According to Ahuja, API governance should enforce standards and policies for consistent API development and cover the full scope of API operations. “Meaningful API governance includes API management practices that include consistency, operationalization, telemetry, security, and continuous improvement across the API lifecycle,” he says.
A burgeoning API culture also requires a governance framework to ensure a highly secure state. “Any governance program must define a framework that allows the product to be properly managed in time,” says Vasquez. “For APIs, you have to address how you monitor and maintain them.” He added that quality, security, and compliance also need to be ensured through future updates and version control.
What does good API governance actually look like?
In reality, a successful API governance initiative requires many elements. First, good API governance improves API design and ensures API consistency across services. “When good API governance is in place, a consistent design means that all APIs in an organization appear to have been defined by the same team, even if many teams are involved. ,” says Gartner's O'Neill. He added that governance should be automated as much as possible so that API strategy does not become a bureaucratic bottleneck for his API producers and consumers.
In addition to establishing API design standards, Sabhlok emphasizes that quality API governance must consider API visibility. This can be accomplished through strategies such as comprehensive documentation, maintaining active inventory, leveraging observability, and creating operational guidance from the design stage through decommissioning. He also suggests establishing a center of excellence to review and update framework components and take corrective action where necessary.
The elements that contribute to a high-quality API governance model must future-proof your overall IT strategy. “Effective API governance makes it easy to create, share, monitor, and adjust APIs, allowing organizations to quickly adapt to change and helping them stay competitive in the long term.” he says Busse. “Additionally, organizations can streamline and automate workflows, saving time and freeing individuals and teams to focus on business-critical tasks.”
Guardrails give CIOs peace of mind
CIOs must consider API governance because maintaining a healthy API inventory benefits overall IT agility. “Ensuring that our API portfolio is healthy allows us to be scalable, flexible, cost-optimized, and ready for the introduction of new technologies such as generative AI in a seamless and reliable manner. You can,” Vazquez says.
Additionally, governance helps establish a better developer experience and more secure technology posture, which are essential for the success of API-first efforts. “API governance is essential to API adoption because it ensures that API design is consistent,” says O'Neill. “This is also central to API security, as it also includes creating access control policies for the API.”
Additionally, governance is important to guide strategic alignment between operations and IT strategy. “By adhering to defined standards and policies, a CIO can streamline his IT processes, accelerate development cycles, and foster effective collaboration between teams,” says Ahuja. “API governance contributes to strategic alignment by facilitating a consistent and well-managed digital infrastructure, which enables CIOs to drive innovation and support the organization's broader business objectives. It allows us to leverage APIs as a strategic asset.”
API governance can also give CIOs peace of mind by reducing time to market and providing a more efficient and secure digital experience, Mattsson explains. “Effectively implementing API governance enables organizations to create, update, and manage all APIs throughout their lifecycle and continuously adjust practices for optimal effectiveness,” he said. say. Good governance guides the proper development and delivery of capabilities, reduces risk, and helps meet customer expectations.
“CIOs need to support API governance because it has many benefits,” says Sabhlok. However, it's best to avoid boiling the ocean with full governance from day one, and instead take small steps and test your progress early on. “Identifying and obtaining support early is a great way to avoid incurring catastrophic API technical or process debt that can prevent you from achieving governance later on,” he says. added.
Helping you achieve your business goals
In today's hybrid, connected digital economy, data and software capabilities are inherently tied to value. “Essentially, an API-first strategy is critical to navigating modern technology trends, fostering innovation, and ensuring adaptability in a rapidly evolving technology environment,” says Burt. Good governance steers all goals tied to an API-first strategy in the right direction.
Therefore, achieving your business goals requires investing in managing your API operations. “APIs are the cornerstone of almost every CIO's strategic plan to deliver business value,” Mattson says. “Ensuring these strategic goals are achieved as envisioned requires attention and investment in API governance.”
According to Sabhlok, governance not only brings more out-of-the-box APIs across applications, but also serves as a measure of the continued success of new technology initiatives. For him, API governance improves business by providing “a more reliable impact assessment when making process enhancements or changes.” It also provides a common forum for companies to share their process health experiences such as performance, data issues, missed transactions, outages, and security, he added.
API governance helps future-proof your IT strategy and enable your business to adopt cutting-edge technology. This is important, Busse adds, because APIs are essential for plugging in AI and LLM, which are critical tools for staying competitive. “This is why APIs will be so important to doing business with customers and partners in an AI-driven future,” he says.
There is also a lot of potential for API productization. Governance enables such externalization. “To get business benefits from APIs, you often need to create products from them,” he says O'Neill. “API governance supports this by ensuring APIs are designed and managed consistently.”
Governance gives you more peace of mind
APIs are simply tools to accomplish a goal, but their increasing reliance on them across modern technology stacks requires critical evaluation. Therefore, executives agree that API governance plays a critical role in securing the future of IT and business strategies. “APIs are a tool in your arsenal, and in many cases they are your primary tool,” Mattson says. “Governance practices guide organizations and their tools to achieve all of these goals with confidence.”
Ultimately, Ahuja adds, API governance contributes to an organization's agility, innovation, and responsiveness to market demands. “This supports overarching business objectives and ensures the effectiveness of the digital ecosystem,” he says.
