I’m always fascinated by the words we use to describe what we do in a digital world. One dimension of the API life cycle that perpetually interests me is the concept of deploying an API, or as some might call it publishing or launching. I am fascinated by how people describe the act of making an API available, but I’m even more interested in how shadows exist within these realities. Meaning, within a 30 minute Googling session for publish, deploy, and launch an API, I come across many real world examples of delivering an API, but how few of them will deliver the actual tangible, functional, nuts and bolts of the API.
After searching for publish API, here is what stood out:
After searching for deploy API, here is what stood out:
After searching for launch API, here is what stood out:
80% of these will not actually deliver the API, it will just take an existing and make it available. I know most of these service providers believe that their solution does deploy because use it proxies an existing API, but really very few of these actually deliver the API, they more publish, deploy, and launch it into some state of availability—the final act of making it available and open for business. After all these years of studying API gateway and management providers I’m still fascinated by the lack of true API deployment present, and how much it is about proxying what already exists, creating a shadow that continues to prevent us fro standardizing how we deliver APIs.
This article originally appeared here.
