Page the API 1st Advocate in the end credits scene!

It will take you 3 minutes to read these 700 words!

In the end credits scene of Avengers: Infinity War, government agent Fury pages someone in the Marvel Comic Universe for help. Fans are left to wonder, with all the superheroes at his disposal, who in the MCU did he text for help? Even at this late date, I won’t write a spoiler. But the US Federal Government needs a hero and I have an idea who we need to page. Our hero is the API 1st Advocate and I will make my case why we need to page her now.

Most agree new software is written for the cloud, period. But IT leaders struggle in their own heroic arc with aging technology, complex inter-dependencies, and conflicting best intentions. Cloud infrastructure offers us security, scale, and speed. Python, as one example, offers us easily accessible image processing, workflows, and analytics modules. We have so many ways to get to the cloud but struggle to make the right choices nor admit when our applications have a limited future. Enter the API 1st Advocate. She is here to fly across development, mission, the program office righting wrongs in application development and making the digital world a safer place.

An API 1st approach requires software to be designed for integration. This effort happens ideally before but the very least at the same time as the front end is released. Why add that complexity when we can just finish our application and then add support for developers later? Well, think about how rapidly interfaces change. User expectations are at an all-time high with no sign of abating. They want sub second response time, a safe environment, but mostly constant improvements. Innovations in how we shop, listen, watch, and connect all become requirements for our work applications.

An API 1st strategy assumes that if an application is worth doing, do it right and assume it will become a feature of another app. Perhaps you are building a survey app that lets government employees rate the quality of an office or cubicle by temperature, cleanliness, and amount of popcorn odor. You are pulling all these data sources together and even creating a nice interactive map to display your three vectors. You think, “who could possibly want to use my application?”. The API 1st Advocate appears and says there are API’s for everything you want. She shows you how these API’s will evolve, their likely lifespan, and how your app may be consumed by other teams. You get your app out sooner, in a more secure way, and you see a huge upward spike in user acceptance as many groups are tapping into your API. Your interface may not keep pace, but your application is strong and broadly consumed. You ask yourself, “What superpowers does the API 1st Advocate have?”

If a full stack developer can develop both the back end and front end of an application, our hero is equally skilled in development and the mission. She assesses applications and gets the best practices promulgated while working hard to advocate in the mission and program office. She is the first person you will get a note from saying, “avoid hard coding that to the database, we have a scalable API that will give you extra security and key monitoring capabilities as well.” Though no one wants to be told their architecture might be faulty, everyone wants to avoid having to go back and fix structural problems while heavy traffic is slowing the user experience. She has the experience in development and the perspective of someone with inside access across all apps. Good people may resist our hero’s suggestions, but her power comes from the mission office and she comes and goes with the needs of the greater ecosystem of cloud apps.

Layer7, acquired by CA Technologies and now a subsidiary of Broadcom is building a core of API 1st advocates. We are building a community of Integrator, Partners, and Government to create an army of skilled heroes that will clear our path to the cloud. Watch this space for more details in the coming weeks and do reach out if you want to join us!