Maximizing API Development with the Power of Platform Engineering

Source: DevopsDigest

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Filipe Torqueto
Head of Solutions Architecture at Sensedia

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Platform Engineering is not new. However, as API management becomes more critical and complicated, connecting the world, platform engineering is also evolving to be a vital component of modern digital business. API developers play a crucial role in creating, managing, and scaling APIs to meet the demands of their organizations and customers. What should developers understand about the current state of platform engineering?

API Complexity Necessitates a Strong Platform

Managing APIs and their integration is extremely complex and a vital part of the development lifecycle. Various flavors of APIs, such as REST, GraphQL, and gRPC, pose different management requirements for developers. No matter where your API is exposed, applying the same set of quality and governance rules is essential.

Multi-gateway strategy and platform engineering keep the management in a single platform experience. Imagine one gateway handling your internal traffic, another handling your external traffic, and having more than one gateway handling your external traffic. Envision your experience as a developer, facing a different UI, a different way to do things, a different management perspective, and a different set of governance policies.

How do you unify everything and consistently manage API governance and security within the development cycle? Applying security rules for one API could expose another, and that's not a situation you want to experience.

Should you encrypt or not?

Is there PII data?

What about rate limiting, spike arrest, logging, and auditing?

Developers can lose control quickly. Multi-gateway strategy and platform engineering bring everything within the same platform as a centralized way to manage APIs.

Ensuring seamless API integration, security, and governance is crucial, and platform engineering serves as a foundation for developers to streamline API integration, enhance security, and enforce governance.

Platform engineering has been evolving over the years to cater to the changing landscape of API management and integration. From service-oriented architectures to the emergence of APIs and integration boards, the focus has shifted towards platform engineering enablers. API platforms continuously evolve to adapt to new technologies and trends, emphasizing the need for a unified platform experience.

Developers are tasked to provide seamless integration and scalability. This expectation has driven the evolution of platform engineering in API development. As organizations transitioned from traditional service-oriented architectures to API-centric approaches, the focus shifted towards adopting API management and integration platforms. Platform engineering has become a key enabler for developers to support organizations' expectations to accelerate digital transformation initiatives and drive innovation in API ecosystems.

For instance, consider a complex business looking to enhance its digital ecosystem and architecture. This company will face challenges in scaling its operations and integrating various services such as payment processing, inventory management, and user authentication. By implementing an API management platform, the company centralizes its API development, documentation, and monitoring processes, while abstracting the complexities of the non-functional requirements the APIs require. This not only enhances the scalability of its services but also streamlines the integration between the diverse digital ecosystem.

As a result, developers have the right tools to help the company deploy new features faster, improve customer experience, and handle increased traffic during peak seasons without compromising performance. This practical example illustrates how platform engineering in API development allows developers to more easily address real-world challenges, driving efficiency and innovation in their organizations’ complex digital ecosystems.

Multi-Gateway Strategy to the Rescue!

The multi-gateway strategy enhances platform engineering and enables organizations to address the challenges of managing multiple API gateways, documentation, cloud vendors, and tools with a centralized approach. Developers can ensure consistency in quality and governance across different contexts. The flexibility and control offered by the multi-gateway strategy keep the APIs healthy and secured inside the platform before they're exposed.

Once you expose your APIs, the platform will give you updated documentation, version control, and everything you need, streamlined, so your customers are happy too. A strong multi-gateway strategy centralizes operations and supports all parties and API operations using different API types, gateways, audiences, and governance documentation. A good platform allows you to implement an omnichannel strategy, scale faster, and have more time to focus on developing.

What Makes a Good Platform?

When considering investing in an API management platform, everything depends on the needs of the business and developers. Creating the initial APIs is easy, but maintenance and consumption can become difficult — version changes, new security issues, more integrations, more exposed APIs, and up-to-date documentation. This maintenance must all be done while keeping consumer protection, support, and satisfaction front and center.

APIs are not just technical assets but also business assets, and when properly managed, they provide critical data and information. They serve multiple channels (web, mobile, etc.) and offer insights such as customer behavior and regional usage patterns. When managed properly, APIs should be scalable and adapt to the organization's growing and evolving needs. Organizations prioritizing platform engineering principles experience higher efficiency, reduced maintenance overhead, and improved developer productivity. Having the right platform is essential.

Platform features are like ice cream; they come in many flavors, but there are some basics all great platforms should offer. Here are some essential features to look for:

■ Security Capabilities: Ensure the platform provides basic security capabilities out-of-the-box, along with robust security for outflow, such as encryption, certificates, and, if needed, MTLS. It should also support securely handling personally identifiable information (PII).

■ Analytics: The platform should offer analytics capabilities to monitor API performance, detect issues, and act proactively in case of any incidents.

■ Non-Functional Requirements: The platform should make it easy to enforce non-functional requirements like rate limiting, spike arrest, and IP filters without extensive coding.

■ User Control and Access Management: The platform should support auditing, user control, and role-based access to manage who has access to what within the platform.

■ Ease of Use: Look for a platform that simplifies developers' tasks and provides solutions for common challenges like authentication and rate limiting.

■ Support for Different Types of APIs: Depending on your needs, consider platforms that offer support for various types of APIs and provide advanced testing capabilities.

Here are some final thoughts.

As the API development landscape continues to evolve, developers must be intentional in their approach to platform engineering. Using the right service providers and platforms empowers them to build secure, scalable, and efficient APIs. Platform engineering is crucial for navigating the complexities of API management and integration. By incorporating these principles and investing in robust platform solutions, developers can streamline processes, ensure security and governance, and unlock new opportunities. Staying ahead in the dynamic world of API
development requires embracing platform engineering.

A multi-gateway strategy combined with a platform engineering approach offers a comprehensive, scalable, and secure method to manage APIs across different contexts and gateways. Centralizing API management, governance, and documentation through the right platform allows developers to efficiently handle integration complexities, enabling businesses to leverage APIs as valuable assets for operational and strategic insights.

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