How can your API drive revenue for your business? Turn it into a product. This guide will explain everything you need to know to transform your APIs into API Products. What is an API? If you use the internet, a smartphone, or any piece of technology - you interact with APIs daily. But you may not realize it because APIs exist to make our lives easier and are essentially designed to be unnoticed. An API, or Application Programming Interface, is a program that facilitates communication between programs and users. Once it retrieves the requested data, it presents the information to your target audience. Think of it as a server at a restaurant. They take your order, pass it along to the chef to prepare your food, and hand it back to the server - who then brings it back to you, thus ensuring a pleasant dining experience. APIs act the same way, taking a request from you to perform a specific function, passing it along to the platform that has the data you want, and executing it without you having to do the heavy lifting. A clear example of this is with platforms like Zelle. If you want to send $10 to your friend, Zelle's API takes your request, then sends it directly to a bank like Chase, which sends the money through Zelle, directly to your friend - in seconds. What Is an API Product? What makes an API an API Product? How it is packaged, managed, and marketed. From a structural standpoint, an API product is a collection of related APIs and rate plans for APIs. An API product entails putting resources towards productizing and supporting your API as a marketable solution and actively helping companies innovate through your API. When you package APIs into a solution with a robust product-market fit that solves a problem for someone, they stop being just a collection of APIs and become an API product. An API provides access to a set of data, while an API product offers a clearly communicated solution to other companies - be it providing traffic information for ridesharing apps to improve their service or licensing candidate contact data for a recruiting provider. A great example of a company leveraging the power of API productization is Allstate Roadside Services, offering more than 20 white-label applications to their partners. With API calls representing 83% of all web traffic, API products are a critical fixture in the digital world- and those businesses that fail to adapt may find themselves falling behind the competition that embraced this aspect of digital transformation. Creating an API Ecosystem to Expand Your Business Whether you are in the process of API development for your business or have APIs already established, you should consider adding API products to your business model. To help you better understand the role API products play in the modern digital economy, let's go back to our hypothetical restaurant. Almost no restaurants grow their food to serve their customers. Instead, the owners rely on multiple suppliers to stock up on the groceries needed for the chefs to cook your food. As a result, our hypothetical restaurant is not an isolated, self-reliant entity but an ecosystem of partners and suppliers that keep the business running. The same approach applies to the modern API market. No company - even some of the world's largest corporations - builds their entire platform internally nowadays. Instead, they create an ecosystem of API products packaged together to build an entirely new product. It's important to note that they're not simply re-selling APIs in this case - they combine third-party API products with internal developments to create something new. That way, by adding business logic to your APIs, you can productize them for other organizations to use as part of their day-to-day operations or even core services. How Your Business Can Benefit From API Productization API productization is a conceptually different approach to APIs that brings with it a wide range of unique benefits for your business: 1. Expand Your Business Through Your Partner Network or Ecosystem API products make it easy for developers and non-technical users to integrate your APIs into their workflows. This increases your adoption rates and popularizes your company among your target customer base. As your API consumers become more dependent on your products, creating an ecosystem for API products builds a strong rapport with your potential customers, making it easier to turn them into paying customers or upsell additional services. If your partners have better access to your data which helps them sell more, you can leverage that to forge strong relationships and win more customers in the long run. Another significant way for businesses to expand their ecosystem is by making their API products accessible to citizen developers. Citizen development - business users with no technical skills building IT products - is the new trend rapidly changing the face of the API market. According to Gartner, citizen developers are projected to outnumber professional coders 4 to 1, resulting in a growing need for accessible development tools and products. Non-technical users don't have the time or patience to read through heaps of documentation or get through a lengthy onboarding process - they need something accessible and digestible to get started right away. Turning an API into an API product helps bridge that gap, opening your products to an entirely new market segment. By bundling a set of APIs that are commonly used together into a single product, you provide streamlined access to essential information without excessive clutter to help the developer quickly implement an application. 2. Build Additional Streams of Revenue In the last 18 months, companies have been actively seeking product managers to look at APIs as products to go and help other organizations figure out how to use their data instead of just making it available. This reflects a major paradigm shift in how companies start treating their APIs as tools for improving business outcomes and increasing the value of corporate assets. As part of this trend, companies start charging their users for access to their APIs - for instance, Salesforce.com generates 50% of its revenue through APIs. As for now, few companies are actively adopting API monetization as part of their business model, but that's about to change as APIs continue to permeate every aspect of our lives. There are plenty of monetization models for productizing your APIs that will drive ROI - regardless of size or lifecycle stage. Businesses can offer API products as: a complete package, where consumers, or more often - select approved partners, have unlimited access to the API resources. or a targeted "plan," where customers have limited access to the services provided. Bundling API products into smaller "plans" allows you to control access to the API resources. Offering multiple packages makes your API product more appealing to a broader market. Even if your business does not exclusively create APIs, you can still market API products. 3. Expand & Better Understand Your User Base to Drive Better Business Decisions and Promote Innovation To develop purposeful API products, you have to ask yourself: Who is this serving? And what is it offering? Once you start to expand and understand the needs of your user base, you can configure your API to catch the eye of developers, and other businesses that deem them valuable can help grow the audience even more. Monitoring how consumers use your products is crucial to understanding what they want, and API portals give you the analytics data to monitor usage on a granular level. Creating a clearer picture of how your API is used enables your team to build a full API ecosystem around your products that will encourage innovation from your product and dev teams - as they will be forced to evolve the product to meet the consumer’s demand. As you collect data and understand your user base more, your understanding of your business will evolve. You will be able to make intelligent and practical decisions about the products you offer because you will have a mountain of data to support your choices, allowing your products to stand out against competitors. You will find ways to simplify processes for your customers, allowing you to hit the marketing gold mine–the ability to promise and deliver on a product. APIs give you the ability to listen to your customers and evaluate the underlying cause of pain. Then, you can build API products that anticipate your customer's needs, driving your business to new heights through the introduction of new ideas, builds, or even entirely new products into your ecosystem. Utilizing the data provided by API products will reduce resources allocated to R&D and increase the adoption rate of new releases. Common Pitfalls to Avoid When Building an API Product While API products can help scale your business, if they aren't developed and managed properly, they can cause users to avoid them and ultimately negatively affect the organization. These are some of the most common pitfalls made when building API products: 1. Inability to Manage Your API Products Building outstanding APIs is the first step in expanding the impact beyond internal use cases. APIs require a place to go where they can be accessed by technical (developers) and non-technical people alike, from senior management and product owners to HR specialists and marketers. An API portal is a tool that organizations can use to productize their APIs and increase adoption rates–similar to an app store for your smart device where customers can search for and download products. API portals serve as bridges between providers and consumers, giving them easy access to your brilliant API products. Without a robust API portal in place, it isn't easy to effectively manage your API products development, marketing, and security. 2. Failure to Estimate Resources Required to Manage APIs As organizations grow, so does the need for a robust API ecosystem that allows managing a rapidly increasing number of API assets in a scalable way. Productizing your APIs means they will be under more stress and require additional maintenance. API portals can help scale your API products by gathering all corporate API assets in one place, making it easier to manage them systematically. When paired with your API gateway, you can centralize control to ensure high performance and enforce security measures. The most consumed APIs are easily discoverable have required documentation and transparency, making API portals an essential tool to oversee the entire API ecosystem for your business. It's critical to be proactive when considering all logistics and confirm that you are ready to accept this challenge or need to add more internal resources first. 3. Serving API Products Only For Developers With the digital landscape transformation, API products are no longer developer exclusive. Zeroing in only on developers while building out an API product is like arbitrarily restricting certain groups of people from going to your restaurant. Citizen developers in the form of marketers, C-suite players, and other key stakeholders are all finding ways to utilize APIs as part of your API ecosystem to drive innovation, revenue, and collaboration. It would be best if you approached API productization as a way for you to reach and serve businesses that can benefit from your API products. With proper management, you can still allow your developers to your API products while simultaneously packaging "plans” for other businesses. Start Productizing Your APIs with Achieve Internet Just like no restaurant can function without suppliers, no company can build great products at scale without API products in the modern technological landscape. Transforming your APIs into a solid revenue stream requires attention to detail and patience. You cannot build a successful API product overnight, but you can make a product that will transcend your customer's expectations and meet their growing needs. Remember APIs are put in place to understand your user base better, anticipate their desires, and build products that meet those demands. Many businesses are turning to platforms like Apiboost to help them build a powerful API Portal to transform their APIs into API Products. Achieve Internet is Apiboost's premier agency partner, which has vast experience implementing Apiboost and building bespoke developer portals and API portals using Apiboost as a foundation. Apiboost is a true extension of that expertise - not just an add-on. This, along with our partnership with API management vendors like Apigee, makes Apiboost a superior alternative to others on the market. Ready to take on the digital transformation of your APIs? Reach out to us today for a free consultation.

