Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization
Leverage APIs to connect your systems in today’s web-based world.
- CIOs have trouble integrating new technologies (e.g. mobile, cloud solutions) with legacy applications, and lack standards for using APIs across the organization.
- Organizations produce APIs that are error-prone, not consistently configured, and not maintained effectively.
- Organizations are looking for ways to increase application quality and code reusability to improve development throughput using web APIs.
- Organizations are looking for opportunities to create an application ecosystem which can expose internal services across the organization and/or to external third parties and business partners.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Organizations are looking to go beyond current development practices to provide scalable and reusable web services.
- Web API development is a tactical competency that is important to enabling speed of development, quality of applications, reusability, innovation, and business alignment.
- Design your web API as a product that promotes speed of development and service reuse.
- Optimize the design, development, testing, and monitoring of your APIs incrementally and iteratively to cover all use cases in the long term.
Impact and Result
- Create a repeatable process to improve the quality, reusability, and governance of your web APIs.
- Define the purpose of your API and the common uses cases that it will service.
- Understand what development techniques are required to develop an effective web API based on Info-Tech’s web API framework.
- Continuously reiterate your web API to demonstrate to business stakeholders the value your web API provides.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
10.0/10
Overall Impact
$1,133,999
Average $ Saved
23
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Government of Bermuda
Guided Implementation
10/10
$1.13M
20
Good discussion with suggested tools and things to consider which is much needed to guide me to appropriate knowledge materials and guidance based ... Read More
Cross Country Mortgage, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
N/A
26
Great explanations and documentation. Easy to walk through meetings of discussion.
Arkansas Blue Cross Blue Shield
Guided Implementation
10/10
$2,089
1
This was just an open dialog about API best-practices but Robert pointed me to some info very quickly. Thanks. Technically, WebEx was pretty po... Read More
Delta Dental Washington
Guided Implementation
10/10
$12,776
20
The best part was the real use-case example discussed, the in-depth knowledge of the analyst and the enthusiasm. There were no worst parts
California Franchise Tax Board
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
I wish there had been a template around the process of dealing with external use APIs. I appreciated being backed up on my feeling that Agile doesn... Read More
Parsons Transportation Group Inc
Guided Implementation
1/10
N/A
5
Workshop: Develop APIs That Work Properly for the Organization
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Examine the Opportunities Web APIs Can Enable
The Purpose
- Gauge the importance of web APIs for achieving your organizational needs.
- Understand how web APIs can be used to achieve below-the-line and above-the-line benefits.
- Be aware of web API development pitfalls.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understanding the revenue generation and process optimization opportunities web APIs can bring to your organization.
- Knowledge of the current web API landscape.
Activities
Outputs
Examine the opportunities web APIs can enable.
Module 2: Design & Develop Your Web API
The Purpose
- Establish a web API design and development process.
- Design scalable web APIs around defined business process flows and rules.
- Define the web service objects that the web APIs will expose.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Reusable web API designs.
- Identification of data sets that will be available through web services.
- Implement web API development best practices.
Activities
Outputs
Define high-level design details based on web API requirements.
- High-level web API design.
Define your process workflows and business rules.
- Business process flow.
Map the relationships among data tables through ERDs.
- Entity relationship diagrams.
Define your data model by mapping the relationships among data tables through data flow diagrams.
- Data flow diagrams.
Define your web service objects by effectively referencing your data model.
- Identification of web service objects.
Module 3: Test Your Web API
The Purpose
- Incorporate APIs into your existing testing practices.
- Emphasize security testing with web APIs.
- Learn of the web API testing and monitoring tool landscape.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Creation of a web API test plan.
Activities
Outputs
Create a test plan for your web API.
- Web API Test Plan.
Module 4: Monitor and Continuously Optimize Your Web API
The Purpose
- Plan for iterative development and maintenance of web APIs.
- Manage web APIs for versioning and reuse.
- Establish a governance structure to manage changes to web APIs.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Implement web API monitoring and maintenance best practices.
- Establishment of a process to manage future development and maintenance of web APIs.
Activities
Outputs
Identify roles for your API development projects.
- RACI table that accommodates API development.
Develop governance for web API development.
- Web API operations governance structure.
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Speak With An Analyst
Get the help you need in this 4-phase advisory process. You'll receive 5 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation 1: Examine the opportunities web APIs can enable
- Call 1: Determine what value your web APIs offer.
Guided Implementation 2: Design and develop a web API
- Call 1: Develop a process for designing your web APIs to determine your endpoints.
- Call 2: Determine how to develop your web APIs with considerations made for how it will be consumed.
Guided Implementation 3: Test the web API
- Call 1: Develop a process for testing your web APIs.
Guided Implementation 4: Monitor and continuously optimize the web API
- Call 1: Develop a process for monitoring your web APIs for continuous optimization.
Contributors
- Ken Toole, Adobe
- Alan Page, Principal Software Engineer, Microsoft
- Ed Anuff, VP, Product Strategy, Apigee
- John Musser, Founder and CEO, API Science
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