As the software application world moves from monolith architectures to microservices, we are also seeing a shift toward developing modular and reusable APIs. According to APIOps, reusable APIs are consumable APIs, which means they must be well-documented and compliant. The separation between the designers, builders and consumers of an API grows larger and larger, making the API specification even more central to that API’s success.

Back in the day, it was normal to buy or rent servers and pay for them in a lump sum, independent of utilization. With the rise of serverless computing, infrastructure to build APIs has become cheaper, and on-demand pricing is the norm. Now that you only pay for what you use, why not include usage-based pricing as a feature in your own SaaS offering. With usage-based pricing your customers don’t get intimidated by high upfront costs, instead their costs grow as their business grows.

Automating digital transformation API deployments can help speed time to market and minimize the resources required for the deployments — if developers can be assured that the automated process meets all necessary security requirements. It’s a topic that Kong Senior CustomerExperience Manager Peggy Guyott and Kong Senior Solutions Engineer Ned Harris discussed on a recent webinar as part of the Destination: Automation 2021 digital event.

Why do APIs require authentication in the first place? Users don't always need keys for read-only APIs. However, most commercial APIs require permission via API keys or other ways. Users might make an unlimited number of API calls without needing to register if your API had no security. Allowing limitless requests would make it impossible to develop a business structure for your API. Furthermore, without authentication, it would be difficult to link requests to individual user data.