With the workforce in today's digital age, the distinction between developers and non-developers is fading. More and more platforms designed for "low code" or "no-code" solutions are being launched every day - so tasks that would have been impossible for non-developers in the past are becoming accessible to just about anyone who can turn on a computer. The most visible example would be sites like Wix and WordPress, which make building a brand new website as easy as a few clicks of a button. If you're facing a technical issue, you can turn to Google and figure out a workaround, so when a professional developer tells you something is going to be hard, you roll your eyes and go look it up. The average person interacts with technology daily, so technophobia became a thing of the past, making business units more open to the idea of getting involved in IT innovation initiatives. Gartner predicts that the number of active citizen developers at large enterprises will be at least four times that of IT professionals by 2023. The ever-increasing pace of the IT world makes it more challenging to keep up with the competition for organizations where departments have to wait for IT resources to free up. This is where citizen developers come into play, representing a major shift in how we interact with technology that will redefine how we approach software development. This article explores how citizen development will shape the API industry to help businesses adapt their digital transformation strategy to this trend. Who Are Citizen Developers? Citizen developers are non-IT employees who frankly know enough to be dangerous. They probably learned basic software development in school, and now they use low-code or no-code platforms to accomplish a growing number of tasks that used to require a trained coder. From HR to marketing, citizen developers leverage their industry expertise to create solutions with a strong product-market fit, helping companies grow the value of their API assets. Read More: How Cloud Technologies Drive Digital Transformation How Businesses Will Benefit From the Rise of Citizen Development Citizen development brings a wide range of unique benefits to the business world, disrupting the entire digital economy. 1. Build User-centric Innovations Into Your APIs Since citizen development entails getting non-technical specialists deeply involved in building software, these new major stakeholders bring fresh ideas and perspectives to the table that can lead to a new wave of software innovations. While developers can get hung up on solving the big backend problem and tend to prioritize technical issues over user-friendliness, citizen developers focus on the user experience and the usability of what they're creating. IT specialists don't know the ins and outs of marketing, sales, or HR, which often means they are disconnected from the target user's pain points. This is where citizen developers come into play, helping companies drastically expand the spectrum of their applications and API products. 2. Bring More Ideas to Life Without Breaking the Bank The percentage of digitally transformed enterprises is projected to make up 50% of worldwide nominal GDP in 2023, and developers are needed more than ever to meet the growing demand. As developers' price has increased over time, countless numbers of great ideas and initiatives never saw the light of day as companies are forced to prioritize mission-critical tasks to stay within budget. Citizen development can change that by providing non-technical users with the tools they need to innovate without relying on your IT department. Having true developers build out API products to empower citizen developers to innovate in a user-friendly ecosystem can exponentially grow your business. As an added benefit, business units will be able to help your IT teams with product improvement and creative ideas for new API products. Today's digital businesses face constant pressure to innovate and better serve their end-users - at a faster pace than ever before. For large organizations, it might take months - if not years - for non-technical employees to get the green light for their idea, gain access to the development resources needed to build their solution, and launch the product into the market. And by the time that happens, it might be too late. With low-code or no-code platforms and leveraging the power of APIs, citizen developers can start testing out their ideas right away without the need to overcome so many obstacles, drastically reducing time to market. 3. Align Business Leaders and IT Teams Aligning business leaders and IT teams might be pretty challenging at times, leading to loss of productivity. While business users understand what API products should accomplish, it might be difficult to convey that to help developers find a practical way to execute their ideas. Citizen development aims to bridge that gap by incentivizing organizations to develop an ecosystem where IT people, business units, and citizen developers can seamlessly collaborate. This approach makes building more robust API products easier based on ecosystem feedback. It is guaranteed to lead to higher adoption as your end-users become stakeholders in the development process. These days, no code and low code platforms make it possible for non-IT business units to collaborate with developers or even create their own apps, promoting creativity and innovation. Read More: Bridging The Gap With API Portals The Main Challenges of Citizen Development Even with more straightforward applications, there are caveats and challenges. To equip citizen developers with the tools they need, organizations should consider the following pitfalls of citizen development. 1. Lack of Training and Technical Skills Even though modern no-code platforms make the development process significantly more accessible, they still have a learning curve for non-technical users. While some employees adapt quickly to development tools, those unaccustomed to coding may find citizen development a challenge, leading to an overreliance on tools that can't get the job done exactly as intended. Training programs, peer reviews, and testing can help your employees make their first steps in the IT world to move the needle. 2. Resistance to Change The idea of building software with their own hands is entirely alien to most business users, meaning your attempts to implement citizen development may meet some resistance within your organization. Citizen development should be encouraged, rather than forced, by providing appropriate training, tools, and incentives for those who want it. Think rewards over expectations. With this approach, business leaders can foster a healthy culture of citizen development. 3. Compliance with Regulatory and Industry Frameworks According to Gartner Research Director Mark Driver, citizen developer platform vendors often overstate the compliance capabilities of their software. "Some platforms do look after that," Driver said, "But there are examples of apps built with citizen developer tools that completely ignore privacy and compliance issues." Employees may have more insight into their company's needs in a software application. Therein lies much of their value - but they're unlikely to be aware of all the necessary regulatory and compliance issues related to releasing an API product. How API Portals Are at the Core of Citizen API Development: Power of the Ecosystem One of the most effective ways for organizations to adapt to citizen development is to make their API products more accessible for non-technical users, increasing the value of their corporate API assets. Many organizations adopt a Center of Excellence (CoE), a central body that's sole job is to ensure that APIs are built to meet the needs of the larger enterprise to make them genuinely market-driven, providing guidance on how to meet the needs of the target user base. But it all starts with an API portal and the underlying ecosystem citizen developers need to innovate. With its robust tools and features for non-developers (and developers), all of your APIs can be consolidated within one user-friendly ecosystem for enhanced adoption rates and API usage. It's a must to provide citizen developers with the tools they are accustomed to in their everyday lives. These are social people who want to interact with other like-minded individuals. They want to share their ideas, help each other succeed, and most importantly, they will help you succeed if you provide them with the ecosystem to promote innovation. Achieve Internet is a premium agency specializing in developing API portals for organizations of all industries. Our Apiboost product is the engine behind many of the world's largest companies to accelerate their digital transformation - and yours can be next. If you want to learn more about leveraging API portals to facilitate citizen development, reach out to our team today to schedule a free consultation.

As more businesses pivot to expand their online presence, the use of web APIs has grown exponentially over the past few years. Along with this growth comes a whole new wave of potential business leaders and shareholders–all wondering how APIs impact their business moving forward. But it all starts with the basics. This guide will cover the most common types of APIs for you to navigate the API industry better. What Is an API? APIs, or Application Programming Interfaces, are powerful tools that serve as a connector responsible for requesting, interpreting, and delivering information between the client (the application) and the server (the database). Whenever you run a quick Google search, browse your LinkedIn feed, or send money via your banking app, you interact with APIs - they are truly ubiquitous. The most common and simplest way to think of an API is using the example of a server at a restaurant since they have parallel responsibilities, taking orders from customers (the client) and delivering them to the kitchen (the database). If you want to learn more about the basics of how APIs work, read this guide. Why API Portals Are So Important to the Success of Your API Program Unless you have only a few APIs that are all the same and used by the same type of end-user, you need an API portal - a user-friendly platform that helps developers, business units, and partners consume your APIs in an accessible way - to run a successful API program. API portals centralize your API assets in one place, increasing adoption rates and promoting innovation. With the growing usage of APIs by non-IT people, from data analysts to citizen developers, gateways and management tools do not provide the infrastructure to start and grow an ecosystem needed to ensure the success of your API project. API portals bridge that gap by providing developers and non-technical users alike with the tools they need to use your APIs easily. Achieve Internet can help you confidently navigate the API world and alleviate the work needed to manage your APIs. The Four Main Types of APIs Not every API is built the same way or for the same purpose. Even though every application and business has different API needs, most web APIs can be categorized into four main types: public, partner, internal, and composite APIs. Let's break down each of them in greater detail. 1. Public APIs Public APIs, or open APIs, are available for any outside business unit or developer to use. Companies develop public APIs to share data and applications with other businesses, developers, and non-technical users. Many features of these APIs may be freely available, like when a government agency or educational institutions use Public APIs to provide access to data they are obligated to share. With registration or the use of an API key, businesses often seek to monetize their public APIs in some way (i.e., limiting usage, offering premium features, etc.). Google Workspace, Dropbox, and Coinbase are examples of public APIs. 2. Partner APIs Partner APIs allow collaboration between different businesses, creating the infrastructure for organizations to integrate their API products into each other's ecosystems. Creating effective data sharing through APIs helps business partners solve complex logistic issues, innovate technology between organizations, and create white label solutions to create new revenue lines. While some partner APIs facilitate business between two companies, other partner APIs are intended to expand business opportunities for one or both companies involved. Ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft leverage partner APIs to collect real-time traffic data, improving their product offer,ing and grow their business as a result. In the fintech community, innovation spurred by partner APIs often results in entirely new products. The list of how businesses are using APIs to connect is growing by the day, and that pace is only accelerating. Since it’s not uncommon for partner APIs to operate with sensitive user data, they require more robust authentication, authorization, and security measures. 3. Internal APIs Hidden from the public eye, internal (or private) APIs are designed exclusively for internal company use, helping businesses develop better products and services. Internal APIs, when managed well, play a critical role for enterprise organizations that may want to inspire innovation across regions, brands, and departments. Internal APIs provide a company's developers and other employees access to corporate API assets which facilitate data sharing that can help businesses operate more efficiently by avoiding business silos. The most common issues that many organizations face with internal APIs are the adoption of multiple APIs to access the same data and the lack of documentation around those APIs, leading to time wasted for incomplete data sets. Since these APIs are intended for internal use only, authentication and security measures are typically limited, but this is certainly not to say it should be overlooked. Since internal APIs are usually innovated in a staging environment, good governance can then be applied to push the API to production environments for implementation or external publishing in an API portal. 4. Composite APIs Composite APIs (also known as an API product) combine two or more data and service APIs. This design allows batching or sequencing to carry out a series of dependent API calls in a single request. APIs are often bundled for partner agreements, and once live, function similarly to the Partner API described earlier. This model requires comprehensive documentation and instructions on the sequential use of the APIs - so there is a heavier lift from the technical side to bring them to life. While this type of API can be public, internal, or for a partner or customer - the most common instance of an API bundle can be seen when combining multiple data sources required for a sequential API program. For example, creating a shopping cart API requires several different endpoints to fulfill the order (i.e., create a customer, create an order, add an item, add an item, etc.). Instead of requesting this information independently, a composite API passes all the data at the end of the sequence – eliminating the need to get and deploy multiple API keys and reducing the upkeep when a single API is updated or modified. Read More: How Cloud Technologies Drive Digital Transformation The Three Main Types of APIs by Purpose Now that you have a better understanding of what APIs are and how they are structured, it's essential to understand how they will be used by an enterprise, or in other words, what is their purpose? The demand for an API arises from the increasing interdependence of APIs. Instead of building applications from scratch, companies rely on third-party APIs to reduce time-to-market and improve the functionalities of their solutions. Mulesoft's API-led connectivity approach categorizes APIs into three main categories to help organizations better understand how to manage their API assets. System APIs: The purpose of a system API is to pull data from an existing system integrated within an organization. Process APIs: This type of API orchestrates the interactions and merging of data within a single system or across multiple systems. These APIs allow enterprises to combine data across multiple systems for a specific business purpose. Experience APIs: An Experience API collects the data unlocked via the system and process APIs and exposes it to a target audience via the client. With APIs accounting for 83% of all web traffic, businesses need to accelerate digital transformation to keep up with the competition. The Most Common API Protocols & Architectures Building your API using the protocols and architectural styles (the rules and structures that govern an API) best suited for your API needs is critical to ensure high performance. Here are some of the most common ones. 1. REST Representational State Transfer (REST) is the most popular architectural style for building modern APIs. For an API to be considered RESTful, it must satisfy the following requirements: Uniform Interface (UI): No matter where API calls may come from, they should be identical when requesting access to the same resource. The Client-server Model: the client and the server should be separated entirely and interact only through an API. Statelessness: An API request should contain all the information needed for executing a given task without relying on any context on the server. Caching: An emphasis on storing reusable resources to optimize performance and improve scalability. The Layered System: REST APIs are made of multiple layers, each responsible solely for performing one core functionality. For instance, a three-layer architecture most common for REST APIs can be broken down into the data access, business logic, and presentation layers. Code on demand: This means that developers can drastically expand the functionality of their REST APIs by including executable code in their API calls. The benefits of REST APIs are flexibility in development and implementation, the ability to incorporate popular data formats, and increased scalability. 2. SOAP The World Wide Web Consortium develops Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to empower developers to build APIs using primarily Web Service Description Language (WSDL), an XML-based definition language, for describing the functionality of a SOAP-based web service. Unlike the flexible REST architecture, where the central premise is the null style (meaning that you start with no constraints and gradually create and stack them on top of each other as you build your API), SOAP is defined by a rigid set of rules and standards to create reliable and secure APIs. The advantages of SOAP include the ability to support a variety of web-based communication protocols (HTTP, SMTP, TCP), a solid and reliable foundation for an enterprise's resources, security, and built-in error handling. 3. RPC A Remote Procedural Call (RPC) protocol is an architectural style for distributed systems developed in the 1970s. Since RPC is a predecessor of modern API protocols, SOAP and a large number of REST APIs follow the RPC style. RPC APIs support two data formats for coding and decoding: JSON-RPC and XML-RPC. The RPC style uses procedures to transmit, process, and return data between remote machines within a distributed system. Make Your API Work For You Unless you have only a few APIs that are all the same and used by the same type of end-user, you need an API portal - a user-friendly platform that helps developers, business units, and partners consume your APIs in an accessible way - to run a successful API program. API portals centralize your API assets in one place, increasing adoption rates and promoting innovation. With the growing usage of APIs by non-IT people, from data analysts to citizen developers, gateways and management tools do not provide the infrastructure to start and grow an ecosystem needed to ensure the success of your API project. API portals bridge that gap by providing developers and non-technical users alike with the tools they need to use your APIs easily. Achieve Internet can help you confidently navigate the API world and alleviate the work needed to manage your APIs. We specialize in developing API portals, allowing you to focus on creating API products to build additional revenue streams for your business and drive up adoption rates =among developers and non-technical users alike. Do you want to learn more? Reach out to our team today to schedule a free consultation.

Within just the last few years, API management exploded into a critical component of every enterprise IT infrastructure. And it's not just about large corporations with substantial budgets embracing an API-first approach - small businesses and startups are also increasingly more reliant on APIs to run their operations. In fact, the API market is projected to grow by roughly 600% by 2031. To get the most out of APIs, making them more accessible to developers and non-technical users alike has to be a top priority - a task much more attainable with a powerful API Management platform. But with so many options out there, how do you make the right choice? In this article, we review the best API management platforms and tools to boost the value of your API assets. What Are the Best API Management Tools in 2022? Apigee Microsoft Azure API Management MuleSoft Akana IBM API Connect 1. Apigee Apigee is Google’s API management platform that helps enterprises build, deploy and manage applications in the cloud. With Apigee, you can easily manage your API infrastructure and innovate faster than ever before. Top Features Apigee Hybrid - The platform provides you with great flexibility when it comes to deployment. With Apigee, you can host your APIs on-premise, in the cloud, or opt for the hybrid deployment option. Developer Portals - Enable developers and partners to learn how to make the most out of APIs with the help of accessible documentation, self-service processes, and other features to boost your adoption rates. AAPI Ops - Leverage the power of AI to monitor your API performance, automatically detect unusual traffic patterns, and accurately trigger alerts to help your team quickly respond to technical issues and cyber threats. API Monetization - Cultivate additional revenue streams and maximize the business value of your API assets using a wide spectrum of monetization models, service packages, and integrations. Powerful Analytics Tools - Analyze your usage patterns to understand how you can better address the needs of your API consumers. Pricing Apigee comes with four plans based on your unique API needs: Evaluation, Standard, Enterprise, and Enterprise Plus. Evaluation - This pricing plan is perfect for those looking to explore whether Apigee is a good fit for their business. The 60-day plan includes 100,000 API calls per month, two environments, and basic analytics reporting capabilities. Standard - This pricing package includes 180 million API calls annually, 99% runtime SLA, and more work environments. Enterprise - This service package is geared towards rapidly growing organizations that need to scale up their API infrastructure, providing 1,2 billion API calls on an annual basis, more environments, advanced analytics reports, and custom support for a hybrid deployment. Enterprise Plus - The ultimate package for large organizations, including 12 billion API calls, more top-level containers, and more extensive reporting. Why we recommend this tool: Apigee is a household name in the API management space, providing best-in-class tools for effectively working with your API assets - regardless of the size of your organization. 2. Microsoft Azure API Management Microsoft' Azure API management platform is a comprehensive solution for the entire API lifecycle that empowers developers and organizations to create, publish, manage, and monitor APIs. Using this API management platform, you can control access to your APIs with authentication and authorization mechanisms, easily publish APIs to external and internal API consumers, analyze usage data to optimize your API design, and more. Top Features Distributed API Management - Host your APIs in the cloud (using Azure or other third-party solutions) and on-premises. Advanced Security Measures - From implementing authentication and authorization mechanisms to filtering IP addresses and setting custom usage limits, the platform helps you keep your APIs safe from data breaches and other cyber threats. API Mocking - Develop your API solutions faster than ever before, streamline the entire development process, and avoid unnecessary entanglements by decoupling frontend from backend. Pricing This API management tool comes with six different pricing packages to scale as you grow: Consumption ($0.035 per 10,000 calls) - This pay-as-you-go plan is perfect for small teams that want to test out the platform. Developer ($0.07/hour) - This pricing package was designed for non-production use cases, unlocking access to their developer portal, self-hosted gateway, and multiple custom domain names. Basic ($0.21/hour) - This plan is an excellent option for small to mid-sized APIs that don’t need a lot of bandwidth. Standard ($0.95/hour) - This option is great for organizations looking to scale up their APIs. Premium ($3.83/hour) - The pricing package is perfect for large organizations that need extensive API resources. Isolated - A custom pricing plan for enterprises that have unique API needs. 