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We live surrounded by APIs. On any level of our information system. We use them to improve and enhance our applications, they are provided by our partners so that we can integrate into them, we provide them so that they can use them...

We believe that with the right approach, APIs are fundamental for empowering employees and business lines, fostering the democratisation of IT, an aspect that also applies to partners and customers, allowing for the creation of new applications, services and business models.

Moreover, by launching APIs in the market, we want to make sure their reliability, stability and quality live up to the company’s business, as this is an extension of its image.

Through APIs, we turn the Internet into the platform for business, enabling models not even imagined at the time of their implementation, and enabling third parties to integrate them into their applications and devices, thus increasing the number of users and customers.

These APIs are digitally designed to be used in an agile, reliable, secure and monetised context. This monetisation of APIs and their product orientation greatly simplifies the creation and implementation of digital products and services, creating a kind of virtual API economy.

However, despite their growing demand, making a profit from APIs is no easy task. An API Management strategy is required to govern both the development and implementation of APIs and the management of their security, use, and payment for their use.

In fact, there are different types of API in any information system, at different levels and with different approaches. The most visible or relevant are those that make this new API economy possible in a purely digital context, although the other APIs that grant granular access to backend business functions and the way in which they are combined to serve these functions is also something that must be governed.

To guarantee governance in this ecosystem of APIs, it is essential to manage their life cycle, where deployment in an API Gateway and publication in an API Portal are particularly important:

• API Gateway: This is the piece responsible for protecting access to APIs. Policies that determine who can and cannot access are defined and implemented, monitoring use and streamlining product monetisation and improvement.
• API Portal: This is responsible for promoting and facilitating the use of APIs by the community of partners and developers. Documentation, examples, and even the chance to test the APIs are provided. It manages the registration of API users, providing them with the technical mechanisms for their use in productive environments.

We believe that the technologies are available, but the correct implementation of APIs in the different layers, the decoupling in the design of the internal components of the capacities they expose, and the strategy of governance and defining of policies applicable in run time are even more important than the underlying technological infrastructures themselves.