In this webinar, Akana’s guest speaker, Randy Heffner of Forrester Research, will describe the principles of layered API design and why it is critical for your API strategy. Alistair Farquharson, CTO at Akana, will describe the concept of federated APIs and how an API Management platform can be effectively used to deliver layered API design. Included will be: - Why businesses undergoing digital transformation need to design for multiple channels. - The principles of layered API design. - What federated APIs are. - How an API Management platform can be leveraged to deliver layered API Design.

1. © 2015 Akana., Inc All Rights Reserved.
Driving Digital
Innovation with a
Layered API Design
Approach

2. © 2015 Akana., Inc All Rights Reserved.
Our speakers
Randy Heffner
@BizTech21
Alistair Farquharson
@afarqu

3. Driving Digital Innovation with a
Layered API Design Approach
Randy Heffner, VP and Principal Analyst
June 17, 2015

4. © 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 4
Mobile needs APIs
News flash:
APIs enable much more
than mobile.

5. © 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 5
APIs are much more strategic than many think
APIs
Mobile
Web, kiosks,
call center,
etc.
Multi-
touchpoint
foundation
Open web
developers
Enterprise
agility
Value chain
optimization
Customer
process
optimization
Connect
products to
ecosystems
Turn hidden
assets into
products
Turn core
capabilities
into services
Enter
completely
new markets

6. © 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 6
Source: June 2015, “How APIs Reframe Business Strategy” Forrester report
APIs reframe business strategy
Business
Customers
Channels
Where design
for external
integration
begins
Efficiency
Partners
Competencies
Ecosystems
Relationships
Leverage
Connections
Traditional business Open business

7. © 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 7
Trading platform
Source: June 2015, “How APIs Reframe Business Strategy” Forrester report
Digital disruption and a European bank’s open business
APIs
Institutional customers
Web
Custom
UX
White
label UX
• Turn a core
business
capability into
a revenue
source.
• Decouple
innovation by
the bank and
its customers.
• The bank
wins from
customer
innovation.
The shift
• Is the bank’s
value-add the
trading
platform?
• Is the bank’s
value-add the
trading UX?
• Is it both?
• From where
will the next
unbundling
come?
The questions
“If we don’t disrupt our own business, then
someone else will — out of the blue.”
— CIO, European bank
• Craft loosely-
coupled
strategies for
each core
asset and
capability.
• API-enable
more and
more of them.
• Disrupt where
possible,
react when
needed.
The strategy
European
bank

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Source: June 2013 “Establish Your API Design Strategy” Forrester report
Forrester’s four categories of APIs
Open web APIs
Tech-savvy
consumers
B2B APIs
Internal APIs
Product APIs
Value-add
innovators
Digital
disruptors
Suppliers
Distribution
partners
Digital experiences
(mobile, web, etc.)
Enterprise applications
(custom, off-the-shelf, cloud, on-premise)
Products
(software,
physical products,
services)
Enterprise
customers
Web site
developers
Your enterprise Your products
Tech-savvy
consumers
Product
ecosystem
Wide-open to innovation Optimized business Build product ecosystems
Enterprise
customers
1 2
3
4
JavaScript API
JavaScript API /
SDK
Prebuilt integration

9. © 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 9
Source: June 2014 “Brief: Product APIs Create Distinct Customer Value And Opportunity” Forrester report
Product APIs
› APIs designed to . . .
• directly control a product,
• or facilitate its integration into an ecosystem of related products,
• whether it is a physical product, digital product, or service.
› Hotel example:
• Internal, open web, or B2B APIs: Reserve a hotel room
• Product APIs: Control the hotel room itself
› Every product or service either:
• Is already digital
• Can have a digital proxy

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APIs have varied key success factors
• Collaborate with devices to deliver engaging user experience.
• Allow many data and transaction paths through the experience.
APIs for . . . Key roles and success factors
Single touchpoints
• Provide familiar user experience across all touchpoints.
• Allow individual touchpoints to vary when appropriate.
Multitouchpoint
strategy
• Match between business drivers and potential open web value.
• Clear understanding of the types and styles of open web API applications.
Open web developers
Enterprise agility
• Common definitions of enterprise transactions and data.
• Coherent portfolios of services for each major business domain.
Product ecosystems
• Create value-add in a constantly shifting community of related products.
• Support strategic business partnerships and ecosystems.
B2B
• Provide cross-organization process integrity.
• Support cross-organization security federation.