3. MuleSoft MuleSoft is a leading provider of API management tools that enable organizations to seamlessly work with their API assets. With its Anypoint Platform, you can easily create APIs, manage complex integrations, and securely expose your APIs to the world. Top Features API Lifecycle Management - MuleSoft offers an end-to-end solution to all of your API needs to effectively design, develop, and maintain your APIs. Hundreds of Out-of-the-box Connectors & Templates - Connect instantly to mainframes, ERP systems, and SaaS applications. Flexible Deployment Options - Deploy your API in the cloud, on-premise, or go the hybrid deployment route. Anypoint Monitoring - Analyze crucial API metrics such as the number of inbound or outbound requests and average response times - all in one place. Robust API Security Tools - From tokenizing your data to deploying the Edge gateway, MuleSoft provides a wide range of tools to protect your APIs from hackers. Pricing MuleSoft comes with three plans: Gold, Platinum, and Titanium - the pricing packages are built to scale as your API ecosystem expands. Gold - The plan provides access to the core functionalities of the platform for you to get started. Platinum - This option unlocks enterprise features to accelerate your growth, including global cloud and flexible hybrid deployment, business groups, and external identity management. Titanium - The plan unlocks mission-critical capabilities, including advanced data analysis and distributed log management. 4. Akana Akana offers a powerful API management platform, empowering organizations to accelerate digital transformation. Akana provides the security, scalability, and performance needed to manage your APIs and microservices. Top Features API Lifecycle Management Tools - Design and build your API using the platform to speed up the development process and accelerate digital transformation. API Importing - Akana allows you to import your existing API in just a few clicks. Automated API Security - The platform automatically applies pre-built API security policies to ensure the safety of your user base, including OAuth, SSO, JWT, and many more. Developer Portal - Boost your adoption rates and improve the accessibility of your APIs by deploying a developer portal with custom-tailored interface and functionalities for every key stakeholder. Pricing Akana provides you with a custom quote based on your unique API needs upon signing up. 5. IBM API Connect IBM API Connect is a full-cycle API management platform that enables you to create, manage, and monitor APIs to make them scalable, reliable, and secure. The platform offers a wide range of features that cater to the needs of different users, including authentication and authorization mechanisms, flexible deployment options, and robust API monitoring capabilities. Top Features API Productization - Turn your API assets into market-driven products to drive up the value of your corporate API assets. API Development Tools - IBM API Connect provides you with a comprehensive toolset for designing, creating, and testing your APIs. IBM® DataPower® Gateway - Secure, manage, and keep track of your API traffic using the built-in API gateway. Pricing The API management platforms offer three pricing plans to help you grow your API ecosystem: IBM API Connect Lite (free) - This free plan provides 50,000 API calls per month, allowing teams to try out the platform at no cost. IBM API Connect Enterprise ($100 per 100,000 API calls) - This pay-as-you-go plan helps you scale up your expenses as you grow while providing round-the-clock support as well as advanced analytics and deployment options. Connect Enterprise (custom pricing) - This custom subscription plan helps large organizations manage their API assets in a manageable way while providing superior security, data transfer, and deployment features. What Are API Management Tools? API management tools are software platforms that allow you to create, manage, and monitor APIs. These APIs can be used by developers to access your backend systems and data or by organizations to expose their internal systems to the world. API management tools also allow you to monetize your APIs through a variety of models and microservices. Finally, these platforms provide comprehensive security features to protect your APIs against unauthorized access and attacks. Accelerate Digital Transformation with Achieve Internet With citizen development on the rise, making your APIs accessible for non-technical users, not just developers, is crucial. This is where API portals come in, helping you consolidate all of your API assets in one place while improving your adoption rates by providing business units and developers with the tools they need to effectively interact with your APIs. Do you want to learn more? Get in touch with our team to schedule a free consultation.

As organizations rely more and more on APIs to run their operations, the need to manage API assets has increased dramatically. Most companies rely on third-party solutions such as MuleSoft and Apigee to centralize their API assets in one place, but without proper oversight - those solutions can quickly fall apart. Unless you have only a few APIs that are all the same and used by the same type of end-user, you need an API portal - a user-friendly platform that helps developers, business units, and partners consume your APIs in an accessible way - to run a successful API program. By bringing API assets together in one place, API portals increase adoption rates and promote innovation. The performance of your API portal is the key to your success. Achieve Internet can help you confidently navigate the API world and alleviate the work needed to manage your APIs in a way that Mulesoft and Apigee fall short. The work you put into API management will mean nothing without a successful API portal. This guide will help you understand the benefits and challenges surrounding API management to help you better navigate the API landscape. What is API Management? API management is the process of publishing, governing, and analyzing APIs in a secure environment. These platforms allow an organization’s internal and external APIs to have a safe, scalable space for monitoring and updating their APIs. While there are many API management solutions on the market (all with varying features), the majority of them include: An API gateway - API gateways act as a single-entry gateway for users, ensuring the enforcement of security policies and authorizations. An API testing environment - Develop and test your APIs using a safe testing environment. API monetization - Many management solutions enable the creation of an “API Store” where APIs can be productized to drive additional revenue for your organization. API lifecycle management - API management grants you the ability to manage your APIs from design to retirement, ensuring a positive ROI and higher adoption rates. API Measurement Data - Most solutions enable you to monitor APIs’ usage, transactions, data history, and other metrics to understand their performance. An API portal - API portals provide developers and non-technical business users alike access to documentation, security, and administrative controls to get instructions on consuming your APIs. Read more: What is an API Portal: The Ultimate Guide to API Portals in 2022 Why Is API Management Important? Aside from organizing your APIs in a central, easily managed, and secure platform - API management helps your organization respond to changing customer needs and accelerate digital transformation. As businesses depend more on APIs to function, so does the need for effective management solutions to secure and accommodate the complex administrative requirements of APIs. Let’s take a deeper look into the benefits of API management. 1. Provide a Secure Environment for Your User Base Protecting your APIs and the users that access them from potential threats and unauthorized access is a primary concern for everyone seeking to manage their APIs. API management platforms help organizations create standards and policies that ensure sensitive data is not breached or compromised. Even though API management solutions provide a layer of internal security for your APIs, this might not be enough to safeguard your data from ever-evolving hacking techniques. There is still a need for external security - one doesn’t replace the other, nor is one enough. To reduce security risks, organizations use specialized API security testing tools like APIsec that automatically write and execute thousands of tests, providing full coverage. Rigorous security policies and procedures should be evaluated and updated regularly. Integrating advanced access controls, logging, authentication, and authorization mechanisms is no longer optional - especially since API attack traffic keeps growing year over year. 2. Easily Manage Your API Assets as Your Organization Scales As your business grows, it will very likely need to scale its APIs services across multiple endpoints and servers. In this scenario, the need for an API management strategy becomes a necessity. For large corporations and institutions, it’s not uncommon for different departments within the same organization to develop multiple APIs to accomplish the same tasks, since they are working in isolated business silos. Utilizing an API management platform allows you to consolidate all of your APIs into one easily accessible and manageable place, allowing for clear and transparent communications throughout the entire organization. A core function of any API Management platform is the ability to build in the API documentation, technical reference manuals containing all the information needed to work with and integrate an API effectively. Without proper documentation, both non-technical users and developers will not be able to use your API as intended. That’s why your API management solution should provide the features that make it possible to generate clean, machine-readable documentation and supports regular, automatic updates of it. 3. Develop Additional Revenue Streams With the API economy permeating every industry, APIs are becoming an increasingly important revenue stream - for instance, Salesforce generates half of their revenue solely through APIs. This trend makes monetization one of the main reasons organizations seek out API management solutions. While API management tools such as Apigee are geared towards power API users, the average developer, product owner, and business leader are going to rely on API portals to be the user-friendly extension of your API management tool. Creating custom, tiered, or usage-based packages, offering access to microservices, and allowing data productization are just a few examples of how enterprises generate revenue through proper API management. Read More: The Basics of Monetizing your APIs 4. Future-proof Your Business as APIs Evolve Removing repetitive APIs, identifying gaps using analytics, and reducing vulnerabilities are just a few features that an effective management solution provides - but it also allows for a wider audience to engage your tech stack. As the role of the citizen developer grows, the ability for every member of your team to have clear and easy access to your APIs will become a necessity for organizations that have high aspirations. For the first time ever, non-technical users (or citizen developers) have the ability to shape the digital workspace with the advancements in technology, software, and applications. API management platforms help enterprises create a flexible and innovative ecosystem for end-users of all technology skill levels to help them get the most out of their API assets. The research firm, Gartner, predicted citizen developers of larger enterprises would outnumber professional developers by nearly 4:1. Businesses often struggle to figure out how to enable non-technical users. While API management offers tools to make your APIs more accessible, a great way to overcome this hurdle is to utilize an API portal, an ecosystem that - as opposed to a developer portal - makes your APIs accessible both to developers and business users alike. Achieve Internet provides API portal development and digital transformation services for companies to help them gain an edge in the API economy. If you are interested in learning more about our solutions, reach out today and schedule a free consultation with us.

