The importance of API-led architecture

With data being the new currency for digital transformations, API-led architectures come to the rescue here. Almost all enterprises can be modeled as islands of discrete business capability, with some overlap for a cohesive operating model. This approach helps in defining the boundaries for the various systems and sub-systems that must be provisioned, and what interfaces must be developed to allow for data collection and exchange in a secured manner.

As the technology trends suggest, enterprises are increasingly adopting an API-led architecture strategy as it enables them to open their IT systems to external clients, business partners, and even third-party developers. The APIs serve as a black box, encapsulating all the business validations and rules that may apply to any process flow. In today's application development ecosystem, we find APIs everywhere, be it cloud computing services, productivity tools, or even on-premises integrations.

Consumers of the APIs simply reference the documented interfaces to develop their applications and services to transact with the respective systems, using the exposed APIs. For business owners, this simplifies the life cycle management of the solution, as the underlying logic for an API can be upgraded independently without breaking any upstream or downstream systems so long as the documented contract and data definitions do not change.

Hence, the key benefits of API-led architectures can be summarized as follows:

• Act as accelerators of cloud adoption within an enterprise.
• Provide the foundations for establishing an omnichannel strategy.
• Advance the decentralization of IT and business workflows.
• The generation of revenue through API economy.

The focus of the various chapters in this book is to show you how to getthe benefits stated here and see how the adoption of various tactical strategies by your software development team may have a huge bearing on the success of your initiatives.