APIs are a big deal and they are getting bigger. Center of success of large companies are the APIs that links computing devices to the underlying platforms that power each business and that ties companies together behind the scene.
Each enterprise has an inventory of API either private or public. Their importance and usage has soared as Web, mobile, cloud and machine-to-machine technologies have matured and are widely used.
Successful APIs need clear objectives that relate directly to business objectives and track closely to key performance indicators (KPIs) for the business at large.
1. Kellton Tech Solutions, Inc.
Presented By:
Ankit Malhotra
Sr. Integration Architect
API Strategy : Are we doing it right?
2. Our Values:
• Incorporated
• New management takes over led by Niranjan Chintam and Krishna Chintam
• $ 10 MN
• Acquired and merged Tekriti Software Private Limited, a software services
company focusing on web/open source
• Acquired SKAN DbyDx Software Private Limited, a mobility solutions company
• $ 40 MN
• Acquired Supremesoft Global Inc., and eVantage Solutions Inc., US based IT
consulting companies
• Acquired Vivos Professional Services LLC, a USA based focusing on life-
sciences & healthcare space
• 21st in Deloitte Technology fast 50 India 2014
• Selected among the ’20 Most Promising Travel & Hospitality Solution
Providers’ and ‘Top 20 Enterprise Mobility Companies in India by CIO Review
• $ 100 MN Run Rate.
• Acquired ProSoft Technology Group Inc., a US based ERP, EAI Solutions
company.
• KLGAME was nominated in the finals of HYSEA Annual Summit and Awards
2015.
• Acquired Bokanyi Group, leading US based cloud and analytics service
provider.
Our Mission:
Our Vision:
Offering infinite possibilities with technology
To be “the trusted partner” of our clients
Innovation
Ownership
Trust
Speed
Meritocracy
Accountability
Customer Centricity
Milestones:
FY 1993
FY 2009
FY 2013
FY 2015
FY 2017
About Kellton Tech
Infinite Possibilities with Technology
3. Thought Leaders in Technology Adoption:
As an early entrant in IoT and SMAC, we provide innovative
transformation solutions to the clients leveraging cloud ERP solutions,
digital business platforms, and digital systems integration
Focused on Design Thinking:
We understand the importance of digital customer experience and
operational excellence and explore infinite possibilities with the
technology to deliver desired business outcomes.
Disciplined and Experienced Team:
We hire the best talent, leverage the best practices from design,
development and implementation of systems of record, differentiation,
engagement and insight.
We Are: We Do:
Digital Transformation BU
Digital Connected Enterprise BU
Enterprise Solutions (SAP) BU
Systems of Engagement
New apps built leveraging design thinking that
provide next competitive advantage now and in the
future.
Systems of Differentiation
Business Processes and Orchestration layers that
provide competitive advantage.
Systems of Record
Standardized functions and processes across the
organisation that provide predictability, consistency
and optimization.
KLGAMETM
Who we are
4. Millions:
Software we have developed is being used by millions of people worldwide.
600:
We have partnered with more than 600 innovative clients (39 Fortune 1000) in
Healthcare, Retail, Insurance, Media, Software and Technology industries.
2 Million:
We perform more than 2 Million hours of engineering work for our clients
every year.
