Think about your API assets like you would books in a library. Can someone come in and easily find the genre they want? When they find a book they’re interested in, can they flip through it for more information? When they’re ready, is it a straightforward process for them to check out?
In an ideal world, APIs are organized in a way that makes finding and using them as quick and easy as a visit to the library. Rather than sifting through an unorganized pile of APIs, consumers can come to an API marketplace where APIs are curated and categorized logically. Then, they can quickly find relevant APIs, confirm they’re the right fit, and subscribe.
Amplify Enterprise Marketplace allows API providers to unify API assets in a way that makes it simple for every stakeholder to access the precise API they’re looking for. Built on a true universal API management platform, Marketplace helps companies solve the API discovery dilemma for consumers as well as ease their own concerns about API duplication and security.
The balance between API centralization & team autonomy
Businesses are well aware of the need to adopt a centralized hub for building, managing, publishing, and consuming APIs. Yet, few businesses have a single point of control for that purpose; the majority still rely on multiple platforms.
In the current landscape, a centralized repository is critical for many reasons. It reduces API redundancies (building a new API from scratch because they don’t know it already exists), streamlines security protocol and design checks, and simplifies the discovery and consumption of APIs.
While the benefits of API centralization are clear, it’s not always black and white. One gray area is that different teams are working across different cloud platforms. Focused on speed, they don’t necessarily prioritize governance. They’re eager to get APIs designed and rolled out as quickly as possible.
With Amplify Enterprise Marketplace, API providers can balance both speed and governance. Without compromising on efficient management of APIs, they can rely on Marketplace for the flexibility to stick to their API strategy while meeting the changing needs of app developers. The API marketplace lets them cater to every stakeholder.
Example: registering APIs from an Amazon API Gateway
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is recognized as a leading cloud computing platform. But AWS isn’t equipped with API management, design and compliance principles, or an API marketplace. That’s where Amplify Marketplace enters the picture.
Let’s say you have an Amazon API Gateway with a handful of APIs you want to register in Amplify Enterprise Marketplace. The first step is to define an environment in the marketplace to discover and authenticate the Amazon API Gateway.
As part of this process, you’ll define design and security protocols through predefined AWS rules and requirements. You can also select when security tokens should expire, with reminders sent to customers to notify them of pending expiration. Seconds later, all the APIs you registered will be available in the marketplace.
After you find and secure your APIs, you can organize and productize them in the marketplace’s product foundry, where you define usage plans and subscriptions for monetization.
See also: Navigate the Amazon API Gateway jungle with Axway’s API marketplace
What the consumer experience looks like
With Amplify Enterprise Marketplace, the consumer experience is well-defined. Consumers can easily browse featured API products by category and locate APIs relevant to their needs. They can also access documentation to better understand API product value and use. From there, consumers can test out APIs and request subscription access.
As consumers start to use APIs, providers can view analytics from a single pane of glass. Number of transactions, successes, client errors, and server errors are just some of the metrics that are visible. A leaderboard highlights the fastest and slowest APIs, as well as the most used and least used APIs.