Systems | Development | Analytics | API | Testing

Matt and I are out in Los Angeles this week for KubeCon 2021 this week. At the GitOpsCon event Tuesday we were excited to attend this Kubernetes session: GitOps in the Real World: Opportunities for Developer Experience Improvement

With tech constantly innovating, various tools and software need to be able to work simultaneously. API's are what makes this possible. The API provides software with a way to interact and communicate. This is how different applications connect, whether it's two internal apps or integrating an app into another company's platform. However, with APIs, as in any software integration, many challenges are likely to arise. To mitigate these challenges, an API management strategy should be in place.

An API essentially paly the role of a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Every time you use an application like Facebook, send an instant message, or check the weather on your phone, you are using an API. The API is more than middleware however — it’s grown into an innovative business concept that can transform your business and digital strategy. When using APIs though, there are a variety of mistakes that developers can make.

Microservices are a style of architecture used by many organizations for software development. In the past, the IT industry used monolithic or service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions as the standard. However, the lack of dynamic scalability of this type of architectural system is no longer adequate for the increasing complexity of today’s infrastructures. Microservices addresses this by providing a highly agile and scalable alternative.

The inner workings of an API gateway request can be difficult to understand because of its scale. To provide some orientation, we will use the real world as a reference, from planet-spanning infrastructure to a person eating a chocolate bar (processing a server response in a plugin). This series will divide the abstraction space of how Kong Gateway processes requests into four different layers.

In the last blog, we discussed the challenges in managing APIs at scale in a Kubernetes environment. We also discussed how deploying a Kubernetes Ingress Controller or an API gateway can help you address those challenges. In this blog, we will briefly touch upon some of the similarities and differences between an API gateway and Kubernetes Ingress. We will also discuss a unique approach offered by Kong for the end-to-end lifecycle API management (APIM) in Kubernetes.

The world of business is increasingly becoming more dependent on APIs. For companies looking to take advantage of the latest technologies to improve their own business, it makes sense to start building a solid framework around API. Here are 13 reasons why you should be investing in APIs for your business.