API Management

As part of a per-sales activity, I have been looking at API management solutions for a customer. For those not familiar with APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), they are probably as old as programming languages themselves. APIs are the means to perform operations and retrieve results e.g. get list of products, add new employee, modify order etc. In recent times, organizations have begun publishing their APIs on the web. These APIs are usually based on the REST - representational State Transfer mechanism. REST is HTTP based and uses URI's to represent services. The common reasons why organizations publish their APIs on the web are:

• Allowing other applications such as web portals to build Mash-ups
• Drive traffic to their e-commerce portals through link/API affiliate programs
• Integrating payment mechanisms with merchant sites
• For advertising through web and mobile media
• For integration with their customers, vendors or third parties for logistical and other requirements

There are challenges in managing REST APIs/web services as the number increases thus resulting in the emergence of products for API management. The key features of an API management product are:

• API registration and access
• Secure key management
• Usage throttling
• Intelligent caching
• API versioning
• API usage metrics & dashboard

Most of the API management products are available as a service on the "cloud" where customers are provisioned for using them. Some products provide a localized or "on premise" installation, where the product is installed within the organization's network. I installed and ran WSO2 API Manager, an open source product that manages both APIs and WSDL documents. It also monitors traffic to endpoints, meditations, message flows and provides SOAP tracing.

The top vendors in the API management space are:

• SOA Software  
• Layer 7  
• Mashery  
• APIGee
• 3Scale

As more and more customers look to using REST based APIs/services within and outside the organization, this space is going to mature and the competition would see the entry of bigwigs such as IBM and Oracle.