The ‘API-led-Connectivity’ is the buzzword in the industry, especially if you are into the integration domain with API-led integration platforms like MuleSoft. This alluring buzzword claims to connect and expose the organization’s access, and deliver the integrations at speed and reuse.

What exactly does API-led-Connectivity do?

API-led-Connectivity is the method to connect the data into the application via reusable and purposeful APIs. The APIs are developed for a unique role like unlocking the data from the systems, composing them into processes, and delivering a more significant experience.

If the organization adopts API-led-Connectivity, every stakeholder in the business can enhance their capabilities in delivering the best projects and capable applications through discovery and self-service.

Why is API-led-Connectivity important?

The API-led-Connectivity decentralizes enterprise data access and its dependence on the reusable APIs to create new capabilities and services. The reusable assets produced can unlock critical systems like data sources, legacy applications, and SaaS apps.  IT teams can reuse them as API assets and design the process-level information. This approach increases the agility, speed, and productivity of the integration process.

APIs that enable API-led-Connectivity 

The API-led-Connectivity connects and exposes the assets. This approach can help to connect things point-to-point. Each asset becomes a modern and managed API, which makes it visible through self-service without losing control.

The APIs used in the API-led-connectivity approach has three categories-

• System APIs
• Process APIs
• Experience APIs

System APIs

System APIs give us the means to insulate the data consumers from complexity or change the underlying systems. Once they are built, consumers can access the data without understanding the details about the underlying systems. System APIs are fine-grains, independent, and highly reusable.

They integrate well and also support more than one value stream or enterprise capability. It defines the business ownership and shared usage contexts which can be complex stuff. If the absence of shared infrastructure business capability, enterprises may fall back on other methodologies to derive their ownership in simple terms. System APIs are the ones that expose the underlying back-end systems and insulate the caller from the changes to the underlying assets.

In allocating System API ownership, one should consider the short-term and long-term goals of a shared System API, which simplifies the decision. For example, a shared system that does not require minimal improvement but must always be available to reduce the risk associated with a business owner’s role.

The technician can get a balanced view under pressure and has a rational experience that goes hand in hand with the system’s power. On the other hand, a shared system used to introduce new products and applications can prepare for the near future purposes of a legitimate business owner with a sound basis for technical concern.

Another high assumption is that shared resources require shared leadership. Establishing shared infrastructure management committees can achieve high results in a single identity through the diversity of knowledge.

Process APIs

Process APIs create business value by working through single or multiple systems. It is generally done by using one or multiple systems of APIs.

The API process provides ways to integrate data and organize multiple system APIs for a specific business purpose (e.g., 360-degree customer views, order fulfilment, etc.). They are often used to build a business where attributes are managed in many records systems (e.g., SAP, Salesforce, etc.) through various business functions (CRM, Customer Support, etc.).

The API process reflects the business services and usually supports the business delivery portfolio (i.e., products and services). Identity API IDs typically reside with the owner of a value stream that includes supported products and services. If this does not happen, increasing levels of cooperation are needed among many stakeholders. This collaboration can be achieved by organizing the leading organization that manages the Process API and its traffic, production cycle, and performance management strategy.

Concerns about the Process API’s identity can be even more complex than the System APIs. The number of communication sites is greater than that of the standard System API, which only meets one recording system. In addition, integrated services are highly dependent and can create significant difficulties in controlling the quality-of-service, problems involved, including functionality, error management, tracking, segmentation, etc.

As the Process APIs are so close to concrete business collaboration, assigning technical staff to play the role of a business owner is becoming increasingly unlikely and becoming more problematic. On the other hand, given the technical difficulties of integrated services that have been drawn away from experience, the definition of a single owner also has its problems with trade-offs.

Experience APIs

Experience APIs are similar to the processing API because they integrate many other API content, features, and functionality. However, unlike API processes, Experience APIs are tied primarily to a unique business context and organize data formats, contact times, or agreements (rather than processing or creating them) for a particular channel and content.

