API Integration and API Management: How an Enterprise iPaaS Delivers the Best of Both Worlds
Did you know that 83 percent of all internet traffic belongs to API (application programming interface)-based services?1 With this in mind, you can imagine the power of APIs.
Enterprises have recently started implementing an “API-first” strategy in their development practices. This is when an enterprise keeps APIs at the center of development to make sure they are reusable and easily accessible for consumption. API-first helps in creating applications that are extensible and modular. Today there are over 24,000 APIs available.2 Making their APIs available to third-party developers allows enterprises to penetrate new markets by driving compatibility with other technology products and services. This API-first strategy is key for enterprises that want to speed up their digital transformation initiatives.
The most important driver for API adoption is its popularity among developers. A recent survey reported that nearly 90% of developers use APIs.3 This is because APIs have a wide range of use cases, such as application development, digital transformation projects, innovation projects and modernization projects.4 To drive varied API use cases, enterprises need to use API-first strategies with a combination of API integration and API management solutions.
API Integration and API Management: The Perfect API Toolkit Combo for Enterprises
Enterprises use APIs to fulfill their integration strategy. Eighty-six percent of enterprises agree that without the use of APIs, they would be working in silos5. In today’s digital-first economy, it is critical for business processes, systems and applications to be connected. In fact, it is a competitive advantage.
API integration is growing for integrating applications, business processes, systems and data in real time. It helps enterprises stay relevant to their customers and partners. It also helps enterprises to automate their business processes end-to-end.
It’s not enough for enterprises to use APIs for their integration needs. Enterprises need efficient management of APIs as well. This is done by monitoring the end-to-end life cycle of APIs. Effective API management tools can help manage APIs by helping developers to develop, publish, manage, secure, monitor, deprecate and consume APIs in a centralized manner. Manually tracking and managing your APIs is impossible. It’s also prone to errors, policy violations and data breaches.
To drive innovation and deliver exceptional experiences, there must be synergy between API integration and API management. But most enterprises end up using multiple tools to handle their API integration and API management requirements. This causes a disconnect among business processes and integrations. By adopting an enterprise iPaaS (integration platform as a service) solution, enterprises can gain the best of both worlds. Let’s explore how an enterprise iPaaS delivers both API management and API integration.
iPaaS for API Integration and API Management
An iPaaS is a cloud-based platform that helps enterprises to centrally create and manage their integrations. It provides robust API integration and API management capabilities on a single platform. With an iPaaS, you can integrate disparate applications, data, systems and services from on-premises and cloud environments. This can be done via marketplaces, self-service, out-of-the box connectors and business interoperability portals.
Organizations are modernizing their approach towards integration using API integration technology provided by their iPaaS platform. With API integration capability, you can connect your lines of business, customers and partners to any app, any process, any data, anywhere, at any speed. It provides a codeless API integration capability for allowing simple, logical interfaces and connectors that eliminate the need for complex hand coding. Instead, you use a drag-and-drop UI for rapid API integration.
API management capabilities provided by an iPaaS enables enterprises to manage all APIs (third-party and internal) that are being used in the business environment. This includes business processes that span multiple clouds and on-premises systems within and outside their firewalls. Not only does an enterprise iPaaS offer the ability to develop and consume APIs, but it provides capabilities to manage the entire API lifecycle. API analytics provided by an iPaaS empowers you to gain visual summaries of analytics such as usage trends and APIs with the most invocations.
An iPaaS monitors and identifies unauthorized API access attempts and policy violations in real time. According to a recent survey, 91% experienced an API security incident last year.6 An enterprise iPaaS has API security as its core. It allows you to monitor access to your APIs, and deploy, activate and secure APIs via the API gateway capability. An iPaaS can also drive enterprise-wide hyperautomation by automating complex business processes. End-to-end hyperautomation requires real-time API integration and robust API management capabilities, which an enterprise iPaaS can provide.
A recent SlashData survey states that 69% of developers use third-party APIs and 20% use internal APIs.7 This means API security takes center stage. Enterprises must ensure that their APIs are not used as breach agents to access critical data and to gain unauthorized privileged rights.
According to RapidAPI, new API technologies are on the rise.8 REST and SOAP continues to be the preferred technology. Other new API technologies, such as Serverless & FaaS, Websockets, Webhooks, GraphQL, AsyncAPIs and gRPC, are gaining momentum. With buzz around API technology and its global adoption, it’s clear an iPaaS is necessary to deliver both API management and API integration capabilities.
Next Steps
The most advanced enterprises are using Informatica to implement their API-first strategy. This will help them improve productivity and boost the customer experience. What makes it possible is a powerful enterprise iPaaS, which is delivered by the Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC). Learn how IDMC, a single, comprehensive platform, delivers the best iPaaS for seamless API integration and API management.
1https://nordicapis.com/20-impressive-api-economy-statistics/
2https://nordicapis.com/20-impressive-api-economy-statistics/
3https://nordicapis.com/apis-have-taken-over-software-development/ 4http://i.crn.com/sites/default/files/ckfinderimages/userfiles/images/crn/custom/2021/SoftwareAG_tvanson-bourne-report-2021.pdf
5http://i.crn.com/sites/default/files/ckfinderimages/userfiles/images/crn/custom/2021/SoftwareAG_tvanson-bourne-report-2021.pdf
6https://content.salt.security/rs/352-UXR-417/images/SaltSecurity-Report-State_of_API_Security.pdf
7https://nordicapis.com/apis-have-taken-over-software-development/
8https://rapidapi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2020-2021-Developer-Survey-Report.pdf
