Attempting to Accelerate API Development?

An application programming interface (API) is the mechanism through which applications or programs communicate and exchange information. In today’s digital economy which is powered by mobile and cloud applications, APIs have become the fabric that brings and connects the disparate digital pieces together. While facilitating this data interchange is essential, it is critical that it is done in a secure fashion, allowing only access to data that is authorized and appropriate based on the context of operation.

 A company enabling this secure exchange of data through APIs and powering the digital transformation for enterprises is Akana, and at the recent Cloud Expo in New York City Executive Vice President Roberto Medrano sat down with TMC (News - Alert) to discuss putting APIs into action.

Medrano explained most corporations have some sort of mobile, cloud or digital transformation initiative that requires them to plan APIs, develop APIs, run APIs and share APIs with the partners or consumers.

Most modern enterprises today require an API management platform, Medrano noted, “Akana helps companies to externalize their application and services as secured APIs, thus helping them to extend out and become part of the larger digital eco-system”. The Akana solution helps companies to manage and operate APIs as well as aid in the APIs development lifecycle.

Due to the need for continuous integration in cloud development, it is crucial to have a strong DevOps process in place. To address this requirement, Akana introduced DevOps automation across API development and API management. The announcement signals faster time to market for development teams by unifying API development processes with API runtime management platform.

This announcement is important for development teams due to the automation it provides. Most notably it offers integration with continuous integration platforms; provides for appropriate approvals to push updates to the API Portal and API gateway. This is possible because of Akana integration with continuous integration tools, cloud management platforms and support for a variety of different API description languages.

As enterprises forge ahead with digital transformation, leveraging apps and APIs will play a rather large role. Medrano stated, “As you’re building new apps and applications you need to think about how to do APIs right, run them correctly and how to share them with the world so you can be more successful.”