IBM Software Thought Leadership White PaperAPI management is the SOA renaissanceConverging SOA and API management as a catalyst for business innovation and growth2 API management is the SOA renaissanceIntroductionA woman using a price comparison service while shopping at a supermarket or a teenager purchasing movie maker software for her iPad when visiting a friend are scenes that have become everyday occurrences in modern society. What has been called the nexus of forces by Gartner is the conf luence of mobile, social, cloud and big data analytics.1 These trends imply anexperience where context is everything and where important interactions are not only related to business transactions but can also be focused on building social relationships and collaborative ecosystems. Furthermore, interactions of interest to the business can and will happen between two third parties. As an example, think of the potential impact, positive or negative, of a YouTube video gone viral.Technologies such as mobile devices change the channel of interaction but more importantly mobile interactions happen in a different, here and now context. The mobile device is always at hand and is the preferred way of interacting with the world. Any information can be accessed while on the move and any friend can be contacted in real-time for advice. Interactions can also be asynchronous with information being pushed instead of pulled, even for classical types of information such as bank accountbalances. Furthermore, the growth of social media has created consumers who expect their opinions to matter and who are not shy of expressing those opinions publicly in social media. These characteristics change the scope of what is considered business relevant and change the ways in which interactions must be orchestrated, managed and monitored.Forrester and IBM have defined the term Systems of Interaction as the overarching concept for new-age business integration. Systems of Interaction help you drive more engag-ing applications and processes by seamlessly and intelligently integrating Systems of Engagement with Systems of Record, reaching all the way from the mobile device to corporate back- end systems.The case for mobileThe mobile use case deserves special consideration. Partially because of the obvious operational challenges in areas such as security and latency but more importantly, because of the busi-ness characteristics that are imbued in a differentiating mobile experience. Mobile users expect a quick response and are always on the move, often spending only a minute or two in a particular mobile app before moving on to something else. Consequently, mobile interactions must be personal to be even relevant and they must be immediately gratifying. Gone are the days where customer segmentation was sufficient to provide so-called per-sonalization. Modern users expect you to know who they are and what they need right in this moment.As part of the introduction of Systems of Interaction, IBM has suggested a framework for more engaging and innovative busi-ness processes.3 IBM SoftwareUsing a retail example, what if you could detect a customer walking down the street close to one of your stores and then enrich your understanding of the situation through knowledge of that customers previous buying behavior? Furthermore, what if you could perceive that this particular customer last night tweeted about going on a beach vacation soon and finally act by immediately sending a SMS with a promotion on swimwear? When all these steps take place within a few seconds, you will have created a differentiated and personalized experience that improves your chance of generating business and likely strength-ens your long-term relationship with this customer.SOA design principles and new business agendasThe nexus of forces drives new business agendas and informa-tion needs. But what drives the solution design to support busi-ness innovation? Service oriented architecture (SOA) design principles are a key enabler for building Systems of Interaction that are f lexible, robust and extensible at the same time. While historically a lot of focus within SOA initiatives has been on ser-vice reuse from a software perspective, in a business context more importantly, a service is an abstract representation of a repeatable business task.2A service as an abstract representation is important because it allows the service to be projected and accessed beyond the boundary of a physically controlled environment. A service as a representation of a business task is important for designingcollaborative business systems above and beyond pure software integration. Finally, the mediation that is an intrinsic part of the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) pattern and a fundamental build-ing block of SOA, supports intelligent pairing of consumersand providers of services, whether those consumers and provid-ers are software or people. This latter point is important. While in 2005 service mediation was mostly about format and protocol Detect Enrich Perceive Actopportunities toengage customers(and employees)interaction contextwith historical dataand trendsin-the-now dynamicinteraction context fromlocation, time, social mediaand other eventson the insight gainedthrough enrichment andperception to enable positivebusiness outcomesInteractions drive business innovation4 API management is the SOA renaissancetransformation in the context of IT transactions, in 2013 busi-ness mediation connects people, devices and processes in anecosystem that reaches outside the walls of the enterprise.The design principles that aid building such collaborative sys-tems must be broader than the criteria for what constitutes a well-designed service. IBM believes that the following SOA design principles are fundamental to building Systems of Interaction.3 Service orientation at the core. Think about business solutions in terms of interacting processes and services. Process integrity at internet scale. Ensure the integrity of interactions