Apigee, Layer 7 Simplify API Development

Granting API access to mobile device users--creating a doorway through which outside software applications gain access to your company's services--is becoming available via a hosted service and as an embeddable part of the internal network.

Vancouver-based Layer 7 Technologies is offering a get-started API management system as a hosted service from its own data center, while Palo Alto, Calif.-based Apigee is adapting its API management platform to the enterprise's new software-defined network. Both moves may draw more mobile device users to businesses that implement public-facing APIs.

API management is an art that has sprung out of Google making Google Maps available through its public API and Netflix making films downloadable to PCs and mobile devices. Enterprises can build on the example, opening an API gateway that lets outside developers build applications that invoke a service or business process inside the company. The developers must be registered with the enterprise, vetted and granted a key for their application to work with the firm's public API. But these outside developers are increasingly sought for their ability to build apps that bring in new customers.

The applications they build are downloaded by end users to tablets, game consoles and TVs, as well as computers and smartphones.

Automobile manufacturers have started to participate in the application economy as well, with Ford offering Sync software applications "that help the vehicle to get to know you," instead of the other way around, according to CTO Paul Mascarenas.

[ Want to learn how Apigee added PCI-compliant credit-card transactions behind its API service? See Apigee: A Speed Lane To Safer Mobile Purchasing. ]

Layer 7's Core API Management

Applications that reach out to customers' mobile devices help maintain customer engagement. Dimitri Sirota, co-founder of Layer 7 and chief strategy officer, said his firm's HTP://APIfy.co service provides core API management for small firms or IT staffs that simply don't have the bandwidth to take on one more set of complications. Its functionality is a leaner version taken from the Layer 7 API Management Suite and made available through an online portal.

Companies opting to use the beta service will get a Web interface to assist with setting up secure, public-facing APIs. Developers seeking to make use of the APIs go through a process of being granted an API key and use OAuth authorization tools that allow one party to grant limited access to specific resources to another party. OAuth is an Internet Engineering Task Force standard.

Next: APIs and SDNThe API sponsor may use an analytics service that gives visibility into which developer applications are making the most frequent use of the API, which applications use it efficiently, and how well support for one developer is paying off versus another. A developer who needs lots of technical assistance but produces few service customers would tend to score low on the systems' developer scorecard. "Who's favorably monetizing the API and who's costing money" can be seen through the analytics scorecard, said Sirota in an interview.

Layer 7 announced its hosted Appify service at the CTIA MobileCON in San Diego Oct. 11, Sirota said. It will become generally available in early 2013 at the rate of $2,000 a month. The beta version is available for free until then. Customers who outgrow the hosted service can purchase the Layer 7 on-premises suite at a starting price of $50,000.

Apigee's SDN-Based OfferingOn Sept. 25, Apigee became the first company to move an API management system into the context of a software-defined network (SDN). SDNs, such as those based on the OpenFlow protocol, give network administrators the tools to program the network dynamically, assigning different types of network properties to a virtual network that occupies shared switches, routers and other network devices.

In an SDN, the network controller can be given a set of application requirements and then use them to program routers and switches to best meet those requirements. For example, an application with high messaging volumes but relative insensitivity to delivery speed might be kept separate from the route serving an application with very low latency requirements.

Implanting an API management capability in an SDN means the network can invoke an API to call an outside service, then put that service to work for the network. For example, an SDN controller produces "northbound" traffic reporting on its own activity and network performance. A security service summoned to examine the northbound traffic could find that the firewall had let in a previously unknown attack pattern. The network could then tell its security devices "this is bad traffic. If you see this IP address and this attack signature, drop it," Sam Ramji, Apigee VP of strategy, said in an interview.

An API system in an SDN lets a lot more software be written by DevOps or NetOps developers to accomplish specific goals on the network through the controllers. An enterprise might have peaks in CRM traffic during the day that it wishes to give priority. A NetOps developer could produce scripts that dictate more resources be granted to the CRM application as traffic reaches certain thresholds. The application would have its own API, with the controller's API visible to the developer through the API management system.

API management allows a big, monolithic network to be broken down into components. The different components can call an analytics API to go to a system that can return information needed to boost performance.

Ramji said a developer could talk to a single traffic management API that uses a load-balancing application under the covers to route traffic through different types of routers, each having its own network interface. Controllers from Juniper, Big Switch or Floodlight might each have their own programmable dialect, but a load management application could address all three through a single API. The task of the in-house developer producing a Ruby or Python application to do the load balancing would be made much easier using the API, Ramji noted.

Apigee's API management system for SDNs is available at a subscription rate of $9,000 a month.