Implementing anAPI Management Platform

Keith JuniusSolutions Architect

21 July 2014

Overview

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• About Veda

• Design considerations for API management platforms

• Technical and business challenges faced across the whole system lifecycle

• The soft skills required to achieve a successful outcome

• Lessons learned during and after the project

• Benefits realized by the new platform

About Veda

About Veda

The intelligence provided by Veda helps customer make decisions on credit risk, verify identity and employee

background, reduce identity theft and fraud, and undertake digital marketing strategies.

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Veda is a data analytics company and the leading provider of credit information and analysis in Australia and New Zealand.

Veda is built on the largest, most comprehensive and current data source in Australia and New Zealand with information

on over 20 million credit active people and 5.7 million commercial entities.

From its core credit bureau business established in 1967, Veda has expanded to deliver a suite of credit and other analytical products targeted to specific industry segment needs.

Veda’s BusinessEnabling customers to improve their decision making

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Proprietary data assetsProducts and

delivery channelsIntellectual property

and data management

Attractive combination of data assets built up over a 46 year history

Data collection and storage

Data cleansing

Algorithms

Matching

Customer focus

Veda proprietary/exclusive data sources• Credit information on 20 million individuals

• 70 million updates on individuals per annum• 46 years of historical data and 5 years of enquiry data• Credit information on over 5.7 million commercial

organisations• Inivio consumer insights library• 2.7 million records in tenancy database• Insurance claims database• 5 years worth of defaults from hundreds of businesses

Embedded delivery systems and long-term customer relationships

Powerful intellectual property/analytics

Products and solutions

Embedded portals and customer linksPublic data sources

• Land titles and property information database

• Personal Property Securities Register in Australia• Largest repository and reseller of ASIC information• Comprehensive court judgment default collection

>12,500business

customers

>470,000consumer customers

Products and solutions

Embedded portalsand customer links

Over 40 years of history

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1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

1967Begins operations as the Credit Reference Association of Australia (CRAA)

2001Data Advantage merges with Baycorp Holdings to form Baycorp Advantage with dual listings on the

ASX and NZX

1998CRAA demutualises and becomes a wholly

owned subsidiary of Data Advantage

2006May - Baycorp Collection Services sold in May

November - Baycorp Advantage becomes Veda Advantage

2007Becomes a fully privatised company owned by PEP and MLGPE

Acquisition of Atlantis Group’s marketing divisionAcquisition of ABR and NTD from Collection House

2011Acquisition of Mirus Online

2009Acquisition of Secure Sentinel

2011Acquisition of

Verify

1999Acquisition of Equigen

2013Acquisition of Corporate Scorecard

2013Veda Group Ltd (ASX:VED) lists on Australian Stock Exchange

2014Acquisition of Datalicious

2014Acquisition of ITM

Over 40 years of IT development

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1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

1967Begins operations as the Credit Reference Association of Australia (CRAA)

2001Data Advantage merges with Baycorp Holdings to form Baycorp Advantage with dual listings on the

ASX and NZX

1998CRAA demutualises and becomes a wholly

owned subsidiary of Data Advantage

2006May - Baycorp Collection Services sold in May

November - Baycorp Advantage becomes Veda Advantage

2007Becomes a fully privatised company owned by PEP and MLGPE

Acquisition of Atlantis Group’s marketing divisionAcquisition of ABR and NTD from Collection House

2011Acquisition of Mirus Online

2009Acquisition of Secure Sentinel

2011Acquisition of

Verify

1999Acquisition of Equigen

2013Acquisition of Corporate Scorecard

2013Veda Group Ltd (ASX:VED) lists on Australian Stock Exchange

2014Acquisition of Datalicious

2014Acquisition of ITM

2008

VedaConnect2002

B2Bay XML

Design Considerations

API Management PlatformArchitectural Design Considerations

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Basic VedaConnect Use Case

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Mainframe

APIGateway

RequestTransform

ResponseTransform

ClientXML

XML Text

Text

API Management Platform is more than a box

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• Networks

• Firewalls

• Load balancers

• Monitoring systems

• Servers

• Storage

• Applications

• Etc.