and information across time and location. Integration with enterprise capabilities and back-end systems. Provide a unified experience across channels and systems, using existing capabilities to drive new innovative processes. A basis in industry standards. A single player or vendor cannot dictate protocols or information standards. Platform for a growing ecosystem. As the business ecosys-tem grows beyond the walls of the enterprise, so does the ecosystem that delivers and manages business solutions. This last design principle is what the excitement regarding web APIs is all about; growing the development ecosystem beyond the enterprise as a means for extended business outreach.Growing the ecosystem beyond the enterpriseWhen mobile, social, cloud and big data analytics are joined, a set of key questions arise about the enterprise business model and the solutions that support it, including: Where do transactions happen? They can happen any where and any time, which is the essence of mobile and cloud. Who can inf luence your business? Your business can be inf luenced by any one that publishes an opinion, positive or negative, which is the impact of social media. Who can access your information? Your information can be accessed by any one that you can legally provide it to, whether in exchange for money, inf luence or improved relationships. Applying big data analytics to vast amounts of available information sources helps you provide differentiated value and insight, particularly in the context of the Internet of Things. What is an application? It is any piece of software that provides value, which includes mobile apps, software embed-ded in appliances or cars, cloud services and so on. Who is your developer? She can be any one that builds business solutions using your information or services. In an open ecosystem, often the developer is a person who is not employed by your own enterprise. Collectively, these statements represent a profound change not only in how solutions are delivered but also in what the business needs you to deliver.5 IBM SoftwareChannels: SmartphonesTabletsDesktopsCarsTVsOthersCapabilities for API and service consumersMarketplacesCapabilities for API and service providersCompositionIndustry acceleratorsSocial feedback and communitiesSecurity and platform manMain focus of 2005 SOA reference modelAPI & service design & integ API & service DevOpsAnalytics and meteringBusiness support systemsApp management and DevOpsMobile acceleratorsSelf-service portal: RegistrationDocumentationSandboxCloud / on-prem / hybrid hostingInternal developers Internal developers External developersServices:Data ProcessesApplications Cloud & 3rd party integrationReference modelAPI and service economyA popular online store and a popular social networking service, while adopting different business models, are both examples of early adopters of a computing model that is open by design, where the product is based on APIs and services projected into an extended ecosystem. Without its open merchant platform, the online store would not be the one stop shop for all kinds of goods and most likely, this store would not have become one of the dominant internet retail portals. Without the open interface to its communication servers, the social networking service could not have relied on a myriad of smart clients being provided at no cost by various open source communities and most likely, it would not have achieved the popularity that it has today. These two examples represent a trend spanning all industries where solutions are first and foremost designed for an open ecosystem, whether those solutions are deployed internally, externally or in a hybrid fashion. Mobile first and cloud first, two important concepts from this new age of computing, represent the need to design for a different experience and environment while still allowing solutions, where appropriate, to run within the enter-prise or through traditional channels.6 API management is the SOA renaissanceTo embrace an open ecosystem, deliver APIs as part of a busi-ness product and carefully promote and manage your external business persona, you require more than integration middleware.The elements of the original 2005 IBM SOA reference model remain important and are rendered in a compressed form as the bottom layer of the figure above. Having said that, those ele-ments on their own are not sufficient to address the needsarising from the API and service economy. While classical SOA middleware is focused on creating and managing software ser-vices, the other three types of capabilities for an API and service economy platform are the following: Designing and optimizing a business persona through the definition and management of easy-to-consume APIs Providing developer portals and participating in marketplaces to make potential consumers aware of your APIs and support onboarding and self-service in a controlled fashion Making the consumption of APIs as easy as possible, including supporting uniform hybrid composition spanning a multitude of providers, environments and technologies Many of these capabilities are well known in isolation but must be integrated in new ways. Other elements require fundamental innovation and a different approach to delivery.API management as the SOA renaissanceWhen innovation is required, you are often tempted to start with a blank piece of paper yet this time you cannot afford to do so. While it is true that business models are fundamentally changing, implementation continues to require robust integra-tion of people, processes and software, only now at a much grander scale and an even higher speed. SOA and API Management are inextricably linked and neither is whole with-out the other. API management delivers the business centricity and business model that many SOA initiatives have historically lacked. SOA delivers the experience and engineering discipline that drives more effective API design and provides robust inte-gration to systems of record. All APIs are services