How to Build a Successful API Strategy for Enterprise: 5 Steps to Consider 

Today many businesses integrate third-party software into their programs, applications, and websites. Many businesses provide their computing capabilities and data to users without exposing source code through various contributors. Such kind of communication between one piece of specific software and services is possible due to API – the application programming interface. It enables easy execution of complicated interactions while neither software knows anything about the other. The enterprise providing an API is responsible for quality, security, and interaction with the final user. 

The external software can provide a solution to assist in resolving business challenges or carrying out business processes. Thus one business can use software and data provided by another. Here at KITRUM, we had a client from the sphere of logistics whose request was to innovate and rework his current CRM. By integrating Hubspot via API, we managed to save them 20 hours of work per month.

Propriety software is complicated in development and costly, so it may be out of reach for many organizations. In comparison to full applications, APIs are smaller and easier to maintain. The API providers are more flexible in making changes according to new users’ needs or business requests. There are multiple API getaways, such as AWS Cloud provider, which ensure the development of secure APIs. 

Examples of API integrations

APIs usually provide a satisfactory user experience, providing customers with necessary data without additional cost for the business or the need to develop the software independently. 

For example, the banking apps may include information about ATM locations, working hours, and breaks, which is possible due to API usage of the third party’s data. 

The investment apps usually request to link the profile to a bank account, and API makes this process easy. Many banks also included chatbots to serve users and resolve the most common issues. Empowered by AI, they have access to the bank’s database and customer information. All of this is done by implementing the API. 

Travel booking sites collect information on numerous flights and show the cheapest options, optimize routes, and offer places to stay with the help of APIs. They display the information on traveling opportunities from providers, and you can book the most suitable through these services, as well as they will confirm your trip with the provider they sourced it from through API. 

APIs allow companies to collaborate, and if you are a small business, API will provide you with the same tools which big players use.

Types of APIs

APIs are a crucial part of current digital ecosystems. They allow businesses to access, process, and provide data, thus increasing revenue directly through sales or driving efficiency. APIs are microservers that resolve the issue of data silos through reusable integration workflows for the data.

The creation and maintenance of API for revenue generation are called API economy. The variety of types and protocols for API allows businesses to develop and use those that will fulfill specific business needs without rebuilding the software. 

There are various types of API that a company can imbed to provide the users with requested functionality:

– Open APIs are free and can be used by any person, developer, or business;
– Partner APIs used by external companies or organizations that have been officially authorized;
– Internal APIs are private and allow communication between the internal system of the business;
– Composite APIs gather various API calls to create one response for better performance of everyday tasks. 

Developers usually utilize four widely used types of API: 

– Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) APIs that exchange data in XML, commonly used for communication; 

– XML-RPC is less complicated than SOAP APIs and operates with proprietary XML;

– JSON-RPC, which shares data with the help of JSON 

– Representational State Transfer (REST) accesses data with HTTP requests provided by its architecture and includes PUT, GET, POST and DELETE.

How to build an API management strategy

To build an API, you should first start with a successful strategy. It will specify the purpose of your API, the primary users, and how your company can benefit from it. 

It’s better to develop an API strategy, including public and private APIs. The public APIs allow you to connect with your users through mobile, web, and social apps, as they are embedded in consumer applications. With private APIs, you can provide new tools to your company and partners that will enable them to fulfill the operations faster and provide better customer service. 

There are five main steps to follow to build a successful API strategy. 

First, set a business goal you want to achieve with your API. For example, you want to make additional income from the company’s private data and services or optimize data sharing processes presently done manually with the help of automatization. It will help you define technical requirements on how to develop APIs and what design attributes are most suitable for sharing a specific type of data with your users. 

Take into account what resources are required by your API, as it functions within the restrictions of the IT and business infrastructure. Keep in mind the type of data you share, where it is located, whether it is single-sourced or consolidated, and whether it is local, remote, or on the cloud. Consider also API access networking needs, policy, security, and regulatory standards that a corporation must follow.

Begin with internal API initiatives to reduce investment and risk and get quick results to obtain significant API knowledge from design to management procedures and platforms. Experiment with and improve API development components like design, security, testing, and documentation. To obtain experience with API monitoring, work with API metrics and analytics. If the APIs pass the initial muster, release an evaluation (or “beta”) version to a larger audience and utilize their input to tweak the API architecture and feature set before releasing the API to actual users for real-world production work.

