The digital transformation movement in business is no longer a pin on the map; it’s the road beneath your tires.
As a result, organizations have awakened to the transformative benefits of integrating and automating their enterprise-level processes and workflows, but the vehicle they’re using in their journey—an iPaaS—may not make the distance.
You see, when the iPaaS is the vehicle, it has only one driver: the specialized individual (typically working in business technology) who knows the minutiae of how it operates and how to troubleshoot it when it doesn’t. Not to mention, with just one driver, the organization will need to pull over at every other rest stop to provide the employee with relief. This interrupts productivity and leaves the employee burned out and eating cheese balls behind the wheel at 3am. Any opportunity for innovation just flew out the window.
So, it’s time for organizations to start driving the right vehicle: an integration-led automation platform; one with all the power of a traditional iPaaS, and also the capabilities for scale, usability across business lines, and reliability.
Among the central features that make an integration-led automation platform successful is the method through which the platform, and its many dynamic APIs, is managed. Whereas the iPaaS could be governed only by its specific BT driver, the beauty of the integration-led automation platform is that its API management platform makes it possible for the employee in BT to let their colleagues—who work in roles within RevOps, for instance—take the wheel.
Here, we’ll define API management, describe its components, and share the benefits your organization will enjoy with a powerful API management platform.
What Is API Management?
API management, or APIM, refers to the organization’s process of creating, distributing, controlling, troubleshooting, and analyzing its application programming interfaces. These capabilities are centralized in a secure interface that’s accessible to entities across the organization—otherwise known as an API management platform.
Ultimately, effective API management allows organizations to monitor and adjust their APIs at scale while also ensuring that the APIs they produce are functional and secure.
Related: Everything you need to know about API development
The Components of an API Management Platform
A single API evolves in stages, forms multiple connections, and requires maintenance over its entire lifecycle. Now, add to that single API dozens more, and it becomes clear that you need the right tools to manage your collection.
These four key components are the tools the API management system uses to optimize the performance of your APIs:
API gateway
An API gateway serves as the portal through which any requests for access to systems, services, or apps—via APIs—must pass.
As the single point-of-entry, it also regulates the terms of an API interaction and enforces protocols to guarantee the security of API connections. As it becomes more necessary for organizations to grow the number of apps and partnerships with developers, it’s important to recognize how such an expansion exposes them to security vulnerabilities. Thus, this function of an API gateway is the most important piece of API management.
In addition to providing security, an API gateway acts as a sort of call center for the API management platform. The gateway will receive all incoming requests—for example, rate limits and billing—and then route them through the API management system to be resolved.
API developer portal
An API developer portal is a central hub where API providers share everything consumers need to understand, integrate, and interact with their APIs. It plays a key role in API adoption and supports collaboration between providers and consumers throughout the API lifecycle.
At the core of the developer portal is the API documentation, which offers detailed guidance on how to integrate with and use the API. This basically includes endpoint descriptions, request and response formats, authentication steps, and usage examples.
Other features of the developer portal are:
- Self-service onboarding – Developers can sign up, generate API keys, and start testing without waiting for manual approval.
- Interactive testing tools – Some portals often include tools like Swagger UI or Postman collections that let users try out API calls directly in the browser.
- Access control and usage limits – Portals may let users manage access tokens, monitor rate limits, or view usage statistics.
- Support resources – Many portals include FAQs, community forums, or contact options for technical support.
Related: The different types of API testing
Reporting and analytics
The ability to collect, analyze, and apply data is a major feature of any successful digital-reliant enterprise. It’s also really difficult to do when you have a robust ecosystem of applications and services that each have their own, distinct metrics tools. An API management platform aggregates all of the data for all APIs within the ecosystem. It sometimes also displays it in an easy-to-navigate dashboard.
Not only is the organization able to monitor metrics such as daily usage of APIs or API response times, but it can also track trends over time in areas such as the rate of reported bugs with an API or the popularity of API methods. This informs consequential decision-making for not only the organization’s API collection, but also for how they operate as a business.
API lifecycle management
It’s not feasible for a single, specialized department to be responsible for all of your API’s lifecycle stages, from design to development to testing to deployment to operation to retirement. Monitoring and manually adjusting your organization’s APIs is an enormous task. The automated lifecycle management does the work with far greater speed and accuracy and is never in need of a morale boost at the end of the day!