1100+ People:
Headquartered in Princeton, NJ we have global delivery centers across US, UK, and
India
Our Numbers
5. Partial Customers by Industry
OthersFinancials
Services
Energy
Utilities
ManufacturingRetail
6. Digital Transformation and Enterprise Architecture Strategy – Advisory Services
API / SOA / ESB Core Application Integration – API/SOA Strategy, Governance and COE
BPM Solutions with Business Workflows, Rules, Analytics and Dashboards
Distributed In-Memory Data Solutions for High Throughput and Low Latency
Applications
Real-time and Streaming Analytics Solutions in IoT and Big Data Applications
SaaS Integration, Cloud Enablement and Hybrid Infrastructure Services
Infrastructure Modernization, Continuous Integration / Dev-Ops Services and AMS
Core Services Portfolio
9. Industry Solutions and Domain Expertise
Banking and Finance
Treasury Services – Payment and Forex
Gateways
SWIFT Integration
Business Process modeling and Optimization in
o Loan Origination
o Account Opening
o Risk and Regulatory
Transportation and Logistics
Fleet Management and Real-time On-Board
Application services
B2B and Vendor Managed Inventory Solutions
Retail and Manufacturing
ERP Integration
Omni Channel Services Architecture
PoS and eCommerce Integration
Energy and Utilities
Energy Trading and Power Scheduling
RTO Integration and Market Participation
Smart Grid Integration and enablement
10. Today’s Agenda
Introduction of API
Business Drivers & Technology Enablers
The API Economy & Market Trends
API Strategy
Software AG : API Management
Demo
Q & A
14. Business Drivers & Technology Enabler
API
Extend customer
reach and value
Stimulate business
and technical
innovation
Generate new
revenues
Support sales and
marketing activity
Mobility Social IoT Cloud
15. API Economy
API
Economy
API
API
Business Assets Exposed as APIs
Services
consumed by
Developers
Innovative apps
Delivering
differentiated
B2C, B2B, B2E
experiences
Kristin R. Moyer
vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner
The API economy is an enabler for turning a business or
organization into a platform.
Building Blocks
• Digital Business models
• Business model platforms
• Business ecosystems
16. Cont..
Opened its core computing infrastructure as Amazon
Web Service (AWS), accessed via number of APIs
Provide wide range to APIs that makes it easy to
embed its Apps in various partner websites which
drive traffic to other Google services.
Coexist with virtually any CRM system, offering a
competitive advantage by opening core services for
partners to innovate and extend.
Most visible example of business almost entirely
based on API and an ecosystem of developer
applications.
18. API Strategy : Opportunities
Identify new market for your data or functionality
Team up with other suppliers for more value or reach new audience
Leverage existing skills to gain advantage
Lot of unexplored territory
Mobile
WebApp
Enterprise
Apps / Data
Big DataPartners
SaaS
Things
19. API Strategy : Business
Remember your objectives
Think like consumers & look for the gap in your strategy
Embrace the legacy
Invest to shape the digital competition
Focus on value
Find complementary partners
Lead change from the top
20. API Strategy : Design & Architecture Style
What precisely the API will link?
What system are bring exposed and where do they reside?
Who are the target developers and what apps will they build?
• SOA Related
• Tools available
• Not suitable for
mobile
WebServices
(aka Tunneling)
• Ideal for web and
mobile apps
• Familiar to most
app devs
• Adoptable over
time
Pragmatic REST
(aka URI)
• Highly web centric
• Scalable and
evaluable
• Not familiar
Hypermedia
(aka True REST)
• Appropriate for IoT
and devices
• Lightweight and
dynamic
• Not suitable for
standard scenarios
Event – Driven
(aka IoT)
21. API Strategy : Design Tips
Versioning
Status Codes
JSON
Authentication
Paginate
Rate Limiting
Caching
Documentation
22. API Strategy : Initiative
PRIVATE
• Rationalized infrastructure
• Reduced cost
• Improved internal and
operations.
PARTNER
• Value added services
• Up sell
• Must have for business
partner
PUBLIC
• Delegated R & D
• Increased reach traffic
• New revenue stream
API Models
23. API Strategy : Security and User Management
User
Management
API
Administrator
API Consumer
API Provider
API
Consumption
Approver
API User
Registration
Approver
Identification
• Who is making an API
request?
Authentication
• Are they really who they
say they are?
Authorization
• Are they allowed to do
what they are trying to do?
24. API Strategy : Operation and Management
•SLAs for error rates,
latencies and
performance based
metrics
•API Status at any
time
•Control connections
•Implementation
and Versions
•Memory and Caching
•Alert message with
Incident details
•API easy to use
•Good
documentation
•Samples
•People process
and Technology
•Help debug and
resolve issues
25. API Strategy : Metrics
• According to the Oxford Dictionary,
• metrics are “method[s] of measuring something, or the results obtained from this”.