Experts predict companies around the world will spend over $6.8 trillion on digital transformation from 2020 to 2023. This enormous amount of money demonstrates the value global business leaders place on innovating in response to digital disruption and technological development, but it comes with a shocking caveat: 70% of digital transformations fail. Here’s the good news — the reasons why most digital transformation efforts fail to achieve their goals are relatively simple and completely avoidable with the help of a strong digital transformation strategy. In this guide, we’ll walk you through what it means to have a winning digital transformation strategy and how you can build one to achieve your company’s goals. What Is a Digital Transformation Strategy? Before we go further, let's get one thing clear: digital transformation is not a one-off event, an IT overhaul, it is a continuous process affecting how you make decisions for every department of your business. A digital transformation strategy is a comprehensive, actionable plan to help you transform your tools, processes, and company culture in a way that prepares you for the future. A strong digital transformation strategy defines the challenges and opportunities you face now and enables you to proactively set clear goals for innovative changes needed for your business to adapt to the digital age. Read More: How Cloud Technologies Drive Digital Transformation The First Key to Your Success Before we go any further, a crucial key to building a winning digital transformation strategy is having a high-performing API portal. An API portal is a user-friendly platform that helps developers, business units, and partners consume your APIs in an accessible way. Unless you have only a few APIs that are all the same and used by the same type of end-user, you need an API portal to run a successful API program. By bringing API assets together in one place, API portals increase adoption rates and promote innovation. Since APIs are increasingly used by people outside of IT, from data analysts to citizen developers, gateways and management tools do not provide the infrastructure to start and grow an ecosystem necessary to ensure API success. API portals bridge that gap by providing developers and non-technical users alike with the tools they need to use your APIs easily. With Achieve Internet part of your strategy, we can help you confidently navigate the API landscape and alleviate the work needed to manage your APIs. 6 Steps to Building a Winning Digital Transformation Strategy Having a strategy isn’t the same thing as having a good strategy. In the complex world of digital transformation, projects fail because the strategy behind them isn’t robust enough to deliver real results. These six steps will help you avoid common digital transformation pitfalls and build a winning strategy to support your strategic initiatives and business objectives. 1. Get Executive Buy-in Successful digital transformation projects affect every part of your business and may require large amounts of resources and support. That’s why your digital transformation strategy has to start with securing support from senior leaders in both business and IT. It’s more than worth the time and effort required to convince company leaders to commit to digital transformation. Without their enthusiastic and visible support, your digital transformation efforts will either be too small to make a difference or crumble at the first sign of resistance. 2. Perform An In-depth IT Evaluation Digital transformation involves more than updating your legacy systems with new technology, but there’s no denying that your IT department plays a pivotal role. Before you start trying to make big changes, you need to make sure your IT leaders and team members are up to the challenge by evaluating your tech stack as well as the capabilities, processes, structure, skills, and culture of your IT organization. This will help you understand your unique IT opportunities and challenges and account for them in your digital transformation strategy. 3. Identify Your Goals and Desired Business Outcomes Digital transformation is about harnessing the power of advanced digital technology and new ways of doing business to achieve specific business goals and objectives. It’s critical to understand why you’re pursuing digital transformation and what you’re trying to accomplish. You must also recognize that your digital transformation strategy is a business strategy meant to support the broader goals of your organization. Whether you want to boost revenue growth, improve operational efficiency, introduce new business models, establish a future-proof competitive advantage, or all of the above, you need to establish specific goals and connect them to measurable business outcomes which will form the foundation of your digital transformation strategy. For example, your goals can include technology initiatives such as increasing your use of artificial intelligence or incorporating more machine learning in your processes, but only if doing so helps you achieve a broader business goal. Read More: The 'Outside-In' Mindset and Your Digital Transformation 4. Map Out Your Digital Transformation Initiatives The previous step was about understanding why you want to make changes and what you’re trying to accomplish. This one involves defining how you’re going to achieve your goals by building an actionable digital transformation roadmap. Your roadmap should include a list of prioritized actions based on your specific goals, challenges, and opportunities. This is the time to focus on details — include specific milestones, define roles and responsibilities, identify which initiatives have the most value, list the digital technologies you want to adopt, and set key performance indicators to help measure progress. Don’t forget to connect everything to your desired business results and to allow flexibility to adjust as you learn and your challenges change. Read More: The Ultimate Guide to API Portals in 2022 5. Help Employees Adjust to Change Change management is an essential part of an effective digital transformation strategy. Change is always hard, and digital transformation necessitates major changes to both day-to-day operations and your broader company culture and decision-making processes. For digital transformation to achieve the results you desire, your employees will have to learn new skills and adapt to new ways of thinking. Help them adjust with frequent, transparent communication, and training as needed. Be open to questions, address concerns, and make them part of the process by soliciting (and listening to) their input about how to address key business needs. 6. Seek out Feedback and Refine Your Strategy Digital transformation is both collaborative and iterative. You can’t build a winning digital transformation strategy by yourself — and it’s unlikely you’ll get everything right on the first try. The more feedback you gather, the better your strategy will be. Ask everyone from entry-level employees to C-suite executives for feedback on your strategy. Use their input and the lessons you learn once you start implementing it to adjust your methods, priorities, and processes to better fit your specific goals. Accelerate Your Digital Transformation Efforts with Achieve Internet Ready to see results from your digital transformation initiatives? Achieve Internet can help you accelerate business innovation, replace legacy technology, and upgrade your team’s digital experience with innovative API portals, effective API management, and tight API security. Contact our team to learn more about what we can do for you.

Contents The Ultimate Guide to API Portals in 2022 What is an API Portal? API Portal vs. Developer Portal: What Is the Difference? Who Will Use the API Portal? 1. Your Business Team 2. Internal & External Developers What Are The Benefits of API Portals? 1. Increase Adoption & Productize Your APIs 2. Reduce Multiple APIs for the Same Function 3. Promote Innovation in API Implementation 4. Track the Success of Your APIs What Are The Key Features of an API Portal? 1. API Productization Tools 2. Easily Accessible Developer Tools 3. Advanced Access Control 4. Regional Separation & Internalization 5. Scalability What Are the Most Common Use Cases for API Portals? 1. API Portals for Internal Use 2. API Portals for External Use 3. API Portals for Partner Integration How to Know If You Need an API Portal Leveraging True API Expertise with Apiboost API portals are redefining how organizations approach using APIs to reach their business goals. Beyond better user experience, organizations can now humanize their API experiences and deliver a good user experience for developers as well. That’s why it’s no surprise that Market Data Forecast projects a 34 percent yearly growth rate for the API management market. In this article, we'll delve into what an API portal is, how it can take your organization to the next level, and the steps you can take to determine whether it is right for your business. What is an API Portal? An API portal is a bridge between the internal developers that build your company's APIs and the people who engage with them to move the business forward. This includes internal developers, external developers, as well as your business team members. Think of it as a directory that houses all the information around your organization's API offerings. While some of these API offerings are gated —especially in regulated industries with portals targeting internal developers— others are publicly available for a wider developer community to interact with. API portals help with discovery, subscription, and especially API testing — to ensure that all APIs are fully functional. API Portal vs. Developer Portal: What Is the Difference? A developer portal is a site that is used almost only by developers to access and organize technical information to configure and manage the APIs used by their organization. Some features you will find in a developer portal include: A list of all APIs that are available A set of API reference documentation (that may or may not be complete) A space for developers to communicate on how to use those APIs At a basic level, API portals also provide the same functionality listed above. The key difference is how API portals are designed and built for non-developers. Where only developers typically use developer portals, the first audience of an API portal can be anyone, and with the rise of the Citizen developer, it is crucial your API portal gives priority to the UI and is built with ease of use as a top priority. In other words, an API portal is a more accessible version and provides advanced features that are not available on a typical developer portal. Addressing this broader range of people opens up new partnerships, access to new and larger markets and creates efficiencies inside and outside of the organization. Unlike a typical Developer Portal, an API Portal works specifically to promote APIs as a product. With a robust set of tools and features designed for non-developers and developers alike, API Portals allow businesses to maximize returns on their APIs for better business outcomes. Read More: API Portal Buyer's Guide Who Will Use the API Portal? Two major groups will use the API Portal: your business team (citizen developer), and professional developers. For you to succeed, it is essential to consider some standard requirements that your company should include to cater to both segments of your user base. But perhaps most importantly, it’s critical to understand that for both the business team and developers - you must consider that both internal and external users are going to access and navigate your API portal differently. Let's discuss the key segments that make up the user base of a typical API portal to help you understand your API consumers better, to deliver the most value to them. 1. Business Teams An API portal should provide business leaders from within and outside your organization with the ability to locate, manage, and share information from all of your APIs. The data gleaned from APIs will provide insights to drive your business forward - and key decision-makers need the ability to quickly and effectively access valuable information. Since non-technical people will need to see the bigger picture to make better strategic decisions, it's essential to allocate your resources to constantly improve your API Portals UI and analytics tools to quickly access the most critical data for their business purposes. These roles might include: Product owners: The product owners gather and present ideas for new API products or features. Business Analysts: Business analysts work with companies to help them identify new business opportunities. With easy access to your API portal, they can better evaluate the workflows, spot inefficiencies, and see potential revenue streams. Marketers and Salespeople: They help promote the API and develop the business strategies for the product. They also recruit partners for the API product. Digital Transformation Experts: Working similarly to business analysts, digital transformation experts are looking at the big picture and how to bring the organization’s digital experience to employees, clients, and partners. Since your API portal should serve all the above categories, user-friendliness for a non-technical digital transformation expert is vital. 2. Developers API portals will always need to deliver the features of a typical developer portal - at a macro-level, they must provide a single place to manage API reference documentation, sample code, and SDKs. This means a portal should have clear navigation and straightforward access to API documentation that enables API consumers, again internally and externally, to easily search for and locate information around the APIs they need. Some of the specific users include: API developers: Developers build, publish, and maintain the APIs and their portal. Developer advocates: They bridge the gap between the developer community and the company. Technical Writers: Technical writers provide engaging, easy-to-understand content on the API and its usage. They also provide essential content to onboard and get new developers started on the API. API consumers: Application developers driving today's startup market. These experts are the heart of an ecosystem, driving innovation and empowering disruptive new ideas. Read More: API Portal Buyer's Guide What Are The Benefits of API Portals? An API portal that is accessible to more than developers and data scientists is necessary to provide insights that will drive mission-critical business decisions Let's go through some of the more concrete benefits of an API Portal. 