Creating an Effective API Strategy
APIs are the backbone of modern software systems. They connect services, enable integrations, and drive innovation across industries. However, without a clear strategy, even well-built APIs can be underutilized and fall short in adoption.
Here’s how to build an API strategy that aligns with business goals and consumer needs:
1. Define your API goals
To begin with, start by clarifying the purpose of your APIs. Are they intended for internal teams, partner integrations, or public use? Your goals will shape key decisions around design, security, and how developers interact with the API.
2. Choose the Right API Architecture
The ideal API architecture is the one that fits how your users interact with your service and aligns with your business goals. Your architecture affects how scalable and developer-friendly your APIs will be. For example, REST is widely used and easy to understand, while GraphQL works well for flexibility or more complex needs.
3. Prioritize Developer Experience
An API is only as successful as its adoption, so it’s crucial to make the process of integrating and interacting with your API seamless for developers. To achieve this, you should provide clear, interactive documentation and offer self-service onboarding through developer portals. You can also include SDKs and sandbox environments to enable developers to test and integrate the API quickly.
4. Monitoring API Performance
To measure the performance of your API, track key metrics such as API usage, traffic trends, integration time for partners or users, and the revenue or business impact generated. These insights help you see what’s working and where your team needs to improve.
The Top Benefits of API Management
Now that you know what API management is, how it works, and how to create an effective strategy, let’s cover what makes it essential for any organization utilizing APIs.
1. Agility
You need to be able to change quickly with nimble systems that can flex to those changes. The API management solution allows you to easily create, share, monitor, and adjust your APIs without unnecessary costs or undue loss of productivity—both of which help your organization stay competitive long term.
Related: Why API integration is critical
2. Workflow automation
Centralizing and connecting your APIs provides the groundwork for streamlining tasks across workflows— whether it’s employee onboarding, quote-to-cash, incident management, etc. This allows individuals and teams to save time and focus more on business-critical tasks that, ultimately, deliver greater value for the business.
3. Data-driven growth
While the API management platform gives you full control over the present and end-to-end operations of your APIs, it also powers strategic decision-making informed by its extensive analytics tools. Moreover, since the data is presented in a way that’s widely accessible, more employees can apply it in the hopes of driving innovation and growth.
4. Security
While more APIs typically mean better business outcomes, don’t celebrate just yet. First, you need to ensure that the legion of APIs is secure. An API management platform allows you to control access to and use of your APIs to ensure that your customers and your company are protected.
Related: The benefits and drawbacks of using a REST API
Security Best Practices in API Management
APIs power many of the critical systems and data flows in an organization, which makes them an attractive target for attacks. That’s why security needs to be built into every layer of your API management approach to address these vulnerabilities. Here are some essential security practices:
1. Zero Trust Architecture
Adopt a zero-trust model where no request is trusted by default. Every interaction, regardless of its origin, must be verified before access is granted.
2. Data Encryption
Protect sensitive data both in transit and at rest by using encryption methods. Enforce HTTPS for all data you exchange over the network, and apply encryption algorithms when you store sensitive data on servers.
3. Use Strong Authentication
Control who can access your APIs by using secure authentication methods like OAuth, API keys, or JWTs (JSON Web Tokens). In addition, use multi-factor authentication (MFA) where possible for extra protection.
4. Rate Limiting and Throttling
Protect your API from abuse and denial-of-service (DoS) attacks by setting rate limits and throttling. This helps you limit user or service requests within specific timeframes.
5. Validate Input
Always validate API inputs to prevent injection attacks (e.g., SQL injection, cross-site scripting). Ensure data matches the expected types and formats before your system processes it.
Ready to Adopt an Enterprise-Grade API Management Platform?
Workato, the leader in integration-led automation, provides an API management platform that allows your organization to manage the full lifecycle of APIs for both internal teams and external partners.
Workato combines its powerful management tool with a welcoming UI experience that’s both extensive in its capabilities and intuitive in how it’s used.
To learn more about the platform, you can request a demo from one of our automation experts!