Internal Metric
• User Type
• Traffic Source
• Type of data requested
• Access speeds
• Error reporting
• Function grouping
External Metric
• API and service adoption rates
• Redirection and publicly facing data
• Market trends and behavior
26. SoftwareAG : API Management
• webMethods API Portal
• webMethods API Gateway (New)
• CentraSite
• webMethods Mediator
• webMethods Enterprise Gateway
• webMethods Insight
27. Demo
Publish API from Designer to API Portal
Import API from Swagger definition
Publish API to Gateway and apply policy
Kellton Tech Solutions Inc.
Butterfield Rd, Suite 240, Downers Grove, IL, 60515
29. Thank You!
• Thanks for your interest in Kellton Tech.
• We look forward to answering all your questions!
Kellton Tech Solutions Inc.
Butterfield Rd, Suite 240, Downers Grove, IL, 60515
We are the trusted advisors of our clients. We build mission critical, revenue generating, customer facing, enterprise class, consumer grade applications.
Mission Critical: The systems that are nerve centres of an enterprise
Revenue Generating: The availability of these systems is critical for revenue booking or fulfilment of product/service delivery
Customer Facing: unified experience for the clients
Enterprise Class: High availability, scalability, performance and security
Consumer Grade: Ease and intuitiveness in usage
Our employees have been hired from best national and international institutions, i.e. IIT, IIM, NIT, NITIE, ICFAI
Senior Management team has global experience working in mutliple countries
API is short of
technically: an API describes how to connect a dataset or business
process with some sort of consumer application or another
business process.
We are surrounded by applications which are build using APIs for example
When you use facebook account to join another site, your login request is being routed via an API
Or when we use share functions of an application in our mobile device, those apps are using apis to connect to twitter, instagram etc.
APIs are the
connectors that are doing the heavy work of moving data and
performing specialized capabilities.
Tool of Enterpreneurs
The idea behind APIs has existed since the beginning of computing; however in the last 10 years, they have grown significantly not only in number, but also in sophistication. They are increasingly scalable, monetized, and ubiquitous, with more than 12,000 listed on ProgrammableWeb, which manages a global API directory.
1960 – 1980 Basic interoperability enables the first programmatic exchanges of information. Simple interconnect between network protocols. Sessions established to exchange information.
1980-1990 Creation of interfaces with function and logic. Information is shared in meaningful ways. Object brokers, procedure calls, and program calls allow remote interaction across a network.
1990-2000 New platforms enhance exchanges through middleware. Interfaces begin to be defined as reusable services. Tools manage the sophistication and reliability of messaging.
2000-Today Businesses build APIs to enable and accelerate new service development and offerings. API layers manage the OSS/BSS of integration.
http://www.programmableweb.com/news/api-consumers-want-reliability-documentation-and-community/2013/01/07
A surprising 82% of respondents are API providers, which shows a continuing trend of developers being on both sides of APIs. The most common reason an organization is an API provider is for partnership opportunities. However, over half of respondents also find value in use within the organization, as well as powering mobile apps. One in three sell access to their API.
Nearly 94% of the survey respondents are API consumers, using APIs to partner with external organizations and reduce development time, among other uses. Over 90% support REST and over 70% use some flavor of OAuth to authenticate users to APIs. The survey also asked about a number of factors that developers consider when consuming an API, with respondents rating them from not important to very important.
Any API will have its own unique value. Broadly speaking though, enterprises may use an API as a way to:
Generate new revenue directly An API can be a direct source of revenue if developers are charged for access or if the interface is used to facilitate the in-house creation of pay-to-play applications or to enable ecommerce
Extend customer reach and value APIs simplify the process of reaching new customers or increasing the value of current customers by offering existing services via new platforms and devices
Support sales and marketing activities An API can also help a company to market its products and services by enabling the creation of the kind of engaging, immersive functionality associated with online marketing best practices
Stimulate business and technical innovation APIs help organizations develop new systems, offerings and strategies because they reduce barriers to innovation by making it possible to implement ideas without changing backend systems
http://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/welcome-to-the-api-economy/
Uber, for instance, is an example of a business built on a platform because it leverages Google Maps through an API to enable its entire business model of matching drivers who have a vehicle with passengers who need a ride.
