Amplify Whiteboard Series: An open API Management Plane

Layers of digital=transformation

Although I’m the new guy at Axway, I’ve been involved with API management and security for many years.

During this time, I witnessed organizations passing through generations of modernization and digital transformation initiatives. The implementation of an integration platform, cloud adoption, microservice architectures, each result in an API platform. As companies evolve, your API platform needs to evolve with it.

Multiple API platforms state

This “multiple API platforms” state also occurs as different enterprises merge together (M&A). These different systems each have their own flavor of governance and developer experience.

Although organizations frequently state as an objective the normalizing of their heterogeneous API platforms, most of them adopt new ones faster than they retire old ones. Besides, each of these assets provides its own strengths and complement each other to make the organization more agile.

Unfortunately, both governance and developer experience are fragmented when you operate multiple API silos. You are more likely to reinvent the same assets when you run them across segregated ecosystems. Having a complete picture of all APIs across these silos is a growing concern.

Opening up API Management

What recently inspired me to join Axway was the open principle behind the Amplify API Management Plane.

So, what exactly is the Amplify platform? Amplify is an open API Management Plane. The idea is that you are shifting some of your control plane from each of these separate API silos into a new open API Management Plane.

Amplify works by connecting agents to each of your API silos. These agents provide better visibility into those silos. They also work to automate and simplify a lot of your API governance tasks.

Take note that there are three types of agents in Amplify:

1. Discovery agents
2. Traceability agents
3. Policy agents

I love that you can connect otherwise fragmented API silos into a Unified Catalog to produce a consistent developer experience (DX).

With an open platform approach, APIs gain:

• Stronger speed development, discovery, and usage, this includes the tracking of your APIs
• The ability to focus on more precise functionality — not just operations and security
• The opportunity to stop wasting precious time building API integrations that have already been built — a win-win all around
• Automate catalog updates as a part of standard CI/CD processes

In this Whiteboard video, I describe the API silo as problematic and introduce the Amplify API Management Plane.

In my subsequent four-part series whiteboards, I will deep dive into the select capabilities of the Amplify platform. Learn more about Amplify API Management Platform in more detail.