stack
Inbound event triggering a large-
grained microservice built using a
functional pipeline (e.g., to deliver
data for a visual page update)
Event-driven non-visual microservice Inbound
event
An independent deployable unit
(e.g., using an actor model to call
other components in parallel)
Microservice component

But then this woman chimes in with...
You mean...I have a fully functioning, agile enterprise built on millions
of little things, and you’re yacking I should let them all roam free?
Mistake #3: Microservices don’t need API management
Photos by mensatic and jeltovski at Morguefile.com

“API management”
What is API management?
Reference: “Defining an API Platform for Success” Forrester report
API management solution
API gateway
Anything and everything
that does something with
APIs
Digital business API user
relationship management
Micro-
gateway
Alternate
PEPs API request mediation
and access control
API user
portal
API admin
portal

Ordering
For starters...
Business monitoring
and security...
...depends on
solution monitoring
and security Customer
Product Cart
OrderCatalog

Order
management
microservice
Microservice
component:
SubmitOrder
...and management is more than publishing
Business API:
submitOrder
Initiate billing
component
Ship & notify
component
Order validation
component
Private API Private API Private API
Shipping
microservice
Inventory mgt
microservice
Business API publishing, security,
and monitoring is a central foundation
of business agility
Business APIs: Always full management
Publishing is a team-level choice,
depending on long-term commitment
to contract
Private APIs: Publish by team discretion
API management provides an anchor
point for other aspects of
management for microservices
An anchor for performance & root cause
Dependencies between, portfolios of,
and lifecycles of microservices fray at
the edges if not managed
Lifecycles always (mis)managed

I know how this ends

Business agility...
Begins with technical agility: containers and cloud platforms
Requires business-centered design: APIs and microservices
Falls apart without coherent, disciplined management

Questions?

Thank you for attending:
Three big mistakes with APIs and microservices
Ian Goldsmith, Rogue Wave
Ian.Goldsmith@roguewave.com
Guest speaker: Randy Heffner, Forrester
rheffner@forrester.com
@BizTech21

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