The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way businesses operate. With
multiple touchpoints, businesses need to collaborate and connect their
applications, data, and processes more than ever before. API Economy and Microservices are two approaches that can help
businesses address these requirements and facilitate business transformation.
By leveraging API Economy and Microservices,
businesses can enable ecosystem connectivity, unlock the value of data, and
simplify and enhance agility in their digital initiatives. This can help
businesses to thrive in the new economic landscape.
Our application services at TeqRox
Solutions LLP provide a variety of crucial features for your apps. These
include balancing loads, autoscaling, speeding up application operations, and introducing
micro-segmentation, among others. As a result, we provide complete solutions
for administering, optimising, and monitoring your applications effectively
What are API economy and microservices?
API Economy is the use of APIs to connect different applications and
systems. This allows businesses to share data and services more easily, which
can improve collaboration and efficiency. Microservices
is an architectural style that breaks down applications into smaller,
independent components. This makes applications more flexible and scalable,
which can help businesses adapt to change more easily.
How does the rise of microservices affect the API economy?
As microservices architectures
and cloud computing infrastructure continue to gain popularity, software
interaction is primarily driven by APIs within and across organisations. APIs
have become essential in modern software development, with developers now
spending more than half of their time working with them.
Microservices architectures break down applications into
smaller, independently manageable and updatable services. By organising
services based on business lines or functions, microservices provide enhanced
flexibility and modularity, simplifying the development, testing, deployment,
scalability, and maintenance of applications.
In web development, serverless architectures abstract away the backend
infrastructure behind APIs, leading to a separation between the front end and
back end. These trends contribute to the disaggregation of the software stack
and drive the adoption of API-led SaaS, where software is consumed as smaller,
component-based parts.
What are the benefits of the API economy?
The API economy offers a key benefit by increasing access to and usage
of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). One of the most notable
advantages of the API economy is its ability to facilitate collaboration
between customers and API providers, resulting in the creation of more engaging
and efficient user experiences.
APIs and microservices can be stacked, modified, and upgraded quickly,
unlike physical products. Enterprises benefit from enhanced agility,
flexibility, and data access, empowering them to streamline their business
operations and foster engagement with previously untapped business ecosystems.
Vendors can cater to specific consumer needs without the need for
extensive software re-architecture by providing interfaces that enable microservices to communicate with each
other. Additionally, APIs give customers greater control over vendor applications.
The key benefits of the API economy include:
● Continuous
improvement
Third parties can customise and modify APIs, leading to a better
customer experience. APIs can be tailored to meet the specific needs of users
and providers, allowing for changes and feedback that enhance the consumer
experience.
● Accelerated
time-to-market
Leveraging existing services through APIs helps expedite product
delivery. Instead of designing everything from scratch for their applications,
businesses can focus on developing unique features.
● Generation
of competitive advantage and revenue
Connecting services and applications through APIs provide a
competitive edge. Faster product launches grant companies the freedom to
experiment and discover new revenue-generating opportunities.
● Creation
of value
APIs enable businesses to drive value by levelling the playing field.
Large corporations, small to medium-sized businesses, and inexperienced
developers can all interact with the same tools, empowering partners and
integrating internal applications.
Why is the API economy important?
According to Forbes, more than 40% of large organisations have
250 or more APIs, and 71% plan to use even more APIs in the coming year. The
growing demand for data integration can be attributed, in part, to the
widespread adoption and expansion of mobile computing and the Internet of
Things (IoT). This surge is driven by the vast amount of data we generate and
the diverse range of devices and systems used to process it. APIs are the
fundamental building blocks of the IoT, enabling seamless connections and
integrations between IoT devices.
Instead of starting from scratch to create all the APIs required by
IoT and mobile devices, developers can leverage APIs from various sources,
combining and customizing them to meet rising customer expectations. This
approach enhances interoperability, customisation, and efficiency.
APIs act as customer-facing, customisable software interfaces that
overcome platform incompatibilities and enable effective communication between
previously separate software components.. As a result, the API economy has
emerged, which is informally defined as the use of APIs to enhance an
organisation's profitability.