With application programming interfaces playing a larger role in the DevOps environment, Axway has added to its API toolkit for developers. The company expanded its AMPLIFY API management platform to include a visual tool for composing and integrating APIs and enhanced its API Manager tool so that it now can be invoked to scale resources up or down as needed. In addition, Axway unveiled API Central Service that makes it easier to integrate APIs across an ecosystem of organizations that make their services available via the AMPLIFY marketplace.
Other new capabilities include an open-source MQTT connector for building internet of things (IoT) applications, a connector to the Microsoft Azure Cloud and tighter integration between Axway’s MFT file transfer software and the Syncplicity file synchronization software it acquired earlier this year.
Axway also merged the Titantium SDK for building native mobile applications using JavaScript into the Core SDK for developers and is previewing the Query Builder Analytics tool, which enables users to do ad hoc query of mobile statistics. The Titanium code is based on technology developed by Appcelerator, which Axway acquired early last year.
The announcements were made at the recent Axway SPARK 2017 conference. Vince Padua, vice president of platform and products for Axway, says these and other enhancements to the Axway API portfolio are intended to make it easier for organizations to craft microservices spanning multiple platforms. In some instances, those microservices will be crafted by developers, but Axway believes more advanced users will be stitching together microservices on their own using visual tools, says Padua.
While most early use of APIs was driven by web-based applications facing external users, using APIs to interconnect services inside the enterprise now dwarfs the number of instances of published external APIs, he notes. The proliferation of those APIs has created a significant DevOps challenge for organizations and requires an API management platform to streamline the management of various back-end service. At the same time, Padua notes that DevOps teams working in collaboration with line-of-business units have taken over much of the API management, which previously was left up to individual developers. Now, IT organizations are trying to strike a balance between maintaining control and developer productivity, he says.
The shift in API management responsibilities has also driven a wave of mergers and acquisitions over the last two years as API management has become embedded in mainstream application development platforms. But there’s also a fierce debate over the degree to which legacy API management platforms can support microservices. As microservices based on emerging technologies such as containers or more mature Java programming tools continue to evolve, API management is becoming more critically important. Each microservice generates its own API that needs to be maintained as each microservice gets continually updated. That requires an API management platform that can support all levels of API call activity that once would have been assumed to be unimaginable.