1. Increase Adoption & Productize Your APIs API portals make it easier for developers and “Citizen” Developers who are less skilled to discover and consume API products. From the onboarding process to API documentation, you can set up everything in one place to boost adoption rates and API usage, and turn your API consumers into a loyal user base. Since API portals enable non-technical people to access and consume your APIs, you can leverage them to expand your potential and existing user base. The influx of new users can help you boost the business value of your digital assets, increasing the ROI of your API products in the long run. Additionally, you can take full advantage of the user-friendliness of API portals to develop API products tailored to different user segments, creating additional revenue streams for your organization and providing a bridge to your other digital assets. 2. Reduce Multiple APIs for the Same Function For large enterprises, it's not uncommon for different departments to independently develop API solutions that partially or fully deliver the same functionality. API portals help eliminate this issue by solidifying all of your API assets in one place, allowing different departments and teams to access all of your API products without interfering with each other. 3. Promote Innovation in API Implementation Since API portals drastically reduce the entry barriers for non-technical stakeholders to use and interact with API products, more effective collaboration between departments will bring different perspectives to each issue. This diversity of views helps organizations and API providers leverage the expertise and experience of specialists across different fields to bring unique perspectives and ideas into the development process. This, in turn, promotes innovation across the entire organization, helping you stay closer than ever to your API consumers - and ahead of the competition. 4. Track the Success of Your APIs You should constantly monitor the effectiveness of your API strategy. Research carried out by Apigee identified a stark contrast between successful APIs and unsuccessful ones based on how integral their API success metrics—revenue and consumption metrics— are to them. Some of the key metrics an API portal allows you to accurately monitor are: ROI Direct and Indirect Revenue CLTV API Traffic & Usage and more. Developers have to be on-hand to suggest changes based on their developer community engagements, churn, NPS, or documentation engagement. Solutions may include adding a new use case for a new programming language, improving some methods, or extending its features. The operations team needs to check and monitor API traffic patterns and other operational metrics like error and uptime and know when you need new resources or critical changes. Read More: Bridging The Gap With API Portals What Are The Key Features of an API Portal A good API portal should offer a variety of functionalities that enable both external and internal users to effectively interact with API infrastructure. In this section, we'll break down the key features of an API portal. 1. API Productization Tools As a superior solution in terms of interactivity and ease of use, API portals make it much easier for you to productize your APIs and build new revenue streams. Some of the world's largest companies already rely heavily on their APIs to generate recurring revenue and drive business growth. Companies like Salesforce, Expedia, and eBay generate most of their revenue through APIs, representing a shift where the API economy becomes the primary driver of digital transformation. And given the pace at which APIs get adopted across all industries, chances are that your APIs will account for a large portion of your annual revenue in the not-so-distant future. API portals provide organizations with everything they need to make their API product accessible to wider audiences, not just API developers, while seamlessly scaling as you grow. Some of the features that help organizations promote their API products and scale their revenue sources include: Advanced registration workflows Tools to allow for tiered API access API product groupings Terms and Conditions control by product Also, future planning can allow the portal to provide access for purchasing API products and packages tailored for different levels of functionality and traffic overhead. When you combine all of these factors, you may dramatically increase the amount of revenue your API products generate for your organization with the help of an API portal. 2. Easily Accessible Developer Tools As a more comprehensive way to integrate APIs within and across organizations, API portals provide everything a developer portal does to help API developers successfully interact with the API products of an organization: API documentation, code samples, and SDKs allow developers to quickly access the information they need to manage and configure the APIs. A sandbox environment helps developers test, experiment, and troubleshoot your APIs. Integration tools empower developers to integrate their solutions with third-party systems and improve overall adoption. A developer community platform allows every member of the team a place to gain insights from other developers to solve problems more effectively. Additionally, advanced analytics and easy visualization of key metrics, such as status pages showing performance and uptime of the various API offerings, are common features. 3. Advanced Access Control While API portals promote collaboration and boost adoption rates by providing your API consumers with a space where they can interact with one another - all users are not the same. API portals need to provide levels of access to collaboration tools and account management to ensure the security of your APIs - from both internal and external threats. An additional benefit of segmentation is the ability to create groups or teams. Solutions like Apiboost include a team builder feature that allows an administrator to build teams of all sizes that can collaborate and innovate on apps and products in a group environment. With team-level access control, you can assign apps and products to departments, partners, and customers for effective development while securely exposing your data to only approved team members. The ability to control access on a user level with roles like admin, super-admin, guest, and others will allow for the highest level of cross-department collaboration - with the lowest level of risk. Without advanced access control, it's common for API portal solutions to require you to build two portals for a single project - one internally facing and the other externally facing. While on the surface, this may seem like a good way to separate your internal team members and partners from external API consumers, it's an unnecessary drain on resources and requires additional oversight. "API portals ensure that developers can discover and use your APIs, but often fail to drive API adoption due to poor developer experience." - Gartner Read More: 5 Things to Consider Before Building a Custom API Portal 4. Regional Separation & Internalization On top of expanding the potential user base from API developers to pretty much everyone, API portals lay the foundation for regional separation and penetrating international markets. Expanding into other markets is a great way to expand the user base and scale up the amount of revenue your API products generate for your business. However, the process of regional separation and internationalization brings with it a set of unique challenges as you need to adapt the following elements to make your APIs usable for other markets: Locale-sensitive collation Number formatting API portal interface Date and time formatting Documentation, guides, and other content Thankfully, API portals provide organizations with the tools they need to make the process of localization and translation a lot easier. 5. Scalability Several API portals on the market include a templated system that they have to build to your specification. While these portals may seem like they have everything you will need, in reality, the limited functionality reduces your ability to scale or add features down the line. You'll have to wait for new features to be built and integrated into your system. As a result, you end up spending more money in the long run and unnecessarily waste a large amount of time and resources. Apiboost is a fully-fledged enterprise-grade product with all the necessary features to launch your API portal out of the box. You can easily expand the platform to manage numerous APIs, users, teams while keeping everything secure with single sign-on (SSO) and CI/CD functionality that fits seamlessly into your DevOps pipeline. A hallmark of a great API Portal is the flexibility to quickly upgrade or add functionality as needed. Read More: Bridging The Gap With API Portals What Are the Most Common Use Cases for API Portals? The type of API Portal you create will depend mostly on the intention or primary issue that the portal is built to solve. We can broadly categorize the most common uses of an API into four primary types of API portals: Internal Use API portals External Use API portals Partner Integration API portals And in this section, we will cover each of them in greater detail. 1. API Portals for Internal Use The purpose of an internal API portal is to create a safe space for everyone within a given organization to consume API products, from developers to senior management. Building an internal API portal is a great way to promote digital transformation and optimize internal processes by integrating all departments in one place. Developers, marketers, HR specialists, and managers of all levels can leverage the power of APIs to improve the quality of their output and seamlessly collaborate across departments. As an example, Charles Schwab developed an internal API portal to consolidate all of their APIs in one place to improve adoption rates and visibility. 2. API Portals for External Use An external API portal is tailored to external consumption, providing a place for API consumers to interact with your API products safely. Deploying a public API portal helps organizations develop a strong source of additional revenue, increasing the business value of their corporate assets. As an example, Experian utilizes its API Portal to offer products to help their customers find and utilize the data they need to make better decisions for their business. Experian has built a suite of APIs that are sold independently, or as a package, to provide businesses with access to valuable insights including real-time income and employment verification reports, vehicle history data, and in-depth KYC data. 3. API Portals for Partner Integration A partner API portal makes it easier for companies to cooperate with strategic partners and forge business relationships by providing the technical infrastructure needed for collaboration across different organizations. Partner API portals give you full control over the visibility of your APIs and user roles, providing a safe space for building great products. As a result, such portals improve the quality of their products by leveraging the strength of their partners - because no company is an island. As a real-world example, Allstate Roadside Services introduced a new acronym to the world in 2017 with the release of their Rescue as a Service (RaaS) API. Developers can access the RaaS API through their own products to request roadside assistance (e.g., Tow, Tire-change, Lockout, Fuel) and track the real-time status and location of the rescuer, providing a monetization model for developers (memberships and per-use costs). Allstate now offers over twenty Roadside applications consuming the Rescue API as white labeled products available to partners. How to Know If You Need an API Portal While API portals bring so much value to the table, it's important to understand whether your company has reached the point where an API portal would truly move the needle and dramatically improve the overall performance of your organization. Before you invest in building out an API portal, ask yourself whether you currently struggle with any of the following challenges: Internal developers are often struggling with manual approval processes, missing documentation, and potential security risks. Separate internal departments each building their own APIs that provide the same function. A number of smaller data sets can be combined to limit the need for multiple authentication keys to be managed. Managing security updates and version control of API offerings. If you are making a significant investment in research, development, and staffing to support API customers, both internal and external. If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, developing and deploying an API portal has the potential to make a massive positive difference. Read More: The Value of Promoting and Expanding Your API Portal Leveraging True API Expertise with Apiboost If you think your business could benefit from an API Portal, our experts are ready to take your call. Achieve Internet is Apiboost's premier agency partner, which has vast experience implementing Apiboost and building bespoke developer portals as well as API portals using Apiboost as a foundation. Apiboost is a true extension of that expertise - not just an add-on. This, along with our partnership with API management vendors like Apigee, makes Apiboost a superior alternative to others on the market. Ready to learn how to get more value out of your API portal? Reach out to us today for a free consultation.

