Mastering APIs for Enterprise Applications

Technology is moving towards modern digital systems with business functionality exposed by integrating multiple best-of-breed software systems. In today's interconnected digital landscape, application programming interfaces (APIs) are the backbone of enterprise applications, enabling seamless data exchange and service integration.

This book takes you through the entire API lifecycle, starting with the evolution of APIs and moving beyond traditional REST to modern architectures like GraphQL and gRPC. You will learn the core principles of API design, including best practices, security protocols, and open standard adoption like OpenAPI. You will also gain practical skills in API development, testing, and documentation, focusing on enhancing developer experience and ensuring scalability. Crucial aspects of API governance, real-time API implementation, and API gateways are thoroughly covered. Finally, the book explores emerging trends, including generative AI APIs, vision, natural language processing (NLP), speech, and large language models (LLMs), preparing you for the future of API integration.

By the end of this book, you will gain the expertise to confidently build and manage APIs for enterprise applications, becoming a proficient architect in the dynamic world of digital integration, ready to leverage APIs as a powerful strategic asset.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
● Understanding different API architectures like REST, gRPC, and WebSockets.
● Practical approach to API development with an emphasis on open standards.
● Explore advanced topics like real-time, asynchronous, and generative AI APIs.
● Implement rigorous API testing strategies to ensure reliability and security.
● Enhance the developer experience with effective documentation and interactive API explorers.
● Best practices to create enterprise-grade high-performance APIs.
● Learning WebSocket, SSE, message broker implementation for real-time data delivery.

WHO THIS BOOK IS FOR
This book is for developers, architects, and technical leads, who want to design and develop robust, scalable, and secure APIs for their web applications. It assumes a basic understanding of HTTP, JSON, and JavaScript.

1. The Modern API Economy
2. Beyond REST
3. Fundamentals of API Design
4. Crafting APIs
5. Embracing Open API Standards
6. API Security
7. API Development Lifecycle
8. API Testing
9. API Documentation
10. API Performance and Scaling
11. API Governance
12. Real-time, Asynchronous, and Streaming APIs
13. API Management Platforms and Gateways
14. Trends in AI APIs

Rajan Subramanian is a seasoned technology leader with over two decades of experience driving API transformation and digital modernization across financial services, healthcare, supply chain, and telecommunications. As a strategic architect, he has led enterprise- wide API initiatives, including designing scalable API-based systems, implementing governance frameworks, and encouraging developer-friendly APIs.

With leadership roles in large companies, he has been instrumental in shaping API-first architectures and AI-driven platforms using various AI APIs available today. His expertise spans platform engineering and cloud-based application development, with a deep insight into API design, developer enablement, and best practices for creating scalable and secure API-led platforms. Currently serving as a board member and advisor in fintech, he leverages AI to revolutionize platform development.

Rajan has an MBA in business and a bachelor's degree in engineering.