Consider starting with building an internal API to learn and gain experience from managing it at various platforms. Test and improve API components like interface, security, or documentation. Working with API metrics and analytics will provide you with experience in API monitoring. After you have achieved set results with your internal API, develop another version for a wider audience. Gather feedback to tweak the API architecture and feature set before releasing the API to actual users with final functionality.

While releasing the API, you should ensure that it is followed by monitoring and analytics. It will provide the necessary information on how the API functions and whether it fulfills its tasks, what security issues may arise, access the performance trends and keep track of API adoption. Thus you can set the adoption plans, define what new features can be added, and build infrastructure according to the needs that may appear in the future. Through analytics, you can refine new plans and goals. 

Through early achievements and gained experience, a company may broaden its API strategy with larger releases, upgraded API versions with extra capabilities, and a vision of additional new APIs designed to achieve the organization’s overall goals.

API management tools

Various API management platforms can help you track the process of the API lifecycle. They can automate several API development processes, such as testing and deployment.

Management platforms can accommodate you with the following functionality: 

– it can monitor transactions between apps, services, and other APIs, as well as identify newly accessible APIs;

– with the help of version control, it ensures that the correct API versions have been released. It indicates when updates are available and assists in obtaining such updates;

– it helps users to deploy an API and migrate services to the new API; 

– it can spot security issues that threaten data exposure, thus evaluating the API security overall; 

– it frequently connects with other software development tools, such as Git or Gradle, to integrate management capabilities into the API lifecycle.

To support your API strategy, you should consider incorporating such components of management tools as an API developer portal, an API testing environment, an API gateway or an API proxy, an API documentation engine, and others. 

API developer portal allows a business to see, choose and use existing APIs. It provides information on APIs tutorials and guides, installation requirements, and integration with the development tools. As well as, developers can often see the change log, which shows iterations in API versions and what changes were conducted. 

API management platforms include a lifecycle manager, which assists enterprises in ensuring that APIs reveal and handle the necessary data from the correct apps.

Another helpful tool is API policy manager, which includes a set of policies that determine availability and behavior, for example, how it manages data flow or handles variabilities.  The default policies can be modified due to the company’s necessities. 

API analytics gathers and performs analyses of API usage information. The reports are further shared with developers and stakeholders. It may include the number of API calls and users who made them, speed, reliability, CPU memory consumption, errors, and long-term trends.

API testing environment will help to validate your API for reliability, performance, and security. It is a crucial step for a successful API Strategy. It supports several test types, such as functional testing, performance testing, or acceptance testing. 

The API gateway serves as the hub for API messages. It receives API calls, routes them to the proper API, gets responses, and sends them back to the software. Instead of tracking and managing APIs separately inside the environment, an API gateway allows a business to observe and handle an extensive range of APIs and integrations in one place. Monitoring and logging tools are generally included in API gateways to record and analyze calls and responses to assure security and assess faults.

API proxy can substitute the API gateway. It manages communication within software platforms, such as a proxy endpoint and target API, and is in charge of traffic between sending and receiving points.

API documentation engine helps to automate common operations, for example, reference data concentrating on API calls and syntax, showcases how API calls are utilized, and tutorials that provide broader examples in context. It provides correctness, efficiency, and continuity, which is extremely important in organizations where several specialists develop APIs.  

Challenges in developing an API strategy

A significant challenge while developing an API strategy that a company may face is a lack of appropriate design, test, and monitor tools. As well as the expertise of the development community to provide extensive feedback on APIs features may lead to failure. Our team of business analysts will help you refine your API strategy. Our devs will build a public API that numerous third parties adopt or private APIs to take your inner business processes to the next level.  

Here at KITRUM, we implement APIs for various businesses, such as travel, eCommerce, banking and logistics, choosing the instruments according to the business needs and specifications. 

For one of our clients who was deploying a blockchain-based system for automating buyer-seller operational connections, we used the OpenAPI Specification OAS for APIs implementation. The OpenAPI Specification is a standard for machine-readable protocol files for identifying, generating, consuming, and visualizing RESTful web services.