📷 Photo © iStock.com/MicroStockHub API management tools are moving in a new direction. Rather than catering specifically to developers, developer portals (now commonly referred to as API portals) must pay more attention to how APIs are consumed and used for innovation. Apiboost is at the forefront of API collaboration, API productization, and helping companies improve API consumption. As an API portal industry trailblazer, we’re happy that Apiboost has now been recognized by Gartner, Inc. which delivers actionable, objective insight to executives and their teams, in no less than 7 reports and publications.* We believe that Gartner’s recognition of Apiboost in these reports targeting a range of industries reinforces the key role of our enterprise API Portal solution in an increasingly API-driven world. Gartner mentioned Apiboost as an API portal and API ecosystem partner in the following publications and Gartner subscribers can view the reports by clicking on the respective links: August 10, 2021 - Hype Cycle ™ for the Future of Applications, 2021 [1] August 9, 2021 - Quick Answer: How Can Existing Applications Participate In Composable Architecture? [2] August 6, 2021- Hype Cycle for Unified Communications and Collaboration, 2021 [3] July 29, 2021 - Hype Cycle ™ for Digital Grid Transformation Technologies, 2021[4] July 27, 2021 - Hype Cycle ™ for APIs and Business Ecosystems, 2021 [5] July 21, 2021 - Hype Cycle ™ for Utility Industry IT, 2021 [6] July 15, 2021 - Hype Cycle ™ for Digital Banking Transformation, 2021 [7] Apiboost’s Role in the Growing API Economy In a 2021 article titled How to Successfully Implement API-First Integration, Gartner mentioned that “organizations are increasingly adopting API-first integration.” “The growth of the API-first strategy has resulted in a number of software vendors promoting API-led integration as a major improvement over other methods of integration, such as using native adapters,” Gartner’s analysts Keith Guttridge, Mark O’Neill wrote. “Software engineering leaders responsible for integration naturally look at APIs as a way to standardize interfaces and simplify integrations,” they continued. [8] For example, in a recent case study, we can see how a globally recognized FinTech leader leveraged Apiboost to build a multi-tenant API portal to consolidate all of their APIs. Doing this improved the visibility of their APIs and allowed them to continue innovating across multiple regions and languages while streamlining the customer experience for everyone. Consequently, they have increased their API catalog by 300%, and API consumption has also increased by 30%. Vision on API Ecosystems The Gartner research “ Quick Answer: What API Approaches Should Software Engineering Leaders Take?” recommends that companies “govern your APIs without introducing bottlenecks by establishing a federated API platform team. An adaptive governance approach that uses automatic validation of APIs against style guides is proven to be effective compared to a bureaucratic process of API approval.” In the same article, Gartner advises companies to “treat APIs as products by creating the role of an API product manager to promote a consumer-centric product mindset for APIs.”[9] In our opinion, Gartner’s recommendations seem to align extremely well with Apiboost’s functionality, which we believe played a role in Gartner’s repeated recognition of our platform across industries. In particular, Apiboost helps brands to establish federated API platform teams via its Team Builder feature. In our opinion, the increase in collaboration provided by Team Builder, coupled with Apiboost’s API Product Optimizer, aligns well with Gartner’s guidance, as these features encourage collaboration and innovation among developers, non-technical partners, and stakeholders alike. As previously mentioned, modern developer portals need to support API-driven companies and their partners via collaboration tools, team environments, and API productization. Innovation and consumption are the keys to encouraging collaboration and ultimately unlocking revenue, and Apiboost has been designed with this in mind, which once again leads us to believe that we led to Gartner recognized Apiboost in seven releases in 45 days. As businesses continue to expand their API ecosystems internally and externally, API portals will be even more critical. And Apiboost will continue to provide the agility and dynamism required to help businesses enhance their API adoption. Try an Apiboost demo today. Recap: What Is Apiboost? Apiboost is an enterprise API Portal Platform, enabling organizations to launch their API product, group them into teams that encourage innovation, and streamline the user experience. Achieve Internet, meanwhile, is Apiboost’s premier agency partner, which has vast experience implementing Apiboost and building bespoke developer portals and API portals using Apiboost as a foundation. Key Apiboost Features: API Product Optimizer: This allows the products and content on the site to be controlled at a Product Owner level. The Product Owner and Product Staff can manage content associated with products, including the catalog, blogs, videos, events, and forums. API Team Builder: This enables the administrator to increase collaboration among developers, business people, and other stakeholders. This facilitates the building of teams, consisting of a team admin and other team members, to innovate on apps and products in a group environment. The API Team Builder is great for assigning apps and products to departments, partners, and customers for effective development while securely exposing your data to only approved team members. Support for Innovation: Apiboost doesn’t just tack on a blog or a forum to your API portal. It ties those features into Team Builder and Product Optimizer along with configurable user roles and permissions so administrators can build granular teams and encourage collaboration at the same time. Learn more about Apiboost. *API Boost has been recognized as “Achieve Internet” in the following reports. [1] Gartner, “Hype Cycle for the Future of Applications, 2021”, Micky Keck, Yefim Natis, Stefan Van Der Zijden, 10 August 2021 [2] Gartner, “Quick Answer: How Can Existing Applications Participate In Composable Architecture?”, Yefim Natis, Shameen Pillai, 9 August 2021 [3] Gartner, “Hype Cycle for Unified Communications and Collaboration, 2021, Pankil Sheth, Rafael Benitez, 6 August 2021 [4] Gartner, “Hype Cycle for Digital Grid Transformation Technologies, 2021”, Zarko Sumic, 29 July 2021 [5] Gartner, “Hype Cycle for APIs and Business Ecosystems, 2021”, Mark O'Neill, John Santoro, 27 July 2021 [6] Gartner, “Hype Cycle for Utility Industry IT, 2021”, Nicole Foust ,21 July 2021 [7] Gartner, “Hype Cycle for Digital Banking Transformation, 2021”, Alistair Newton, 15 July 2021 [8] Gartner, “How to Successfully Implement API-First Integration”, Keith Guttridge, Mark O'Neill, 9 June 2021 [9]Gartner, “Quick Answer: What API Approaches Should Software Engineering Leaders Take”, Shameen Pillai, Mark O'Neill, 28 May 2021 GARTNER and HYPE CYCLE are a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Photo 135034188 / Business Change © Wrightstudio | Dreamstime.com Apiboost was mentioned under the API Marketplaces section of the report San Diego, CA., September 15th — Apiboost, an enterprise API portal SaaS platform, announced today that Gartner has identified it as a Sample Vendor in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Future of Applications 2021. Apiboost is listed under the API Marketplaces category. Gartner Hype Cycle reports offer insights into the relative maturity of technologies operating within specific industries. As a new entrant to the report this year, Apiboost’s inclusion shows that Gartner’s analysts are well aware of the importance of APIs and API Marketplace to the future of software applications. As Gartner points out, “Applications and software engineering leaders must leverage composable technology to adapt to the pace of business change. Also, “the number of APIs within an organization is also climbing, driving the need for developers to find which APIs and services are available.” Listing Apiboost as a Sample Vendor underscores the value of the Apiboost platform and the impact of Developer portals and API Marketplaces on the future of software development. “We’re delighted to be recognized by Gartner as an API marketplace and API portal solution for the future of applications. Several crucial trends are driving the API economy forward, and this is clearly fuelling the need for impactful API portal and API marketplace solutions that can in turn help drive the future of applications,” Ron Huber, Founder of Apiboost. “Composable business, including composable commerce, relies on the use of API marketplaces to share APIs and packaged business capabilities,” Mark O'Neill, VP Analyst at Gartner, mentioned in the report. Apiboost’s experience with packaging business capabilities is well documented. In a recent case study we see how online ticketing company StubHub needed to streamline how customers and partners accessed their API products. With Apiboost’s help, they were able to bring together external systems and resources under one developer portal. As a result StubHub now enjoys streamlined workflows and an environment where both internal and external users can engage with the brand. Gartner, "Hype Cycle for the Future of Applications, 2021," Micky Keck, Yefim Natis, Stefan Van Der Zijden, August 10, 2021. Gartner subscribers can view the full report here. Gartner Research Methodology, Gartner Hype Cycle, https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle Gartner Disclaimer Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Gartner and Hype Cycle are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. About Apiboost Apiboost is a ready-to-market portal solution supported by a complete set of digital transformation services. It is an easy-to-use, full-featured API portal to deploy APIs for internal and external use. The Apiboost team has worked with many Enterprise companies to realize their goals with a groundbreaking portal and digital solutions. Whether the need is for a simple and fast-to-market solution or a global, Federated divisional/regional approach, Apiboost can help your team find the right program. For more information, visit: https://www.apiboost.com/

