How thoughtful is your API program?

[Rakhirandiseo]

Indeed, the report, based on an anonymized dataset of one billion API requests, 15,000 APIs, and 500,000 endpoints, found that most large enterprises support more than 1,000 APIs, with most APIs considered private or internal, but a significant number actually being publicly available.

The introduction of AI only increases API sprawl, while API security remains poor. A staggering 76% of all requests monitored had a medium threat level, while 85% of APIs do not use any form of rate limiting. More than half have no authentication.

API management is still not strategic at its core and is not secure at its core, turning endpoints into attack vectors.

APIs are like electricity, Lane said. They're essential to running your business, but you may not care about them until you try to scale.

As individual consumers, we make on average over 10,000 API calls per day, making them as important as the utilities we rely on, he says.

“You need to control the entire API landscape to run smoothly,” said webinar host Pratim Bhosale, a developer relations specialist at SurrealDB, arguing that API structure has a major impact on australia mobile database business. “If your API structure is not strong enough, and your policies around how you build your APIs are not strong enough, then it will destroy the enterprise.”

Indeed, Lane noted, little has changed in the API space in the last 15 to 20 years, even as adoption has scaled. Except that now, more than ever, organizations are having to justify the cost of API sprawl over the years. “We need to make more money. We need to be more efficient,” he said. “And people are more concerned about governance and products.”

But APIs—the foundation for communication between apps, data, and increasingly AI—remain at the bottom of management’s priorities. Why?

“They’re hard to see. They’re digital. How can you see APIs?” Lane asked. “People don’t talk about their own APIs and the ones they’re building for apps.”

Observability tools, documentation, playgrounds, and sandboxes are ways he suggested to increase API visibility. Of course, partner APIs provide a lot of feedback. The most important thing, he emphasized, is to tell stories about query parameters, other risks, and business cases for using the API.

Are your internal APIs really private?