Walgreens offers an API for its in-store photo printing services that enables others to offer photo apps on its platform. It moves from being a photo printer to being a photo platform.
Concept
An industry vision seeks fundamental change that will affect many dimensions of the business and operations. Using APIs to turn a business into a platform involves three main building blocks:
Digital business models – enable ecosystems of people, businesses and things to create value from outside in.
Business model platforms – enable digital business by exposing existing enterprise assets like algorithms, information, resources and analytics.
Business ecosystems – leverage the business model platform to create new solutions.
A closer look at Figure 3-1 allows us to uncover the motivations of everyone involved
in bringing an API to life as a way to help a business execute its strategy.
API Value Chain
The value chain starts with bisness assets (like information, product and services), some thing that a business want to allow others to use. Assets can range from product catalog, to geospatial maps to twitter posts to airlines status .If there is nothing of value in the business assets, the API will not succeed. It is vital to understand how exposiing the business assets will benefit the owner of the business assets’
The next step is to create an API to expose the business assets. API provider job is to desing the API so that the intended audiences can make the best use of it. Most of the time the provider is the same as the ower of the business assets but not always.
Once the API is published, some population of developers will hopefully put the API
to use to create apps.
Once created, the application must then find its way into the hands of users. This means
that the app must somehow be discoverable and obtainable by the intended user population.
Some API providers offer app stores or other distribution and marketing assistance
for this purpose. But in order to have value to a business, the apps created by
the developers must be able to find their way into the hands of end users.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides on-demand computing resources and services in the cloud, with pay-as-you-go pricing.
Google APIs is a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) developed by Google which allow communication with Google Services and their integration to other services. Examples of these include Search, Gmail, Translate or Google Maps. Third-party apps can use these APIs to take advantage of or extend the functionality of the existing services.
Netflix’s well-known API program serves up diverse user experiences on over a thousand different hardware devices, providing metadata for content browsing and selection as well as streaming the resulting content. Such diversity means convenience and value for its customers and a large barrier to entry for new entrants in the space.
APIs are breaking out into more and more business arenas every day. The arguments
we present in this chapter should help demonstrate to those outside the world of technology
the importance of APIs.
Additionally, the pace of change is faster than ever. Markets are changing so fast that
you can’t spend enough time to calculate market size, conduct focus groups, plan,
develop, launch because by the time you do, the market niche may be gone or fundamentally
changed
APIs are transforming many industries. There are huge opportunities for APIs to make a serious impact or are already being applied in innovative ways.
Many of these opportunities are emerging under what is known as the Internet of Things, which is the next evolution of Internet connectivity being applied to everyday physical objects, but also have huge opportunity to impact our lives.
It’s important to develop clear digital strategies with an eye on transforming the business. Then build the skills of employees to realize those more agile and effective strategies.
Most organizations have great information about the products and services they offer. The savvy business will find ways to leverage their legacy systems and serve consumers in the hyper-connected world.
Your company is likely to have existing processes and systems that can be leveraged through APIs. One simple strategy is to extend existing services into new digital channels.
Growth strategies demand new approaches for attracting and retaining consumers with better offerings. Play out these new competitive dynamics on the consumer-facing side of the business, in sales, products or services, channels and experiences.
The equation is simple. The difference between what consumers pay for a product or service and the perceived value of the product or service is referred to as surplus. Companies with a lot of consumer surplus win. Some value trends are convenience, customization, quality and brand reputation.
Third-party solution providers can plug specific capabilities gaps and help manage the drive toward transformation. They have expertise and resources needed to implement new strategies. Most firms use a partner for at least one component of their digital strategy.
