One of the more important functions of an API Gateway is to create APIs that return well-structured content from existing services and resources that may not be the prettiest things you’ve ever seen. A really common example is create a clean JSON document from data that is sourced from multiple backend SOAP services. This is where templating provides an… Continue reading →
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a blog on how FHIR® (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource)APIs will accelerate healthcare’s digital transformation. I touched briefly on the HL7® FHIR® specification and the Resources that form its foundation. The FHIR® spec is built on a set of Resources that can be used by themselves or combined to satisfy a majority… Continue reading →
I’m very pleased to say that we have completed the release of Envision, our new analytics platform. Envision will help customers derive key insights about their business from API interactions happening across their digital properties. Envision enables 3 classes of analytics: Operational – health, availability, throughput, latency, and billing metrics API – developer community engagement,… Continue reading →
The healthcare industry is going through a digital transformation. Healthcare records are increasingly becoming digitized to ensure that patients’ electronic health records are available, discoverable and understandable as people move around the healthcare eco-system. Healthcare is one industry where the Internet of Things is not just for fun, but rather a life-saving, life-sustaining measure. Along… Continue reading →
Akana recently surveyed over 200 architects, managers and DevOps experts about their API security practices, and it is clear from the below graphic that many are seeking advice and a solution to mitigate a wide array of API attack vectors as they attempt to do business in the public cloud securely. 1. Man/Bot-In-The-Middle / Session… Continue reading →
Retail as an industry has undergone a significant digital shift since the late 1990s, with retailers competing to attract new customers or maximize share-of-wallet of existing customers. To stay relevant, they need to quickly adapt to the changing market landscape and provide multi-channel engagement across web, mobile, social and traditional brick-an-mortar stores. Competitive differentiation in… Continue reading →
Confession, I was not a believer in Hypermedia APIs. When I would attend a conference and hear the dream behind the academic theory of API flexibility, unbreakable and adaptable clients, no need for documentation among other dreams, I would laugh silently, mock, and say to myself, yeah right these guys do not live in the real… Continue reading →
Amazon, Uber, Netflix, Tesla are all examples of businesses that have disrupted their markets, to dominate their traditional counterparts. These companies, and others like them, are using technology to change the way products are designed, manufactured, sold and serviced around the globe. Digital manufacturing, digital market places, connected value chains, dynamic and on-demand servicing and… Continue reading →
I’m trying to crystalize my own thinking around what microservices are, and how they differ from traditional SOA services. Microservices are clearly a form of SOA service, which we can also call Web services (…a method of communication between two electronic devices over a network…). Some people will say that microservices are just SOA services, and… Continue reading →
It’s always the most prosaic things that get you. For Napoleon it was the Russian winter. For the NASA Mars Orbiter it was the metric system. For cloud it’s access to data. IBM focused on this last point in a major way at the InterConnect 2015 conference. Robert LeBlanc, Senior VP of IBM Cloud had… Continue reading →
Why We Changed Our Name and What It Means For Our Business and Yours One of the best things about working here is the collaborative nature of our team. We throw around ideas, critique each other’s suggestions, and ultimately arrive at some pretty smart decisions through a combination of talking, illustrating, venting, analysis, logic, and… Continue reading →
I’ve been thinking a bit about microservices (μServices) recently. My immediate reaction is to think; “Isn’t this just yet another new term for the same stuff, Web Services->SOA->APIs->Microservices?” Followed shortly by the thought, “well yes it is, but there are some important differences/distinguishing factors”. Microservices is an evolutionary paradigm born out of the need for… Continue reading →
In 2014, we achieved impressive growth for SOA Software When we coined the term “API Economy“, we were talking about APIs being integrated and used to drive better digital business. It was a concept ahead of its time, but now APIs sit in the middle of all of the digital activity whether they are Apps,… Continue reading →
My previous two years’ blogs on predictions were mostly about rapid growth in the API Economy. Increases of adoption of API use, proliferation of API-enabled data connectivity, financial growth tied to API development; these and more like them became the headlining trends that have brought the API Economy to where it is now. Those predictions… Continue reading →
Poor time to API consumption inside and outside the enterprise can lead to profit loss. The good news is, it can be fixed. There are tools on the market today to streamline this process for you. In any consumption scenario, you first have to on-board or register the API Consumer with a developer portal that… Continue reading →
WSDL, WADL, RAML or Swagger, has it become a religious battle within your enterprise? Are various development organizations wasting countless hours writing biblical essays on how their language of choice is the only right answer? Does it have to come down to a single answer for the whole enterprise or is there another way? In… Continue reading →
We have always advised creating and managing efficient, effective integrations between applications in an effort to get the most value from your data. The currency of a digital business lies in the data it processes and delivers, so ensuring access to relevant data repositories is critical to success in the digital economy. For a long… Continue reading →
Mobile and the Internet of Things (IoT) have thrust many businesses into the era of the truly digital enterprise. This means opening up new channels and business opportunities. APIs are the key, enabling the digital enterprise to connect itself to myriad external apps and partners while cracking open an equally expansive range of fresh internal… Continue reading →
Traditional integration approaches, like that of Enterprise Service Buses (ESBs) and Integration Platform-as-a-Service (iPaaS), rely primarily on proprietary connectors. This architecture served its purpose in the late 1990s when there were few participating applications in an enterprise, and most of them had either no interfaces or at best interfaces based on proprietary protocols. However, this… Continue reading →
While most think the gist of IoT is about the Internet of Things, those of us following the recent events (heartbleeding shellshocked poodles) in the security space know that NIST is spot on with their recommendation to implement a “Zero Trust Architecture.” If you’ve configured an Arduino, by now you know that it doesn’t take… Continue reading →
