Business Scenarios TIBCO API Exchange can be used in a variety of business scenarios. This section describes several scenarios: • Enterprise API Governance • Partner API Gateway • Open API Community • Consumer API Gateway Enterprise API Governance Companies are significantly lowering development costs by using service-oriented architectures, with service encapsulation, reuse, and standardization of web APIs and tools. However, as service reuse and interdependencies between organizations increase, the challenge of assuring service performance also increases. Without controls, a single errant service consumer (an application) frequently impacts service quality for other applications, and even causes a cascade failure across an SOA environment. Changing APIs is impossible without complete knowledge of the applications that are using it. Even then, the API might need to be stable for the lifetime of the application or at least until the next upgrade. With many services, it can be difficult for enterprise developers to discover and learn about what services and APIs are available. In this scenario, TIBCO API Exchange provides an Application Services Governance role that does the following: • Tracks who has access • Sets limit thresholds • Monitors application KPIs • Looks at usage for capacity planning • Provides a collaborative API repository Using Enterprise API governance, companies achieve cost reduction and improved efficiency, with consistent service uptime and performance, and benefit from the central knowledge base of APIs. Partner API Gateway Increasingly API consumers (applications) are running outside of a company’s control. This might include mobile applications that are running on employee or customer devices and also partner-developed solutions. Although the internal and external partners are well known and application use cases are predefined, there is much lower trust, because not only are there erratic consumers, but there is also the potential for compromised systems and networks. Changing and documenting APIs is more difficult with developers working in different organizations on different timelines and on different business problems. In the partner API Gateway scenario, TIBCO API Exchange is used to open up business data and services to internal and external partners in a controlled and secure manner. TIBCO API Exchange does this in the following ways: • Protects against malicious or accidental attacks. • Sets usage limits by partner or application. • Routes requests to different services based on version or other context. • Maps external to internal protocols (for example, REST to SOAP, HTTP to JMS). • Creates and monitors custom SLAs. • Audits access. • Allows partners to manage developers and debug API usage. • Enables an Extranet to acts as a centralized API repository. With a partner API gateway, companies can lower the cost of onboarding new organizations and manage them more efficiently. With tighter partner integration, they can extend their digital value chain to take their business into new channels. Open API Community In an open API model we are encouraging third-party developers to create novel applications using our enterprise APIs. We do not know ahead of time which developers will succeed and what applications will be built, so it is important to make it easy for all developers to learn about and use APIs. Supporting hundreds and thousands of developers requires different approaches for API governance, security, performance, and partner and contract management. In this scenario TIBCO API Exchange supports the following: • No cost evaluation with self-service registration, evaluation and support • Monetization—the ability to track and meter API usage • A scalable platform on-premise and cloud • The ability to package SLAs as standardized product offerings • Use of OAuth for delegated access • Analysis of consumer and developer behavior • Opening up enterprise services as products Companies can inspire a developer community to create the next great application while gaining competitive advantage through innovation. An open API model fosters collaborative environments that drive successful open API initiatives. Consumer API Gateway As companies integrate services from third-party vendors, they face a number of challenges: • How to apportion access between multiple internal users? • How to change security policies without modifying business systems? • How to monitor vendor performance? In this scenario, TIBCO API Exchange allows an enterprise to mediate access to external web APIs. TIBCO API Exchange: • Multiplexes access to internal applications and employees • Apportions costs to different constituents - and enforce vendor-supplied limits • Measures vendor performance and cost • Standardizes security protocols, message formats, error handling, and caching • Logs access for audit Using an API consumer gateway, companies can implement sound internal cost management practices.
