Do you want to maximize the performance of your API ecosystem while also enhancing visibility, control and security? Then it’s time to implement centralized API management. Let us walk you through what it is and how you can benefit from it.
What is a centralized API?
Centralized APIs are managed centrally through a platform, with security, governance and other management elements undertaken at the platform level.
You can take a centralized integration approach for any type of API: REST, SOAP, gRPC, GraphQL and so on. Just ensure the platform you choose works with the types of APIs you have, along with other elements of your architecture.
With a centralized architecture, you manage everything through a single central platform. This enables you to streamline API design, deployment, security, governance and monitoring across the organisation.
Benefits of centralized APIs
A centralized API structure provides:
- Outstanding visibility into the entire API program through monitoring and analytics, driving better business decision-making
- Consistent security, design, versioning, documentation, testing and more
- Greater reusability
- Improved collaboration
- Easier API discovery
- Faster time to market
- Expanded monetization opportunities.
Centralized API management can also make it easier to meet regulatory requirements.
Do you need a centralized or decentralized architecture?
Opting for a decentralized architecture gives individual teams greater autonomy to manage their own APIs. This can enable better design and deployment flexibility for each team. It also avoids having a single point of failure.
However, the lack of standardization and difficulty in scaling and monitoring decentralized architectures means that many larger businesses find a centralized platform to be a more efficient approach.
How to design a centralized API architecture
A centralized API architecture means you can establish API design standards and best practices that apply to all APIs. This means you can bring consistency to naming conventions, data formats, versioning and more. Factor in:
- API design principles. Good design starts with good API modelling and clarity over what your API needs to achieve and why. That means understanding specific needs, use cases and business and resource requirements. This is true in individual API design and your centralized architecture.
- API versioning strategies. A solid versioning strategy is essential for managing a single API product or multiple APIs. Ensure your internal development processes are aligned with a strategic approach that considers customer needs and pain points. Centralizing your approach to versioning and applying consistency can help smooth the process significantly.
- API testing. Centralized API architectures can bring consistency to your testing processes, providing a unified testing interface and integrated testing tools for greater efficiency. Including monitoring and debugging tools in centralized systems, along with automation, can make it easier to identify and troubleshoot problems.
How to implement and manage a centralized API architecture
First, define your goals – what you need to achieve and why. Then choose an API management platform that suits your needs. Different platforms have different offerings in terms of scalability, security, developer portal usability and support for open standards and features, such as OpenAPI and OpenTelemetry.
The following considerations need careful thought:
- API security: You can implement robust, standardized security at the platform level while enabling each API to be developed independently. This gives developers headroom to innovate alongside consistent security and governance.
- API performance optimization: Centralize your approach to load balancing, caching, content compression, traffic shaping and rate limiting while optimizing routing, using connection pooling, offloading authentication and authorization from backend services and more.
- API monitoring and analytics: Oversight of everything, from API usage to performance, puts you in a powerful position to make decisions on everything from monetization to performance improvements. Leading API management platforms will deliver easy integration with API monitoring and analytics tools for full insight.
- API troubleshooting and maintenance: Act fast to troubleshoot and solve issues efficiently. Monitoring and alerts can help you identify bottlenecks and investigate any anomalies.
- API documentation: A centralized platform typically includes a repository for API documentation, making it more accessible, consistent and up to date. It makes documentation version control easier and, with the proper search and navigation functionality, can make it faster for developers to find the information they need.
Finally, remember that costs can differ massively, so be sure to find an API management platform that suits your budget, both now and as you scale.
Conclusion
By centralizing your API management, you can enhance visibility, security and control, as well as the performance of your API ecosystem. By designing and implementing centralized management as we’ve outlined above, you’ll be taking a major step forward in implementing a successful API strategy.
Hungry for more? Then check out our helpful posts on API strategy.
