When creating an SOA-based architecture, it’s nearly impossible to anticipate all the potential needs a customer might have. There are so many aspects to this type of framework, and when implementing it, one needs to consider an entire range of elements: security, policy management, proxy validation, pattern definition and others. Naturally, as providers of SOA… Continue reading →

We’ve been actively encouraging our stakeholders to take advantage of Atmosphere to develop APIs and initiate an evolution in their applications that will enable them to become successful by capitalizing on existing assets. One of the things we’ve tried to communicate is the fact that API development can be relatively easy, even when done collaboratively… Continue reading →

Discussions about APIs have changed significantly during the past 10 years. I can remember talking with developers many years ago about very esoteric aspects of routines and data structures and it was all very, well, geeky. But at the same time, there was so much enthusiasm as Web APIs became more common, because to those… Continue reading →

Facebook’s billion dollar acquisition of Instagram is being touted as the harbinger of a major shift in computing from the desktop to mobile devices. It’s evident that mobile apps are the driving increasingly significant amounts of ecommerce, content, entertainment and other types of Web activity. Perhaps a more important aspect of this, if a less… Continue reading →

Come get your hack on this weekend with Atmosphere at the Trojan Hack! I will be going out to the University of Southern California to watch the students from various Los Angeles area universities compete to see which school has the best programmers and entrepreneurs. There is no limitation on what developers can build, the… Continue reading →

Hackathons were a growing trend in the API space in 2011, and 2012 is shaping up to be a year of explosive growth around hackathons. For those that are new to the hackathon space, these events are not intended to perform illegal activities around computer networks. Software developers widely see hacking as a quick and… Continue reading →

The Internet is widely understood to be about web pages made up of HTML in which humans search, browse and consume via their desktops and laptop computers using their favorite browser. Quickly other pioneers like Salesforce, Amazon, eBay, Twitter, Facebook and Google showed us another dimension of the Internet accessible via the same architecture as… Continue reading →

Tomorrow, we announce Atmos.phe.re Cloud. If you found this on Sunday, you are getting a sneak peak at the Press Release before it hits the wire… Here you go. SOA Software Announces Availability of Atmosphere Cloud Free Cloud Service Complements Existing On-Premise Enterprise API Management Solution  Cloud Computing Expo, Santa Clara, CA. – November 7,… Continue reading →

The X.Commerce Conference was a couple of weeks ago in San Francisco, where Paypal showcased their next generation of multi-channel commerce tools ranging from Paypal Access for quick consumer login, to expanded mobile, tablet and device based purchasing on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 game consoles. Behind all the hype at X.Commerce, at the heart of every move EBay / Paypal… Continue reading →

While it is really important to build the right API and to build it right, it is equally important to make sure that it’s running right, or to be more grammatically correct, to ensure that your API is behaving correctly. By now you should have planned and built, a clean simple API that delivers clear… Continue reading →

I can’t stress enough that the best APIs are often the most basic. Typically, they do one thing really well and leave themselves open for developers to leverage as they please. So once you’ve finished the planning stages of your API, don’t just hand off your general plan to your coders and leave them to… Continue reading →

The five steps of our set of best practices work like a combination lock. They work properly only if they are followed in sequence. Planning is perhaps the most important step in the API lifecycle because it puts forth the blueprints needed to build a sucessful API. During the planning stage, your organization needs to… Continue reading →

I had my first experience at an API Hack Day this weekend, during the inaugural Hack Day LA. As the event announcement says,  ”API Hack Day brings developers together for an all-day coding fest focused on building apps and mashups with APIs. Developers of all experience levels can share ideas, collaborate on existing projects, start new… Continue reading →

I may be generalizing, but too many people still view APIs as purely utilitarian. Integrate the Google Maps API into your GPS device so that users find the nearest gas station. Use NOAA Weather Service API to let skiers know the snow conditions in Telluride. And so forth. But people forget that APIs — and… Continue reading →

Last week, Experian Hitwise released a report that said that Google Plus, the latest social networking adventure from the search giant, was seeing a decline in visits just a month after it was launched. In addition, the report states that Facebook visitors spent 4 times as long per visit as those on Google+. Of course,… Continue reading →

OSCON ’11, O’Reilly Media’s annual event for all things Open Source, is going on this week in Portland. Of course, this got us thinking about the relationship between Open Source and APIs, and the possibilities of a harmonious blend between the two. First, what is the difference between open source and open APIs? Quite a… Continue reading →

Today’s concept of API is at once too broad and too narrow. Developers tend to take the acronym literally, seeing it specifically as a programming interface designed to be used by another application. Meanwhile, business decision-makers view APIs as some cutting-edge technology that will make their businesses run better, improve the customer experience or maybe… Continue reading →

Much of the discussion around APIs tends to center on the well-known APIs published by “cool” companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google. Although these high-profile enterprises do show remarkable innovation, the fact is that it’s not just the household names who can use APIs to expand their business capabilities. Enterprise APIs have become essential tools… Continue reading →

There is an excellent post on Kin Lane’s API Evangelist blog about The Battle for your API Proxy. I think a better title would have been ‘The Battle of Agents vs. Proxies’. Agents have been around forever in one form or another. When used to deliver API services, API agents are different than proxies because… Continue reading →

Here’s a question that we find compelling: If you’re an app developer, would you pay to use an API? Maybe you have an API that fits your use perfectly. Even in that case, though, would your commitment change if you had to pay to use it? APIs expose existing business capabilities to a whole new… Continue reading →