Distributed Systems Development on the API Powered Web

Steven Willmott WWW 2014 Developer Track 3scale Inc. @njyx, @3scale

3scale is…API

Infrastructure Provider

!Power 350+

APIs !

110,000 Developers writing Apps

!

API Tech Operations API Business Operations Developer Support

(Selection)

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!Track

Transform Analyze

API Traffic !

http://www.apitools.com

“We are all Distributed Systems Programmers Now”

John Sheehan, APIDays 2013

Topics

Software is Everywhere & it is mostly Web Software

This drives change in Web and App Development

This new Paradigm is more powerful — and complicated

Conclusions

“Software is Eating the World”

Marc Andreessen, WSJ, 2011

Almost every major industry is becoming Software Driven

Examples

Twitter Drone Hack

Romain Huet, APIStrat, 2014

(Web) APIS are Eating Software

(The Web is Eating Software)

Across Many Industries

& Company Sizes

& Business Models

APIs Are Certainly Proliferating

ProgrammableWeb.com (Source)

Directories cannot keep up easily

Many APIs are private / semi private

10x (or maybe many more) are out there

11254 (Public) APIs

10x that many

Private APIs?

Numbers: Mobile Apps1 Million IOS Apps (Oct 2013)

1.19 Million Android Apps (Now / AppBrain)

How Many are Calling an API

Backend?

10%? 5%? 20%

Example: Evernote Platform

Evernote “feels” like an App

But it is a platform

Many successful Apps are

But - What do we mean - Eating Software?

(The Web is Eating Software)

Inside-Out

Outside-In

Mixing the Two

I: A New Path for Software Development

II: But this is Hard to Do

Actually…

Conclusions

Exciting Potential & Lots of Challenges

• Don’t Assume It’s like local • Robust Client/Server handling • Interface Stability is Key as a provider

and consumer • Assume disconnected mode failure

modes • Emphasis Security, Identity and

Contracts • Test Every Assumption

How to Proceed

• Failure tolerant best practices • Discovery and Trust frameworks will

become critical • Service descriptions must become

machine readable • Shared Semantics become ever

more critical • APICommons or similar initiatives are

essential

Individual APIs & Apps Community

Change Mindset Practice & Standards

Most Critical…

A Mindset Change to “Distributed by Default”

3scale: http://www.3scale.net APItools: http://www.apitools.com

APICodex: http://apicodex.3scale.net

The API Economy is Emerging… Join In!

Contact:

http://www.3scale.net @njyx - steve@3scale.net