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What Is APIOps? And How to Be Successful at APIOps

Since the first introduction of the term DevOps, it seems that new 'Ops" related terms pop up as quickly as technology trends. For example:

  • AIOPs: Enhance and automate various IT processes with AI.
  • MLOps: Develop, deploy, and manage machine learning.
  • FinOps: Optimizing and managing cloud cost. 
  • DevSecOps: Integrate security into the Software development lifecycle (SDLC).
  • GitOps: Manage and deploy infrastructure and applications (code and configuration) using Git. 

I bet the next Ops-related term will be ChatGPT-Ops ;-). Finally, an OPs term that has popped up in recent months is APIOps, but what does it mean, especially as APIs are not new and come in many different styles?

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How Fit Is Your API? Private, Public, Partner APIs

How fit does your API need to be? It may not be the case that your API needs to be "fit" enough to compete in the Olympics but running in a local 5km may be good enough.

The point is that not all need to get to the "Olympic" level below, because very often that simply would not be a reasonable investment. You need to hit the sweet spot of generating as much value as possible with the right level of investment.

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10 Things You May Not Know About CLI

I was playing around with the CLI to see how I can incorporate it into demos and wanted to share a couple of things to remind people of its capabilities.

1. Log In as a Human

Note for interactive usage of the CLI, i.e., as a human, you can log in to the platform using your organization's domain name and password if your organization is delegating authentication to your corporate IdP. Typing the command below will open a browser for you to log in:

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How Will DevOps Change in 2021?

To look at the future we need to consider the past. As a result of the pandemic there has been a need for industries to adapt and attempt to accelerate given the ever-changing circumstances. The need to adapt and accelerate will remain and DevOps will play a key role in both change and acceleration. Here are a number of changes that will occur in 2021:

  • Multi-cloud will continue at pace. Many organizations had a preference for a single cloud provider, like AWS, but over time and especially during 2020, that approach has changed to adopt a multi-cloud approach. Where the right cloud (tool) is picked for the job so that organizations take advantage of best-of-market innovations and capabilities as they appear. There can be concerns of cloud lock-in if an organization is all in on one cloud vendor. Additionally, there is a risk mitigation if there is a service outage in a cloud vendor that is your single provider. The result is a proliferation of cloud providers in an organization, resulting in a need for DevOps engineers to increase knowledge across providers.

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Treat APIs as a Product, or The Sun Is Not the Centre of Your Solar System


I recently stumbled across the above beautiful animation of celestial mechanics by Malin Christersson. On the left-hand side, you see how simple and elegant it is to plot out celestial mechanics when you assume that all the planets in our solar system are in orbit around the sun. Whereas on the right-hand side, you see the resulting chaos if you assume earth is at the center.

If you fail to treat your APIs as products then you’ll end up with the chaos and disarray as seen in the geocentric view of the solar system. Unfortunately, APIs are often relegated to middleware or plumbing. As such, they can be perceived as a cost/liability to an organization and not direct value to the business. In this scenario, APIs are often one-offs resulting in chaos and a high cost of ownership due to the difficulties in untangling the knots that are created by multiple one-offs. However, change the perspective, treat APIs, and integrations as a product. Now instead of chaos, you’ll end up with a beautiful heliocentric solar system of APIs.

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New Year’s Resolutions for API Product Managers

What are your New Year's Resolutions?

The New Year brings with it a multitude of good intentions, with many of us determined to improve our lives one way or another and to set aspirational goals so that we can better our current self. With the idea of New Year resolutions, this post is about some New Year’s resolutions that all API Product Managers should consider adopting to better their API product offering.

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API Design: Tabs vs Spaces

API Design

With Thanksgiving behind us, the holiday season is now in full effect with lights on houses, jingles on the radio and relentless commercials reminding us we need to buy gifts for our loved ones. It is during this time of year when I drive past the giant USA pet stores, not you, but rather Petco and PetSmart, that I’m reminded of this slogan: “A dog is for life not just for Christmas.” Now, what if we were to change the word “dog” to “APIs”? 

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Keep CALMS and DevOps: M is for Measure

While thinking about how to articulate what “Measure” means for DevOps, I kept having flashbacks to a toy that my son had when he was younger. The toy was a Handy Manny doll which, when his belt buckle was pressed, would utter many useful and life-affirming statements. One of the expressions uttered by Manny is currently playing over and over in my head: “Measure twice, cut once.”

Source: amazon.com

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Keep CALMS and DevOps: L is for Lean

Often the adoption of DevOps goes hand-in-hand with the application of Lean practices. Lean practices are focused on value creation for the end customer with minimal waste and processes. When thinking of Lean practices, small nimble startups come to mind, but consider the behemoth Amazon.

Image: CNET/James Martin

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Keep CALMS and DevOps: C is for Culture

Some might call me an armchair football fan. I know all the teams, facts and figures, I’m good at Fantasy Football, but please don’t ask me to play the game! The same could be said about me and DevOps. But, one of the reasons I was asked to champion this topic is that there is a strong desire to change the culture and organization within Axway, so that we can efficiently deliver on our SaaS platform, which requires a strong DevOps presence. So, with that in mind, pass me some shoulder pads (if football means American football to you) or shin pads (if football means soccer to you) and let’s get on the field/pitch!

Are we, Axway, a company where engineering and operations only meet at the board level? DevOps will be just another buzzword if we don’t have the right culture. Cultural change is difficult. To help drive culture change, we need to establish cross-functional teams of development and operations. When you operate, you are risk-averse and are naturally inclined to limit changes to systems. When you develop, you are rewarded for innovation and delivering at speed. It will take time to get dev and ops teams to trust, understand, and ultimately have empathy towards each other’s needs. The primary characteristic of a DevOps culture is increased collaboration between the roles of development and operations. Important cultural shifts will need to be made within teams and at an organizational level to support this collaboration.