Yes, APIs are taking over the world. But are they new? Yes and no. APIs have existed as long as I can remember, because that is the way any software component exposes its data and services to other software components. But it has always been pretty difficult stuff to deal with. Then came the app and web developers who wanted an easier way to get what they needed to build the next killer app. And what do they know best, the protocols that made Internet as big as it is now: HTTP. Especially REST APIs have become big because of its stateless characteristics. Although great for external APIs and for some cases for internal integration, REST APIs are not fit for any job. Just like doing home construction with a full toolset, integration remains a craft where the right pattern or technique should be applied for the right integration job. Exchanging nanosecond transactions where keeping state is important doesn’t really work well over http. Also, doing complex mappings on your API management platform is generally not a good idea. And REST APIs can become chatty when set up too granular, and because of their request/reply nature. I’ve noticed many times that companies see API management and application integration as synonyms, focusing all their integration plans on setting up an API management platform. Maybe they do this because API management is new and seen as a way to get rid of the complexity of traditional application integration. But I am afraid API management is not the silver bullet that makes integration easy and straightforward. Application integration is still a vital capability of your organization and please treat it as such. And no, with application integration I don’t mean implementing a classical Enterprise Service Bus architecture. If you have the opportunity to set up a new integration strategy, please look into event-based microservices architecture with a shared logging and streaming infrastructure, such as Apache Kafka.
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