Apis, also known as application programming interfaces, are structures provided in programming languages that allow developers to create complex functionality more easily. They abstract away more complex code and provide some simple syntax to use.
Microservices architecture is a new technology for deploying applications and services in the cloud. Microservices do not need to be a separate feature or a separate resource like regular services. According to the definition, microservices need to match business capabilities. As a new technology to deploy applications and services in the cloud, microservice has become the latest hot topic. But most of the debate around microservices has focused on whether containers or other technologies can implement microservices well, and we think apis should be the focus.
This article focuses on how to educate business executives about the value of apis and microservices, how to transform a single legacy application into microservices and apis, and how to organize your team around apis and microservices.
How can executives understand the value of apis and microservices?
There are two main ways. First, few business executives generally understand the investment business value of apis and microservices platforms, and therefore few can successfully understand the abstract value of apis and microservices architectures. Still, most people can understand interdependent business investment strategies. In this case, analysis larger than a single project is required to identify the known mix of business change initiatives that are likely to drive business change and the industry pressures that are motivating those changes. Evaluate and compare the cost and time value of responding to these changes with or without apis and microservices.
In other words, elevate the conversation to the portfolio level, where apis and microservices synergies have the greatest impact, and speak in business change investment terms, not architectural value terms. Second, some business plans have built-in API value that can be sold separately. For example, if a company’s goal is to improve the order fulfillment process across multiple channels (for example, mobile, web, kiosk, direct partner integration), apis are the best technical approach to achieving consistent customer experience and business process results regardless of which channel the order comes from. In this case, the API should be the recommended default architecture, and non-API approaches should not be discussed.
How do you convert a single legacy application into microservices and apis?
We must be careful not to jump too quickly into transforming legacy application policies. To illustrate this, it helps to make a clear distinction between apis and microservices. With apis, we can quickly build business apis to access the business transactions and data hidden in legacy applications by leveraging the modernization and integration tools available for various legacy systems and applications. In addition, the high cost of overall structure transformation can be avoided and digital transformation needs can be met by significantly improving the user and employee experience, not to mention API-based business process optimization and B2B integration. This approach is most valuable when the legacy business rules and data are largely aligned with the future needs of the business.
But when business dynamics require changes within traditional applications, it is time to peel off the legacy application “blocks” and transform them into microservices architectures. Each “block” will be provided with a tight set of business functions (that is, a single business function) and a business API associated with that function. Gradually, the legacy code behind each “block” will be replaced by modular, individually deployable microservice components.
How do you organize your team around apis and microservices?
The primary organizational structure of the API and microservices teams should be around business functions. Answered a question on how to integrate legacy applications into business functions “block”, then each business function (for example, order fulfillment, billing, inventory, etc.) will be the team to deliver software products (single team may have one or more of the business ability), the team responsible for developing service business of the API provided by the business functions at the same time, It is also responsible for translating the business capabilities of these apis into microservices. The advantage is that other teams using the API don’t have to care if the business API is supported by microservices, legacy systems and application integration, or any other implementation method, all of which are the responsibility of the business capability team. In addition, each enterprise can have a center of excellence for building apis and microservices (or, more broadly, for cloud native solution architectures) to establish collaborative design and governance models to promote and optimize business API business alignment. Finally, organizations can form different types of specialized technical API teams, such as integration or infrastructure API teams.