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Reference: March 5, 2015, “How To Design APIs For Mobile” Forrester report
With API layering, a coherent portfolio serves many
Business APIs
======================
Consistent business results
Multitouchpoint experience APIs
======================
Familiarity across touchpoints
Touchpoint-specific APIs
======================
Technical adaptations
Mobile
apps
Business APIs
======================
Consistent business results
B2B APIs
==================
Partner business rules
Presentation layer Business service layer
Partners and suppliers
Web
apps
Kiosks
Public ecosystem APIs
==================
Open web business rules
Open web APIs
==================
Caching and security
Public developers

12. © 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 12
One enterprise may have many API user communities
Open web
API portal
(division 1)
Your
organization
Open web
developers
Customers
B2B
API portal
Open web
API portal
(division 2)
Internal
developers
API portal
Product
design
API portal
Business API portfolioUX API portfolio
Open web
developers
Suppliers
Resellers
Adjacent
products
Market-
placesOpen web
developers
Mobile
devs
Process
devs
BI devs

13. © 2015 Forrester Research, Inc. Reproduction Prohibited 13
Forrester recommendations
• “Out of the blue” digital disruption demands business agility.
• API-enabled capabilities allow rapid business reconfiguration.
• Don’t short change the importance of business APIs.
• Use service portfolio management for lightweight governance.
• Business scenarios determine quality-of-service and security demands.
• API users determine how easy the API must be to use.
Treat API strategy as business strategy
Use layered design to evolve coherent API portfolios
Design for business scenarios and API users

14. Thank you
Randy Heffner
@BizTech21
rheffner@forrester.com

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Core Capabilities
for Layered APIs

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API Platform Capabilities
When building or buying an API Platform, there are typically 3 high-level
requirements/capabilities:
API Portal
Developer engagement
experience
Gateway
Security, Management,
Orchestration/Mediation
Lifecycle
DevOps, SDLC
Integration, Automation

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API Portal
API Portal
Search
Documentation
Licensing
Partner Mgmt.
Provisioning
Federation
Analytics
Groups
Social

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Different Audiences
Most enterprises are striving towards a layered API
strategy
• Different requirements
– Number of APIs
– Security – enterprise LDAP vs. OpenID Connect
– Workflow – Internal vs. B2B vs. consumer
• Different audience = Different user experience
• Your API Portal therefore needs to be built with these different
audiences in mind this will affect:
– User experience – search/catalog/complexity
– Branding/Marketing

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Different Providers
Large organizations may also have different API Providers
internally:
• LoB, Group, Division or Geography will affect who is providing the API
• If each provider wants their own portal, a federated approach becomes
important
• Centralized end-user experiences
• Distributed control

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API Gateway
Quota Mgmt.
PCI Compliance
Policy Mgmt.
Monitoring
OAuth
Security
Authentication
Protection
IAM Integration
Encryption
Mediation
Quality of Service
Paging/Caching
Orchestration
Scripting

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API Gateway
API Gateways should provide :
• Non functional requirements such as security/monitoring etc. –– at each
point within a layered architecture
• Aggregation/orchestration of APIs between layers to create
channel/touchpoint-specific APIs

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Lifecycle
• Each API Layer and each user
community could have different
lifecycles:
– Different development teams and SDLCs
– Different DevOps processes and tools
• Organizations will have to determine
how to control dependencies during
development and at runtime while
remaining agile.

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Example - Retail Bank
• Business Objective : strengthen relationship with the Bank’s partners to
bring in innovation form outside
• Challenge : create a platform to automate onboarding of partners
• Four different divisions are exposing APIs via a multi-tenant,
federated deployment:
– Departments 1 & 2 : Java and .NET shop with Oracle, Oracle repository
and Oracle ESB
– Department 3 : Java and .NET shop with Tibco and Oracle ESBs.
– Department 4 : Smaller Java shop

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Example - Retail Bank
• Solution :
– To preserve the brand, a federation was created
– All departmental APIs are be controlled by the members of the federation
– A single UI will aggregate the content from all the departmental developer
portals into a single UI
– Control of ‘shared, enterprise’ APIs can be centrally controlled

25. © 2015 Akana., Inc All Rights Reserved.
Summary
• As organizations see the development of a layered API portfolio
across different channels and lines of business they need to
consider:
– User Experience - how the audience affects it
– Tooling – how to manage/secure/orchestrate the APIs in the portfolio
– The effect on SDLC and DevOps processes

26. © 2015 Akana., Inc All Rights Reserved.
Thank You
• Randy Heffner
@BizTech21
rheffner@forrester.com
• Alistair Farquharson
@afarqu
alistair.farquharson@akana.com