There has been massive adoption of Web APIs, and many stats and commentary exist around API exposure and business models - but what about API integration? This presentation will take a look at the challenges that exist around integration in 2017, looking at data we’ve collected from a large variety of enterprise cloud apps. We’ll look at some of the trends we are seeing among service providers that ease the developer burden and make some recommendations to ensure the APIs we’re building today are fit for purpose tomorrow.

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State of the Union
API Integration
API Days SF - July 12 2017

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HELLO
SAY
ROSS GARRETT .
Head of Product Marketing
Cloud Elements
@gssor

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WHY THIS TOPIC?
Focus on how the growth in APIs has had an
impact on the growing demand for connectivity.
To determine how well APIs are optimized for integration.

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@gssor
WHY THIS TOPIC?
Focus on how the growth in APIs has had an
impact on the growing demand for integration.
To determine how well APIs are optimized for integration.
connectivity

5. Authenticate Discover
Custom Objects
Map &TransformEvents &
Polling
Workflows
CONNECTING
TO THE API
Bulk
Error
Handling
INTEGRATING
WITH THE API

6. Authenticate Discover
Custom Objects
Map &TransformEvents &
Polling
Workflows
CONNECTING
TO THE API
BulkError
Handling
INTEGRATING
WITH THE API

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METHODOLOGY
DATA COLLECTION
Data collected between September 2016 - March 2017 .
PRIMARY SOURCE: Cloud Elements Platform of APIs
- 165 Public Apps and Services
- 28,000 Integration Instances
- 1.6 Billion API Calls
Complementary Research from:
- SmartBear State of API Report 2016
- Datanyze Market Share Reports of 2016
- ProgrammableWeb API Directory - Growth in Web APIs 2005 - 2016

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GROWTH
OF APIs
PART 1

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PROLIFERATION
OF PUBLIC APIs
757% .
Increase in Web APIs
January 2010 - January 2016

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“… remarkable percentage
of SOAP APIs out there
that can’t be ignored - at
least 15% based on our
experience.

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CATEGORY LEADERS
Futureproof your application for current and
entering market leaders.
CLOUD STORAGE . ECOMMERCE .CRM . MARKETING .

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CHALLENGES
AND OPPORTUNITIES
PART 2

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Enterprises have over 1,031 internal cloud services. Of
those enterprises, 39% want easier integration between the
tools they already use.
THE BIGGESTCHALLENGES IN API TECHNOLOGY
SMARTBEAR STATE OF API REPORT 2016
https://smartbear.com/resources/ebooks/state-of-api-survey-report-2016/

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CHALLENGE #1
- Authentication

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AUTHENTICATION
FACTOR IN SECURITY
OVER 59% .
of APIs are using an
authentication mechanism that is
not OAUTH2.
OAUTH2 is preferred mechanism for
token-based access.

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CHALLENGE #2
- Documentation

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DOCUMENTATION
DO YOUR DEVELOPERS LOVE YOUR

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CHALLENGE #3
- Data Discovery

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“
58% OF ENDPOINTS SUPPORT
SOME METADATA DISCOVERY
One caveat to this research is that it’s
heavily weighted by the custom
integrations provided by Cloud Elements.
It’s natural for us to support cooperative
endpoints.
Our sense that industry-wide, less than
15% of endpoints actually support
discovery.

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CHALLENGE #3
- Status / Error Codes

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STATUS CODES
WE CAN DO BETTER WITH

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HTTP STATUS RANGES:
1xx: Hold Please
2xx: Great Success
3xx: Go Away!
4xx: You Screwed Up
5xx: We Screwed Up
HTTP 299: Disappointed -
The server has accepted your request but
thinks you can do better

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CHALLENGE #4
- Bulk Data Support

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42%
of APIs support bulk

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“Enterprise users are often dealing with vast data
lakes that need to be synchronized, analyzed,
migrated, or even shared. Application providers
must think carefully about the functionality they
offer to handle this scale of data.

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CHALLENGE #5
- Eventing Support

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PERILS OF POLLING
BEWARE THE

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Polling is NOT a solution for event-driven apps

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EIGHTY PERCENT OF DEVELOPERS PREFER TO
USE WEBHOOKS OVER OTHER METHODS

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yet only
29%
of Applications
actually support
webhooks

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CHALLENGE #6
- Versioning

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WEB API VERSIONING
URI Versioning
Content Negotiation
Custom Request Header
URI Parameter Versioning

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ULTIMATELY YOUR
INTEGRATION IS BROKEN

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SCORECARD
API CALCULATOR
PART 3

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#StateofAPI
Integration
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AUDIENCE
QUESTIONS?
END