A look at the growth of APIs, the influence of microservices and serverless, and the new enterprise API platform stack including API profiles, multiple API styles, and data management

1. APIs, Microservices, and Serverless –
The Shape of Things to Come
Austin API Summit 2019
James Higginbotham
james@launchany.com
@launchany
Photo by Christian Fregnan on Unsplash

2. 2@launchany
Introduction
• Executive API Consultant
• API strategy and execution
• Based in Colorado Springs
• Across multiple verticals:
– Commercial Insurance
– Healthcare
– Hospitality
– Finance and Banking
– Travel
– Airline

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The API Landscape

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APIs Solve a Variety of Use Cases
Customer
Experience
Worker
Experience
Supplier/Partner
Experience
Integration Utility

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APIs Require Different Interaction Styles
Request/
Response
Request/
Acknowledge
Batch-Based
Publish/
Subscribe
Message
Streaming

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Today’s Popular API Styles

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API Eventing and Streaming Styles

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REST for Course-Grained APIs
“The REST interface is designed to be
efficient for large grain hypermedia data
transfer, optimizing for the common
case of the Web, but resulting in an
interface that is not optimal for other
forms of architectural interaction.”
- Roy Fielding
- https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/software_arch.htm#sec_1_5

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Moving the Mindset From “vs.” to “and”
+
+ +
+ +

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The Enterprise API Platform Journey
Photo by Neil Iris on Unsplash

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APIs Often Start Simple

12. https://launchany.com/canvas

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Serverless: Rapid API Deployment and Event Processing
Source: https://github.com/stefanprodan/gh-actions-demo

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As the Organization Grows, Complexity Increases

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How we think of our data strategy
Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org

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What our data strategy really looks like
http://www.settao.com/agile-database-development/

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Today’s Data Pipeline: From ETL to ELQT

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Proper Data Management is Critical to an API Platform

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The Evolving API Platform
Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

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Capabilities and Outcomes First, API Design Next
• Track a project from start to completion
• Subdivide a project into tasks
• Mark tasks as completed
• View incomplete tasks
• View active projects
• View archived projects
• Add collaborators to a project
• POST /projects
• POST /projects/{projectId}/tasks
• POST /projects/{projectId}/tasks /{taskId}/complete
• GET /tasks?status=incomplete
• GET /projects?status=active
• GET /projects?status=archived
• POST /projects/{projectId}/members

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Separate API Interfaces (API Profiles) from Implementation (API Styles)

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Application-Level Profile Semantics (ALPS) as the Interface
https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-amundsen-richardson-foster-alps-02

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The Evolving Enterprise Platform

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API Descriptions Captures API Style Specifics (OpenAPI)

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API Descriptions Captures API Style Specifics (GraphQL)

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API Descriptions Captures API Style Specifics (gRPC)

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Describing Events Using AsyncAPI (https://asyncapi.com)

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Describing Streaming Data Using AsyncAPI (Apache Avro)

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The Evolving Enterprise Platform

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APIS.json Captures the API Profile (http://apisjson.org/)

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DISCO for Late Binding of Instances (http://www.open-disco.org)

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The Evolving Enterprise Platform

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The Journey Toward an Enterprise API Platform
Offers API
Inventory API
Orders API
Identity API
Accounts API
Rewards API
Partners
Internal
Developers
Public App
Developers
Customers
Third-party
Approved Apps
Redeem Svc
Register Svc
Avail Offers Svc
Check Inv Svc
Ship Receive Svc
Create Order Svc
Order History Svc
Profile Svc
Permissions Svc
Friends n Fam Svc
Redemption Stream
New Acct Stream
Inv Low Stream
Order Proc Stream

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FaaS is the Integration Glue
• APIs deliver capabilities through commands and queries
• Events and streaming provide extensibility
• Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) is the integration glue
Rewards API
Redeem Svc
Register Svc
Redemption Stream
Redemption Event
onRedemptionEvent()
APIs Capabilities
(Services)
Streaming
& Eventing
Functions-as-a-Service
& Stream Processors
Redemption Processor

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The Shape of Things to Come
Photo by Garidy Sanders on Unsplash

36. When APIs Meet Jobs-To-Be-Done
{
…
"_links": {
“self": {"href": "/approval-requests/d796f2d0eb72492bb088"},
“approve": {"href": "/approval-requests/d796f2d0eb72492bb088/approve"},
“decline": {"href": "/approval-requests/d796f2d0eb72492bb088/decline"},
},
…
}
{
"event": {
"type": "approved",
…
}
}

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The History of Low Code/No Code
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5WEH8jh8Hk
Client-Server SOA/SOAP

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The Future is API Integration (again)

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Preparing for Tomorrow
Photo by x ) on Unsplash

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Preparing for Tomorrow’s API Platform - Today
1. Use the right API styles to fit the need (“and” principle)
2. Keep your platform tidy and machine readable:
– API descriptions (OpenAPI/Blueprint)
– Event descriptions (AsyncAPI)
– Capabilities (ALPS)
– API profiles (APIS.json)
– Runtime availability and guarantees (DISCO)
3. Consider data management and governance part of your API practice
4. Push an adopt-first culture that values “lines of code unwritten”
5. Evaluate tools to accelerate integrating APIs, events, and streams

41. 41@launchany
James Higginbotham
james@launchany.com
@launchany
https://launchany.com/canvas
https://apideveloperweekly.com