Many modern businesses rely heavily on APIs to create collaborative and cross-platform applications. While APIs have been used in some capacity for some time, they are now being produced and consumed at an unprecedented rate due to the exponential increase in cloud-based applications.
Due to the increased use of APIs, API management solutions have become vital to the success of any digital business. These solutions enable companies and developers to securely build, analyse, deploy, and scale APIs. Let’s look at a few of the benefits of API management solutions for enterprises.
Data Security
APIs expose enterprise assets to applications and provide access to a company’s data. Therefore, it is essential to establish standards and policies for protecting sensitive data and ensuring that it is not compromised or leaked. An API management platform can assist organizations in defining standardized procedures for protecting APIs.
Besides that, an API management platform can provide additional security by tracking API usage and regulating application access.
Workflow Automation
An API management platform simplifies the process of managing APIs by automating various API-related tasks. Automating and simplifying workflows frees up time for more productive tasks that contribute to the overall growth of an organization.
Agility
API management on a single, centralized platform enables companies to facilitate seamless access to API documentation and coding guidelines across their entire organization, thereby drastically improving development efficiency and speeding up time-to-market. Additionally, API management allows organizations to reuse API functionalities, thus reducing the amount of time and resources spent on development.
Data-Driven Decision Making
A key component of API management, API analytics entails collecting, analyzing, and monitoring API metrics in real-time. By analysing API usage and performance, developers and organizations can better understand how their APIs are being used. Moreover, since the data is presented in a way that is readily accessible, more employees may be able to utilize it to drive innovation and growth within the organization.
API Monetization
API management tools facilitate the monetization of APIs, allowing enterprise APIs to generate revenue. Monetizing APIs involves the creation of customized service packages, the productization of data, and the appropriate licensing of products.
API Versioning
As API trends evolve and requirements shift, APIs must also adapt. With an API management solution, you can update your APIs without disrupting your underlying system. Furthermore, API management tools provide governance features that make it easier to keep track of API versions.
Choosing An API Management Platform for Your Business
Several providers have started offering API management services in light of the increasing importance of APIs. Thus, it is imperative that you conduct thorough research on a solution before choosing it. While you should make a decision based on your business objectives, you should also keep in mind that the best API management platforms should have the following features:
- API Security: It authenticates API access and enforces security standards at runtime. Through authentication, authorization, and policy-driven firewalls, API management platforms provide enhanced data security.
- API Lifecycle Management: This allows an organization to manage the state of the API at each stage of its development. An API lifecycle generally begins with design and progresses to development, testing, release, deprecation, and termination.
- API Design: It provides a framework for developing, monitoring, and managing customized API flow designs.
- API Gateway: An API gateway serves as a point of entry into other systems and services that are connected to it. It manages all requests for routing, protocol translation, and communication between the client and the third-party service they are connected to.
- API Analytics: It enables users to monitor API usage, load, and other vital metrics, which can help them determine the success and health of their APIs.
- Developers Portal: This is an API store or community site that provides documentation, tutorials, and a way to register for APIs and manage subscriptions.
- API Monitoring: It helps identify API errors and inefficient API calls, which may result in applications crashing, dependent services and websites failing, and adversely affecting the user experience.
Leverage The Power of API Management
Organizations are implementing API management for the benefits it provides to their business in every aspect, be it in terms of money or productivity. Managing multiple APIs can be a complex process even for developers, and integrating APIs can be a challenge for non-technical staff.
Using API management tools, an organization can maintain its existing APIs and providers and easily onboard new ones by maintaining an accessible library of API functionalities.
