API management has just joined the big leagues

API Management platforms aren't a startup thing anymore.

Years ago, I worked on a cloud solution at the company I worked for. As with anything at the time, we had APIs – but different ones: instead of ones with a C/C++ interface, I wanted something that runs on the web and settled for RESTful APIs. All was fun in the world, until I understood that there are many chores involved with such APIs: things that you don't think about when you license software and provide C APIs to it.

These chores? Managing access to the APIs, dealing with security and privacy of API calls, throttling, caching, etc.

Searching around, I found the field of API Management: companies who are in the business of solving these generic chores for those who wish to expose APIs. The companies at the time were rather small, and the engineers I had caught the NIH syndrome, which wasn't typical to them, and stated that whatever I will need they will be able to develop. Since that time, I left for another company, but the information of the need for API Management followed me since.

Last week I wrote about Telco APIs – little did I know of the changes that will occur in the rest of that week: with the acquisition of Layer 7 by CA, ProgrammableWeb changing hands from Alcatel Lucent to MuleSoft and 3scale raising more funds.

Add to this the recent acquisition of Mashery by Intel, and you have an interesting picture: Intel and CA just became API Management providers. You can expect more acquisitions soon.

If up until now, there was a debate whether there is value in API Management, then the easy answer now is "sure there is". To me this all boils down to the fact that API Management is becoming part of the infrastructure an enterprise requires these days: just like a monitoring system or a SIEM – not everyone needs it, but a growing list of businesses does.

Will we get to the point where API Management is just as needed as an antivirus software or a firewall? Maybe. We are sure closer to that point in time than we are to the days when the question if they are necessary at all is relevant.

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If you are looking for a good analysis on this space, then check out Kin Lane's analysis of the latest API news.