Systems

• Customers

― Business Staff

― Technical Staff

• Network engineers

• Server and storage engineers

• Application developers

• Testers

• Information security officers

• Etc.

People

Challenges

Legacy B2Bay GatewayIBM AS/400

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• In-house proprietary code

• Written in RPG + Java

• Developed & Maintained in NZ

• Monolithic single schema API

• Slow to change

• Expensive hardware platform

• Only vertically scalable

• Located in core network

Geography can be architecturally significant

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XML

Text

XML

Text

To validate, or not to validate

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Level of Message Validation0% 100%

Soft Skills

Soft skills

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• Selling the vision – to everyone, repeatedly

• Passion – no one will believe in the vision if you don’t

• Context switching – between many complex facets of the project

• Pragmatism – know the battles you need to win, and those you don’t

• Negotiation – find the common ground between the parties

Remember people are part of the platform

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Skills

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Either

Ensure your teams already have all the skills required to build and operate

your API management platform

Or

Plan to acquire the required skills via training, new hires or out-sourcing

Know Conway’s Law

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Melvin E. Conway (April 1968)

Organizations which design systems … are constrained to produce designs

which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations.

Eric S. Raymond (October 1996)

If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler

James O. Coplien and Neil B. Harrison (July 2004)

Make sure the organization is compatible with the product architecture

Lessons Learned

Key learnings

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• Choose a vendor who will support you over the long term

• An API Management Platform has many touch points

• Design the platform with people in mind, not just technology

• You must sell the vision, continuously

• Don’t assume customers are using your API’s the way you intended

• Always look for new ways to use the platform to get more value from it

Don’t assume

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What the …! This is lemonade!Where is my culture of amoebic dysentery?

Transaction Monitoring

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Benefits Realized

Key Benefits Realized

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• Reduced operational costs

• Increased security

• Increased reliability

• Horizontal scalability

• Improved real-time transactional monitoring

• Real-time API configuration management

Melbourne Cup

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Real-time API configuration management

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• IDMatrix - real-time Electronic Verification Services through VedaConnect

• Online betting agencies use IDMatrix to comply with AML legislation

• On Melbourne Cup Day, traffic spikes over an order of magnitude higher

than average

• During the course of the day, service capacity is reallocated between

customers

Questions

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Appendix

• Consumer Credit Risk: credit bureau business that provides consumer credit reports & analytics to assess, monitor and manage credit risk

• Fraud & Identity Solutions: helps validate identities and detect fraud

• Decisioning & Scoring: assists customers in making credit decisions based on an applicant’s risk profile.

• Collection Services: assists customers to segment and optimise debtors to improve receivables management

• Verify: provides an employee verification service for employees

• Commercial Credit Risk: provides credit reports, payment behaviour and ongoing credit monitoring for lending purposes and assessing supplier risk.

• Commercial & Property Solutions: the access of third party data sources from ASIC, AFSA, PPSR, Court & Property registrars.

Business Overview

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Consumer Risk & Identity

Commercial Risk &

Information Services

Inivio provides marketers with a range of services, tools and capabilities that maximise their marketing effectiveness. Helping them to target their most valued customers across all their marketing channels, when they are most open to an offer

Your Credit & Identity: providing consumers with access to their personal credit information and VedaScore as well as the ability to receive updates to their credit profile when changes are made.

Secure Sentinel: Helping consumers protect themselves against identity theft and assisting them in recovering their lost or stolen items.

Car History: providing the history of a used car for consumers and car dealers. Highlights if a vehicle has finance owing, is stolen, written off, or has had the odometer rolled back.

National Tenancy Database: tenancy verification and identification service

Business Overview

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Business-2-Consumer

MarketingServices