API-led connectivity: Increase API reuse and organizational agility

Today’s customers and employees expect real-time, personalized, connected user experiences across all platforms. As enterprise applications grow and evolve to address these requirements, integration between applications becomes increasingly important. Building point-to-point integrations manually is time-consuming, inefficient, and expensive. And organizations need better ways to use and share data, as well as more flexible and agile ways to add new features and solutions. This is where application programming interfaces (APIs) can help. API-driven connectivity, also known as API-driven integration or API connectivity, addresses these requirements, helping organizations break down data silos, improve collaboration, respond quickly to change, and increase innovation.

An API is a defined set of rules that allow different applications to communicate with each other. APIs provide a modern and efficient way for others to access and use your organization’s data and services. This allows companies to open application data and functionality across the ecosystem, including external third-party developers, business partners, and internal company departments.

APIs are lightweight, modular building blocks that can be reused and packaged together across multiple applications to provide consistency and scalability, while also providing security and control. So it’s no surprise that API adoption has skyrocketed in recent years. Approximately 75% of all enterprises (Source: IDC FutureScape: Top 10 Futures of Global Connectivity Forecasts, November 2022) will use APIs internally and externally across multiple industries and diverse use cases by the next year.

API issues

While APIs are changing the way we do business, they can also become unwieldy. A typical organization currently uses 15,564 APIs (Source: 451 Research, Sponsor: Noname). As changes occur, such as new data sources being added or existing data sources changing, it may not be possible for IT staff to continue coding the API themselves.

API driven connectivity

API-led connectivity is a modern methodology for integrating applications and data through reusable APIs. It replaces complex point-to-point integration styles to enable a more flexible, scalable, and agile architecture. Using APIs as reusable assets that you can manage, secure, publish, and monetize using API management software enables faster, more efficient, and scalable integrations.

Benefits of API-led connectivity

An API-based connectivity approach helps organizations in the following ways:

• Reduce integration complexity and cost: API-based connectivity allows organizations to create APIs once and reuse them multiple times in different contexts to meet diverse business requirements across the enterprise, reduce costs, and increase productivity.
• Improved accuracy: Fewer APIs means lower risk of errors.
• Deliver a consistent customer experience: The same API supports backend source systems and frontend customer experiences, helping to provide a consistent customer experience.
• Get better visibility and control: Integrating applications through APIs makes management and security easier.
• Adapt faster to changing business requirements and technological advancements: Because change is inevitable, it can be managed at scale without excessive one-off work.
• Accelerate application development initiatives: APIs encourage composability. With effective reuse, one API built by a single developer can power hundreds of integrations and applications in an organization.

API-driven connectivity component

API-driven connectivity consists of two complementary technologies: application integration and API management.

API management software helps you control, manage, secure, and monetize your APIs. Application integration, as the name suggests, is responsible for implementing and integrating applications, regardless of their format. Application integration also allows users to create and write APIs, while API management provides a way to control them.

Accelerate API reuse with application integration software

Application integration platforms that support APIs offer the opportunity to transform the way IT teams operate. This not only allows business technologists and less experienced developers to configure apps and integrations, but also frees up IT staff to focus on more strategic priorities, such as more complex monetization. Activities and governance.

API-led connectivity from IBM

IBM® takes a modular yet integrated approach to API-led connectivity so organizations can buy only what they need. IBM API Connect® is an API management solution that supports the entire API lifecycle and enables providers to create and manage APIs. You can secure your APIs using out-of-the-box security and governance policies. Similarly, you can use the App Connect developer portal to share and promote reuse of APIs within and outside of your organization. You can also self-service discover and reuse existing APIs for other projects through the developer portal.

IBM App Connect is a user-friendly application platform for building and reusing APIs. Helps simplify application integration and increase API reusability with a low-code interface suitable for business users. Available as a SaaS product or on-premise. IBM App Connect allows business users and integration experts to discover existing APIs through the App Connect catalog. You can reuse existing APIs in your app/data integration projects and create new APIs in model-based integration flows.

Both are core components of IBM’s iPaaS solution. Tight integration between App Connect and API Connect enables organizations to collaborate and innovate. APIs built with API Connect can be discovered and imported into the App Connect connector catalog, and App Connect users can create flows for the APIs, then secure them and apply gateway policies. All within the same user experience. Test how they work together with a 30-day trial of App Connect and a 30-day trial of API Connect.

Read more about IBM App Connect.