By Fabrice Pilet, Exchange Architecture Manager
Today, the way the world evolves around the Internet allows the birth of new uses every day. Applications Programming Interfaces", more commonly known as "APIs" (programming interfaces that allow connections to be established between several software programs for the purpose of exchanging data), have a lot to do with this. Indeed, they allow the creation of new applications and new user paths in a very short time.
Before the massive arrival of APIs - as we have seen with Fintechs - applications were looking for information by screen-scraping the content of web pages to create their own APIs, while taking advantage of the information that companies make available without always thinking that they could API them.
Some companies tried to produce webservices (the ancestor of the API) that they made available internally or to their partners, but design habits meant that these services were no longer sufficient, and the need to be specific came back at a gallop. The eternal security constraints therefore had to be rediscussed, understood and integrated.
With the arrival of the API Manager, the realization or implementation of projects is facilitated thanks to the native integration of security constraints and continuous integration mechanisms, thus reinforcing the agility of developments.
DO I REALLY NEED AN API MANAGER?
APIs are not a novelty, it is API Management that is. Until now, we used webservices internally or with partners, security was often dedicated to an exchange, code modifications could be complex, deployment often a delicate moment.
Even if many have tried it because industrialization was already possible with middleware architectures, for a few years now, thanks to API Management, integration has become much smoother, since all the realization phases are industrialized.
Indeed, the design phases were already supposed to evolve with the middleware, but the exercise is difficult because the teams in charge of inter-application exchanges are too solicited and struggle to take enough distance to implement all the benefits of this technology.
With APIs, the paradigm is changing and the competition is forcing us to question our positioning on the Internet. It is easy to think that we can respond simply by making a set of APIs available, by making them public and by promoting them. In reality, it is much more complex than that. You have to either take inspiration from what works elsewhere or innovate significantly to make people adhere. It will also be necessary to anticipate requests to offer a service that is sufficiently complete so that there is no need to make specific requests.
Let's not forget that an API is only useful if it is used by more than 2 applications!
Developers must also continue to rely on exchange contracts that describe the mechanisms for calling the APIs as well as the data they can deliver to build the applications.
Integrating these design methods is both a big step forward and a guarantee of quality delivery: because it is based on a set of bricks with clear contracts.
The customer can thus return to the heart of all strategies and it is imperative, within the framework of a project, to work together to innovate during pilot phases, in order to listen to the various reactions and adjust the functionalities. But beware, the client must not forget to manage the dimension linked to the data he delivers. Indeed, even if he has a large quantity of quality data, he may not want to make it available to his end customers or partners or he may want to monetize it.
In addition, many companies no longer hesitate to deploy their pilot with a sample of customers and to evolve the project according to the feedback.
While it is imperative for all companies to change to keep up with all the innovations, the goal remains the same: to sell. Nowadays, it is necessary to do business on all channels (omni channel) because the number of connected devices keeps growing and users expect to be able to access their data everywhere with all their devices. You also have to think about white labeling or you will miss out on new opportunities.
THE API MANAGER AND HIS TEAM
For a project implementation with API Management, the organization must be adapted:
The API Owner: he/she carries the philosophy of the API and will have an impact on the teams as well as on the organizations. He will search for APIs on external portals in order to assemble them.
The API Developer: he is in charge of assembling the APIs, managing their security and measuring their performance.
The Application Developer: his role is to search for APIs, exploit them and find the solution to measure them.
The operations lead: he is in charge of the API environment and the resolution of anomalies.
While a company usually takes 6 to 9 months to deliver a project, thanks to the API owner and his team, the timeframe is reduced to a few weeks for a prototype and a few months for a version to be put into production. Moreover, the more it uses its APIs, the more it consumes them, and the faster it produces applications.
LET'S CHANGE OUR WAY OF THINKING, LET'S ACT ON THE DIGITAL ECONOMY
There are several points to consider when implementing API Management in your company:
Build your community: Because APIs are "live", API usage must be managed and animated. Create and share via a dedicated portal (public, partner, internal), create events to make your products known (Hackathons...) then test and combine APIs to innovate.
Meet legal obligations: APIs provide increased agility and visibility to meet new constraints such as GDPR and PSD2. If you don't implement them, you're not only not compliant with regulations, but you may be missing out on many opportunities.
Create value: by creating and testing projects with a targeted clientele. Involve them and don't forget that specific interfaces are to be banned. Think product and expose.
And finally, go toAfter integrating the fact that any project must use APIs or be exposed as an API itself. Don't forget to include purchasing and legal on these projects from the beginning. Before monetizing your services, consider tracking their usage first. Working in agile mode can also be an advantage in the start-up phase of your next digital project.
