Mastering API Architecture

Chapter 8. Redesigning Applications to API-Driven Architectures

Now that you have a solid grasp of API operations and security, you will explore how APIs can be used to evolve and augment existing applications. In Building Evolutionary Architectures (O’Reilly), the authors discuss how an evolutionary architecture supports guided, incremental changes, across multiple dimensions. Whether you want to adopt an evolutionary architecture as defined in that book or not, the reality is that almost every successful system will have to evolve over time to meet new user requirements or to react to a changing environment. It is rare for a business or organization not to change its products based on customer feedback or changing market conditions. Equally, it is uncommon for a long-running system not to be impacted by changes in infrastructure (e.g., hardware failing and becoming obsolete), the underlying application frameworks, or a third-party service.

APIs are the natural interfaces, abstractions, and (encapsulated) entry points to and within a system, and as such can be instrumental in supporting an evolutionary architecture. In this chapter you will learn about why change is needed, how to design for this, and where to implement useful patterns.

Although you may not have realized it, you have been applying many of the skills discussed in this chapter throughout the conference system case study. We recommend that you think about the evolution of the case study as you read this chapter, ...