Expanding Reach
Integrated & Enabled
by API Economy
Cloud services are exposed via API
Most of your back end services of Mobile Apps are exposed via APIs
Many popular web apps are already consumers of API
Big Data provide insights that are shared and monetized via APIs
Social Media have already established new business models via API
Types of API
Private APIs are used internally to facilitate the integration of different applications and systems used by a company.
Advantages:• Increased flexibility• Improved integration• Reduced costs
Public APIs allow companies to publicly expose information and functionalities of one or various systems & applications to third parties that do not necessarily have a business relationship with them.
Advantages:• Delegated R&D• Increased reach,
traffic• New revenue stream
Private / Internal Partner Public / External
Partner APIs are used to facilitate communication and integration of software between a company and its business partners.
Advantages:• Value-added service• Increased sales• Must have for
business partners
New Business Opportunities
Business Models are evolving
APIs are path to new business opportunities
APIs provide a new fast growing channel of opportunity
Design is a critical consideration
A well-designed system can present a simple and intuitive interface to what often are complex inner workings. The external view of your enterprise must work the same way.
API Design• Design from the users
perspective. Understand the target market and how APIs will be consumed
• Simplicity is key. Limit coding. Manage the information, not the code
• Keep measurement in mind. Strong analytics is a must with any API
Secure
Protect Against Attacks• Buffer Overruns• Denial of Service• Malformed Data
Throttle Traffic
Enforce Quotas• Based on agreements• Based on priorities
Entitlement Based Usage
Entitlements are required to meter and administer proper service levels
• Limit based on number of call request
• Per period of time
• Specify requirements for App Key, and Secrets
API Management
At a high level, an API management solution needs to include a,
• Developer Portal for developers to discover APIs, understand usage and sign up for access
• API Gateway that secures and mediates the traffic between your APIs and its consumers
• API Lifecycle Management to manage the process of designing, developing, deploying, versioning and retiring APIs
Business Case
“The true benefit of an open API is that the
world’s best developers can create new
applications from your core service and data”
API’s must be marketed & developers are your
customer
• Expedia is a great example of the open API at work
• Runs an affiliate network of about 10,000 partners
• Allows all of their partners to localize and personalize their core data.– E.g. India-based affiliate could
provide them with much better information about the facilities in and around the hotels in that area
• 3,600 active API partners as of 2012
• $2 billion in sales
Few Blockbusters
• Salesforce.com generates 50% of its revenue through APIs
• Expedia.com generates 90%, and eBay 60%.
• Google maps popularity skyrocketed only because of its API based integration & access
• Twitter in its early days, its user interface was not good enough for regular users. As a result it didn’t pickup for a while.
• TweekDeck, a third-party developer, built a better user interface on top of the Twitter engine &
“Twitter usage exploded”
• Twitter acquired TweetDeck in 2011.
API DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
Section - 2
Available as a separate presentation.Refer - Web API’s using REST