📷 Photo 106082871 / Gartner © Casimirokt | Dreamstime.com San Diego, CA., September 13th — Apiboost, an enterprise API portal SaaS platform, has been named as a Marketplace Specialist Offerings by Gartner, in their report titled, “Quick Answer: How Can Existing Applications Participate In Composable Architecture?”* As an emerging trend in software architecture, composability continues to grow in relevance for both new and future business applications. According to Gartner, “software engineering leaders can expand the scope of their composable experience, or prepare for it, by leveraging the APIs, data and features of existing applications.”* For applications to achieve composability, they must utilize technology that facilitates composition. And the most critical element of any composable application environment is an API marketplace. “Early API registrations may center on just the security, access and discovery of the APIs, but more advanced marketplaces will support certification, vetting, optimization, tracking and automation as well,” said Yefim Natis, Distinguished VP Analyst and Shameen Pillai, Sr Director Analyst at Gartner. Apiboost’s enterprise-grade API portal enables brands to build portals that drive collaboration, innovation, and revenue. “We’re very encouraged to see Gartner emphasize the importance of API Portals and marketplaces in their continued guidance in the digital transformation journey,” said Ron Huber, Founder of Apiboost. “We see API productization as the key factor for these composable applications. The ability to group multiple APIs and assign them to internal and external teams is at the heart of a modern API Portal,” he added. Some of Apiboost’s capabilities include: API Product Optimizer: Allows the products and content on the site to be controlled at a Product Owner level. Product Owners can manage content associated with products, including the catalog description, blogs, videos, events, and forums. A Welcoming User Experience: Apiboost offers a user-friendly user experience out-of-the-box. It’s welcoming to both technical and non-technical users, encouraging collaboration and transparency across departments and teams. Team Builder: Enables the administrator to build teams and team members to collaborate and innovate on apps and products in a group environment. This powerful tool is great for assigning apps and products to departments, partners, and customers for effective development while securely exposing your data to only approved team members. *Gartner, “Quick Answer: How Can Existing Applications Participate In Composable Architecture?,” Yefim Natis, Shameen Pillai August 9 2021. Gartner subscribers can view the research here. Gartner Disclaimer GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. About Apiboost Apiboost is a ready-to-market portal solution supported by a complete set of digital transformation services. It is an easy-to-use, full-featured API portal to deploy APIs for internal and external use. The Apiboost team has worked with many Enterprise companies to realize their goals with a groundbreaking portal and digital solutions. Whether the need is for a simple and fast-to-market solution or a global, Federated divisional/regional approach, Apiboost can help your team find the right program. For more information, visit: https://www.apiboost.com/

Photo © iStock.com/metamorworks Apiboost was listed under the API Marketplaces section of the report San Diego, CA., September 9th — Apiboost, an enterprise API portal SaaS platform, has been recognized by Gartner as a Sample Vendor in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Unified Communications and Collaboration 2021. Apiboost is mentioned in the API Marketplaces category. Gartner Hype Cycle reports offer insights into the relative maturity of technologies operating within specific industries. Apiboost’s inclusion in the report highlights the value that Gartner’s analysts are assigning to APIs and API Marketplace within the communications industry. “By 2024, 80% of organizations will prioritize collaboration and meeting platforms over telephony when defining unified communications portfolio strategy,” Gartner mentions in the report. This means that organizations will require easier access to technologies that help facilitate easier collaboration, including APIs and API marketplaces. Apiboost’s listing a Sample Vendor underscores the value of the Apiboost platform and the impact of Developer portals and API Marketplaces in the communications industry. “We’re proud that Gartner has recognized Apiboost as an API marketplace and API portal solution for the communications sector. The report touched on a number of crucial trends driving the API economy forward, which in turn, is fuelling the need for impactful API portal and API marketplace solutions,” said Ron Huber, Founder of Apiboost. “External API marketplaces allow organizations to share APIs with a community of developers, including facilitating an ecosystem by enabling partners to implement solutions using their APIs,” mentioned Mark O'Neill, VP Analyst at Gartner. On the other hand, he continued, “internal API marketplaces help developers discover and share APIs between teams.” A key Apiboost feature is the Product Optimizer, which allows for APIs and any content associated with them to be productized. This enables products and content on the developer portals to be controlled at a Product Owner level, and dictates can manage content associated with products, including the description in the catalog, blogs, videos, events and forums. Another key Apiboost feature is the robust Team Builder, which enables administrators to build teams and gather team members to innovate on applications and products. This dynamic tool is great for assigning apps and products to departments, partners, and customers for effective development while securely exposing data to approved team members. Gartner, "Hype Cycle for Unified Communications and Collaboration, 2021," Pankil Sheth, Rafael Benitez, August 6, 2021. Gartner subscribers can view the full report here. Gartner Research Methodology, Gartner Hype Cycle, https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle Gartner Disclaimer Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Gartner and Hype Cycle are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. About Apiboost Apiboost is a ready-to-market portal solution supported by a complete set of digital transformation services. It is an easy-to-use, full-featured API portal to deploy APIs for internal and external use. The Apiboost team has worked with many Enterprise companies to realize their goals with a groundbreaking portal and digital solutions. Whether the need is for a simple and fast-to-market solution or a global, Federated divisional/regional approach, Apiboost can help your team find the right program. For more information, visit: https://www.apiboost.com/

Photo 145584446 / Banking © Wrightstudio | Dreamstime.com Apiboost was listed under the ‘API Marketplaces in Banking’ section of the report. San Diego, CA., September 6th — Apiboost, an enterprise API portal SaaS platform, has been identified by Gartner as a Sample Vendor in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Digital Banking Transformation 2021. Apiboost is mentioned in the API Marketplaces in Banking category. Gartner Hype Cycle reports “provide a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities”. Including Apiboost as a new entrant to the report this year shows that Gartner’s analysts are assigning a higher value to the importance of APIs and API Marketplace within the banking industry. “We’re proud that Gartner has recognized Apiboost as an API marketplace and API portal solution for the banking sector. The report touched on a number of crucial trends driving the API economy forward, which in turn, is fuelling the need for an impactful API Product Platform,” said Ron Huber, Founder of Apiboost. Listing Apiboost as a Sample Vendor underscores the value of the Apiboost platform and the impact of Developer portals and API Marketplaces in the banking industry. VP Analysts at Gartner, Don Free and Mark O'Neill explain that “API marketplaces empower organizations to share APIs.” This leads to several benefits for banks, “as registering APIs in marketplaces can increase developer visibility and consumer mind share.” However, while visibility is ideal it can sometimes lead to further challenges. In a recent case study, we can see how Apiboost was able to limit the growing pains a FinTech organization experienced while trying to expand their developer portal globally. With the implementation of a multi-tenant solution via Apiboost, their customers can have greater access to content, API’s and products across global regions, enabling the FinTech company to continue innovating and expanding. “An API marketplace can also facilitate ecosystem creation and is a critical enabler of composable business,” Gartner continued. “Increased use of low-code platforms, iPaaS, RPA and analytics tooling enables more citizen development, using APIs that may be sourced from API marketplaces.” Gartner, "Hype Cycle for Digital Banking Transformation, 2021," Alistair Newton, July 15, 2021. Gartner subscribers can view the full report here. Gartner Research Methodology, Gartner Hype Cycle, https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle Gartner Disclaimer Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Gartner and Hype Cycle are registered trademarks and service marks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved. About Apiboost Apiboost is a ready-to-market portal solution supported by a complete set of digital transformation services. It is an easy-to-use, full-featured API portal to deploy APIs for internal and external use. The Apiboost team has worked with many Enterprise companies to realize their goals with a groundbreaking portal and digital solutions. Whether the need is for a simple and fast-to-market solution or a global, Federated divisional/regional approach, Apiboost can help your team find the right program. For more information, visit: https://www.apiboost.com/