Experience APIs are a way to customize data for the convenience of its targeted audience, all from the same data source, instead of setting up an individual point-to-point integration for each channel. Experience API is usually done to build the original API designed for the intended user experience.

Additionally, Experience APIs inform and share a presentation platform specific to a unique business context. It provides a way to deliver pre-formatted data. It is particular to the intended audience. It can quickly process the data to suit the intended business environment.

Remember, Experience APIs are designed to provide a way for collaborative application developers to quickly provide data to previous applications used by customers, partners, and employees. Therefore, Experience APIs follow a “pre-build” approach – that is, the API contract is specified before the actual implementation of the API. API buyers run it in collaboration with User Experience experts who determine that the internet connection should use it from a design perspective.

The Way Forward

The API-driven connectivity approach to delivering IT projects ensures time and budget savings on the first project. It also creates reusable assets that build resilient infrastructure for better visibility, compliance, and governance to meet business needs and a long-term stored value.

It gives you the ability to move faster on your first project and accelerate progressively from your second project onwards, thanks to renewable assets and organizational strengths. An API-led-connection frees up resources and allows you to refresh and move faster.

When it comes to deploying Mule applications and APIs on a managed infrastructure (whether on-premises or private IaaS like Microsoft Azure or AWS), Anypoint Runtime Fabric is the right solution. However, for any Mule application deployment, Runtime Manager is available for both Private Cloud and Anypoint Platform.

In the current scenario, many businesses aim for digital transformation and hence consider CloudHub for scaling and advanced management features. But with Anypoint Runtime Fabric, businesses can score further flexibility and more coarse control to balance performance & scalability.

CloudHub and Anypoint Runtime Fabric are both the options to go for while deploying Mule applications. Here we bring you the difference between both the options.

CloudHub

CloudHub is an (iPasS) Integrated Platform as a Service, a multi-tenant, secure, highly available service, managed by MuleSoft and hosts on public cloud infrastructure where MuleSoft manages both control plane and runtime plane.

Features of CloudHub-

• Provides 99.99% availability, automatic updates, and scalability options.
• It is available globally in multiple regions.
• When we deploy the application in cloud hub, the runtime is deployed as an individual AWS EC2 instance.
• Worker sizes in cloud hub can start from 0.1v Core.
• Application logs can be viewed from Runtime Manager
• Perform Log forwarding to external service.
• Monitoring can be performed via Anypoint Monitoring.

CloudHub provides two types of load balancers-

Share Load Balancer: Provides basic functionality like TCP load balancing.

Dedicated Load Balancer: Can perform load balancing among cloud hub workers and define SSL configurations.

Anypoint Runtime Fabric

Anypoint Runtime Fabric is a container service that automates the deployment and orchestration of your Mule applications. The execution of containers is based on a Kubernetes pod.

On the other hand, runtime fabric can be used on a customer-hosted infrastructure, whether on-premise or cloud. Even though its client’s own infrastructure, we can still have the same benefits as cloud hub. For example, horizontal scaling & zero downtime.

One of the conditions to use RTF is that the client is ready to share the metadata information to MuleSoft as the control plane is managed by MuleSoft, and the runtime plane is taken care of by the customer.

RTF features include-

• Used to deploy mule runtime on AWS, azure, baremetal, and VM’s.
• Create the container, infrastructure to deploy the application.
• One deployment does not affect other applications, even though they are in the same RTF. The ability to run multiple versions of mule runtimes on the same servers.
• Worker sizes in RTF can start from as low as 0.02v Core.
• RTF provides an internal Load balancer for processing inbound traffic.
• Application logs can be found via Ops Center, and logs can be forwarded to an external service.
• Monitoring of applications, servers, workers instances can be taken care of from Ops Center.

The Concluding View

If you are looking to design, develop or build applications & API at an accelerated rate or want to deploy applications on legacy system or on cloud with automated security & threat protection at every level; Anypoint Runtime Fabric is the solution.