6 Questions on API Governance

“Software is Eating the World, API is Eating Software”. The quote, as wide spread as it is, is absolutely true. APIs are serving as the backbone for the majority of software infrastructure.

According to Akamai, the world’s leading content delivery network (CDN) provider, 83% of its traffic came through APIs. All Cloud operations, IoT connections, data algorisms, autonomous driving, digital twin initiatives, meta universe and much more are based on APIs.

However, the governance of APIs is relatively new challenge for IT executives and managers across the globe. Many questions have been asked again and again at the Board rooms, company conference rooms, online chat rooms, or any rooms alike.

Here I capture six most frequently asked questions. Not dear to answer those mind-bogging questions, but to offer some perspectives, some count-arguments, some thought-starters, some lessons-learnt. The target audiences of this article should be IT managers, product managers, corporate executives etc., less for API developers and designers. But the API developers and designers certainly have big stake in this and are critical participants and contributors in these discussions.

Q1. What is API First?

API First means different things to different people.