A successful digital agenda starts with a company’s leadership. Employees look to their leaders as technological advocates and an example of digital fluency. Executives should be able to articulate the value of digital technologies to the organization’s future.
Your chosen style will depend on your technical constraints, business goals and developer preferences.
Be careful not to fall into the trap of adopting a “fashionable” style if it is not appropriate for your specific context. At the same time, try to pick a style that will prove scalable and adaptable over the long term, as your resources change, your user audience grows and the very nature of online networking evolves.
Even when you just started developing your product and are not sure if you will ever have the chance to create the next version of your API, version your API. It comes at no cost and will make it so much easier to add that new version when your product succeeds. If you have a successful product, you will almost always have to adapt your API interface and thus need to release a v2 of your API!
HTTP provides you with a great mechanism to tell your API consumers if their request was successful or not: Use these status codes correctly and provide your consumers with useful information.
There used to be a time where passing POST data as url-encoded was cool. But it is not any more. Do not consider XML – we do not live in the 90s and SOAP isn’t cool either. When possible, use JSON to send data to your endpoints. This makes any request more readable and can be assembled much easier by the consumer.
APIs enable businesses to funnel data and services across their organisation and to their wider network of suppliers, partners and end customers.
Understanding and identifying the different benefits and limitations of Private, Partner and Public APIs is a conversation currently being held amongst industry stakeholders all around the world. It is a conversation being picked up by existing businesses outside of the internet and Cloudbased startup circles.
Private API are used internally to facilitate the integration of different application and systems used by a company
Partner API are used to facilitate communication and integration of software between company and its business partners
API allow public to publicly expose information and functionalities on one or various systems and application to third parties.
The best API design in the world falls flat if the experience of the people who use the
implementation is substandard. In a sense, operations is really about making sure that
users of the API have a positive experience and are happy with the API’s performance.
This positive experience will ultimately carry on to your end users, generating greater
value to your business.
So now that we know what a metric is, why is it so important to APIs? Metrics, and by extension API Metric Analysis, are invaluable tools for the modern business. Metrics can be used to develop new processes, create a fundamental understanding of the product and targeted consumer, drive a holistic understanding of your manufacturing process and methodology of delivery, and create opportunity to monetize and optimize your API.
Internal Metrics are those that are derived from data captured by internal web servers, user feedback forms, and trends observable through internal systems. These include:
User type: Is the consumer a repeat user or new user?
Days since last session: How long ago was the API last used by repeat users?
Traffic sources: Are functions within the API being called through your own web application or a third party application?
Function grouping: How often a user calls a certain function along with other functions.
Types of data requested: Is your server serving media requests, plain text requests, or other types of requests more often than others?
Access speeds: How quickly is your system responding to requests? Where is the bottleneck?
Service requests: How often are some services being requested? Are there any services that are never requested?
Error reporting: How often does a user report an error with the system, and what is the specific error?
These metrics are derived through the use of processes and applications that originate outside of the API developer. While internal metrics are concerned more with the functioning of the actual API and overall system, external metrics focus more on the community and potential user bases. These metrics may involve third-party systems:
CentraSiteCatalog all assets, from services to APIs and their related assets. Provides asset governance.webMethods API GatewaySecurely expose your APIs to third-party developers, partners and other consumers for use in web, mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) applications. With webMethods API Gateway you can easily create APIs, define Service Level Agreement (SLA) policies, and seamlessly publish your APIs to webMethods API-Portal.webMethods API-PortalPromote and document your REST and SOAP APIs. Manage access to your APIs. Collect analytics to better understand your visitors and how they are using your APIs. With webMethods API Cloud, Software AG's API portal is now available as a hosted service.webMethods Enterprise GatewayProvide DMZ security for back-end services and APIs. Authentication, flexible security rules and threat protection at the network edge.
webMethods InsightGain real-time visibility into service transactions. Easily find root-cause location of SLA violations, exceptions and other service processing problems.
webMethods MediatorEnforce policies, monitor SLAs, perform traffic management, collect analytics, and product alerts and events for downstream processing.