Enterprise Agility and The Federated API Platform

The current trend shows that companies are experiencing high growth through technology and innovation. However, this also poses a challenge: for companies, this growth also means that their infrastructure must grow with it. Preparing for continuous growth with an increased rate of enhancements or architecture modernization, migration presents complex problems that require a simple solution: a centralized platform that can act as a hub for the hybrid, multi-tenant API management platform modeled by leveraging a standard enterprise integration strategy. At this point, we welcome federated architecture entering the mainstream of evaluation. Federated architectures and operating models create a single and common control plane for all teams within the organization.

The key aspects of a federated architecture are changing business requirements, maximizing enterprise-wide efficiency, reducing costs and making more effective use of existing resources. 

The volatility of markets and their direct impact on business operations make it necessary for technological solutions to be designed to be more autonomous and adaptable to such vulnerable environments. Fluidic Enterprise by Nagarro is a bold way of acting with agility and flexibility for the enterprises that is much needed in modern times.

Federated architecture and API Management

Let us look at how federated architecture applies to API management (APIM) while balancing de-centralization and autonomy between disparate business units to attain business continuity.

Here’s a prototype simulation:
We believe that the objectives of using agile software development practices, develop and evaluate the design, architecture, and implementation for reliable as well as user-friendly self-service management. Below is a very basic comparison and evaluation of centralized versus federated architecture style or a model. In the centralized architecture, each institution or an entity must upload their data to a centralized web server while in the federated architecture, data stay at their respective institutions or an entity, but each institution must implement an interface to make the data findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable by its nature of design and implementation however it ultimately depends on execution which is where API Management and its federation makes more sense.

While conceptualising the model of federated architecture and the absence of a global authority, the central governing model must resolve two conflicting requirements:

1. The components should maintain as much autonomy as possible.
2. They must also be able to achieve a reasonable degree of information sharing, within the given bounded context.

This is why the federated architecture strongly demands API Management and governance.

Reference Architecture:
Federated architecture follows a pattern in enterprise architecture. It allows interoperability and information-sharing. But using federated architecture can also be challenging while idealizing and iterating different technology and tools onboarding. What we believe is to strategize the architecture goal and objective based on business context and aligned with business objectives and then do an evaluation of the relevant software’s, technology, and tools. Only then we will be able to achieve federation in architecture and in API management by an assessment and selection of fit for purpose API gateway tools and aligned software. Also, enforcement of best practices and centralised core principles of API Management is driving factor for federation in API Management to derive rationalized outcomes.

Here is our reference architecture showcasing how API Gateway and API Management can fully unleash the potential of federated architecture and enablement of centrally governed API Management for multiple API gateways set up for various requirements stated in the next section of this document which is significance and relevance of implementation.

Significance:

The federation in APIM can be regulated to make the right choice for an enterprise in an organization. Because it has an ability to modify the individual APIs along with the degree of centralized governance over the federated API contract or the structure by its nature of usage. Let’s take a look at some of its pragmatic degree of usage where federation of API Management is best applicable, and the expected objectives, as shown below:

• Independence
  • Lifecycle independence: This means that each local team can create and define its own lifecycle concept, roadmap, and release plan for its product, which can be independent of other products. This flexibility embodies the responsive and creative nature of a Fluidic Enterprise.
  • Operational independence: This implies that in case of an emergency, each local team, with knowledge of its products and computer systems, can fix and operate them without having to rely on others' knowledge or willingness to support them.
  • Platform independence: This means that the system and application platforms can easily be mixed as well as machine languages till the time they can interpret the model and can produce the expected results.
    
    
• Integration
  • Hybrid Integration: This means that there is a clear roadmap to follow, whenever it is necessary to integrate and expand the system architecture.
  • Autonomous Integration: This is about being able to fall back on a standardized approach for information exchange, while still allowing autonomous operations.
  • Interoperable Integration: This ensures that the degree of integration should always be forward and backward compatible.
    
    
• Security
  • Internal Security: This means being able to secure the overall aspects of infrastructure, systems, services, and software applications by a central governing authority.
  • External Security: This is about being able to build a shielding against all attack vectors by identifying its degree of impact to the data.
  • Terminal Security: This means being able to self-defensive under a circumstance where infiltration can be periodically identified by clearly facing the terminals via central regulatory authority.
    
    
• Governance
  • Methodology: This means a defined set of activities that are distributed to the aligned governing entities within the ecosystem.
  • Operation: This involves allowing independent systems, teams, organizations, or entities to dedicatedly work independently.
  • Platforms: This is about enabling all the independent entities within the organization to fully dedicate towards an end goal while remaining distributed in its support.

Relevance of Implementation:
Enterprises who want to enable a centralized governing entity that is closely associated and instrumentalized using APIM with a team that is responsible for creating the technical assets that can be consumed by different segment of consumers and providers. The organic combination of these consumers and providers is deployed with assets, artefacts which selectively includes API management best practices, tooling, and frameworks, accelerators, operating procedures, documents, catalogues, standard templates and many more. Here are some ideal scenarios where an enterprise can benefit from federated API Management:

• Operational Excellence
  Growing business requirements mean that brand subsidiaries or acquisitions of different operational entities which are already using API Management require a centralized governing body to strictly regulate and promote the appropriate APIs and their purpose of usage.
  
  
• Multi Tenancy architecture
  While enabling dedicated software services and application offerings to multi-tenant users (such as B2B, B2C, Citizen Users, Partners, Suppliers etc.), it is inevitable for dedicated and restricted privileges and offerings to be facilitated where a federated APIM management can be fully instrumental while delegating fit for purpose usage of APIs and its underlying applications.
  
  
• Back-end for the Front-end Architecture
  This is an architecture style that creates separate backend services to be consumed by specific frontend applications or interfaces. This pattern is useful when you want to avoid customizing a single backend for multiple interfaces and applications, where services and their offerings become critical, and scaling may not be a suitable option. Such scenarios are made ambient by using federated APIM through which software and services are streamlined with its dedicated purpose of usage.
  
  
• Micro Front-end Architecture
  The micro-frontend is a type of architecture where a web application is divided into different modules or individual functions. These functions are implemented autonomously, which enables front-end teams to have the same level of flexibility and speed that microservices provide to backend teams where a decentralized way of applications operation is seamlessly achieved using a centralized API gateway which takes care of completely autonomous operations, subscriptions, and registrations.
  
  
• Build an API Hub for the Digital Enterprise
  API Hub in the digital Enterprise provides a customizable platform where development teams can discover and collaborate with external partners, developers, and suppliers along with internal experts such as business counterparts, developers, subject matter experts while building seamless experience from API development to publishing, enabling organizations to increase developer efficiency.

Takeaways

• Know-how about the dynamics of federated architecture & implications.
• Federation in organizational structures and multi-tenant environments.
• How federated architecture applies to API management.
• Developer organization and developer experience platforms
• Different operating models under federated APIM platform architecture.
• Proven industry best use cases and examples with derived benefits.
• Vendor agnostic sustainable service operation and governance enforcements
• Reduced complexity on various aspects like technology & vendor inter-lock