but not all APIs are well-designed services.IBM believes that API management is the SOA renaissance. Far from being an alternative to SOA, API management, in fact, builds upon and extends the reach of the fundamental principles of SOA. But if API management is an extension of SOA, then why do people say things like SOA is yesterdays news, APIs are the future or API management is completely different from SOA and SOA will bog you down? From IBMs perspective, such statements are a classical case of myth making in the wake of a new industry trend. Rarely is a new concept so disruptive that it does not build on the principles and technologies that came before it. With that in mind, consider below some impor-tant examples of the myths about SOA and API management.Myth: API management is completely different from SOA and SOA will bog you down. At a technical level, more similarities than differences exist between API management and SOA. In fact, at the foundation of an effective API is a well-designed service. Some of the most important parts of an API are its interface, the business task that it represents and the associated business contract, which are all key elements of a service definition.7 IBM SoftwareMyth: SOAP is dead, APIs are always RESTIt is true that most modern APIs are based on REST/JSON rather than SOAP. However, the use of REST/JSON rather than SOAP does not mean that there is no use for the formalismof SOAP; merely that such formalism is not necessary for human-based consumption of APIs and services. In machine-to- machine communication or when using formalized composition tools, SOAP still has plenty of uses. Choose the right binding fothe purpose; there are good reasons why the industry has invented more than one option.Myth: API management is SOA governance re-branded While there is some truth to this statement, in its totality it is a myth as well. APIs have product nature and therefore, APIs mustbe managed as products. SOA governance is less concerned withproductization of assets than it is concerned with determining and governing the process of creating an effective portfolio of reusable assets in the first place. In that fashion, API manage-ment and classical SOA governance are highly synergistic.Myth: No governance is needed with API management, which allows companies to innovate fasterLack of governance might allow you to create API products faster but it also makes you lose control a lot faster . APIs that make up your companys external persona are an important part of your product portfolio and must be managed as such with clear ownership and responsibilities. That said, governance should be lighter for an API than for the typical lifecycle of a back-end software service.Myth: APIs are not versioned That is like saying that the sun does not shine. Obviously, dis-ruptive changes do happen and when they do, you must handle them appropriately. Claiming that you do not need versioning merely means that you are making consumers of an API figure r out the versioning themselves. With that said, because APIs in many ways are business products, you should reduce version churn by only defining and publishing a new official version when an update is not backwards compatible. Versioning is still needed but you must version wisely.ConclusionBottom line, API management is a natural extension of SOA. API management appropriately refocuses on the business aspects of human and software interactions. While business centricity was always part and parcel of the idea behind SOA, the business angle in practice often got lost in technology. The advent of APIs enables you to separate the business concerns of making an API a successful product from the IT concerns of providing the service that implements the API. The journey from IT-centric web services to business-centric API management is not only appropriate but also necessary for enterprises that build Systems of Interaction extending beyond their enterprise walls.Effective API management solutions provide you with not only the ability to define an API but also more importantly, the ability to project that API into an ecosystem that the enterprise cannot effectively reach through its own end user solutions. Therefore, API management has additional focus on the developer experi-ence and the business model, beyond the portfolio of reusable service assets.The business advantage of bringing SOA and API management together is that this approach provides a deep and robust inte-gration all the way from the Internet of Things to enterprise back-end systems. Furthermore, the integration is done in a fashion that can generate new business insight and opportunities through in-f light combination of historical knowledge and situa-tional context. These are the characteristics that businesses must look for when establishing their new-age computing platform. Please RecycleFor more informationTo learn more about the SOA and API management please con-tact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or visit the following website: ibm.com/soaAdditionally, IBM Global Financing can help you acquirethe software capabilities that your business needs in the most cost-effective and strategic way possible. Well partner with credit-qualified clients to customize a financing solution tosuit your business and development goals, enable effective cash management, and improve your total cost of ownership. Fund your critical IT investment and propel your business forward with IBM Global Financing. 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IBM products are warranted according tothe terms and conditions of the agreements under which they are provided.1http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/nexus-of-forces/2http://www.opengroup.org/soa/source-book/ontology/3For details download SOA Design Principles for Dummies from https://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/iwm/web/signup.do?source=sw- app&S_PKG=ov1152&S_TACT=109KA8GW&S_CMP=web_ibm_xx_soa_bdWSW14217-USEN-00