How to Build Composable Enterprise Architecture With APIs

Composable architecture is a key part of the composable enterprise trend. And composable enterprise architecture gives you a new way to adapt the enterprise to a cloud-native world.

Every business knows the importance of digital transformation. But only 7% have implemented a digital-first approach.

Why?

Many have failed to implement practices that support transformation across the entire digital lifecycle. Instead, they lift-and-shift key applications to the cloud.

But that doesn’t work.

To succeed in fully transforming the business, you need to adopt composable architecture. In this blog, we share exactly how to do it.

What Is Composable Architecture?  

Composable architecture is the process of scaling storage, networks, databases, and compute functionality in a more agile fashion. In composable architecture, APIs are used to enable flexibility and ecosystem management.

Building a composable architecture helps you scale — and compose — your IT footprint faster. So you can prepare your IT infrastructure for the digital-first world.

Why Composable Architecture Is Popular

Cloud technology brings agility to the enterprise. And it has many executives wondering how they can achieve the same results with private data centers and traditional IT infrastructure.

That’s why composable architecture has grown in popularity so quickly.

When composable architecture is in place, private data centers and servers can be run much like private cloud services. You can extract and partition compute, storage, and networking services rapidly — based on the evolving needs of your digital business.

This is similar to cloud implementations. You can group traditional IT resources into silos — and provision them to resources based on real-time workloads. 

Key Components In a Composable Enterprise Architecture

So, what does it take to build a composable enterprise architecture?

Infrastructure as an Application — At Scale

In the composable architecture model, you should treat each part of your IT infrastructure as a separate application.

Each application represents a building block and can be managed as code via APIs. And each building block can then be allocated via API management to meet the real-time compute, storage, and processing needs of your business.

Infrastructure Automation

Instead of managing private architecture in the traditional monolithic fashion, you can break your data center into component parts to be automated.

Legacy data centers become packaged applications. These can be automated based on specific thresholds and performance variables.

And, the API management layer can be used to track, govern, and partition resources as business needs evolve.

A Multicloud Approach

The composable enterprise approach requires IT to partition workloads using a multicloud strategy.

Multicloud management requires greater security procedures and DevOps processes. And API management is the way to do it. You can scale apps, services, and workloads across multiple data center components — and managed them as private clouds.

Portfolio Rationalization

As more API functionality has moved to the cloud, enterprises are leveraging dozens more APIs and cloud services than they used to. This represents a significant IT spend. To remain current, many companies must pay steep licensing fees and infrastructure costs.

API portfolio rationalization describes a process of minimizing IT costs associated with unused, duplicated, or deprecated services. In simple terms, there are two key steps. First, you analyze any functional overlaps in your API portfolio. Then, you remove any APIs or services that do not provide specific business value.

Composable architecture allows you to more quickly assess your APIs. It also helps your organization utilize APIs in new parts of your organization in a more nimble fashion. In short, composable architecture makes portfolio rationalization much easier to achieve.   

Key API Management Capabilities

You need the right capabilities to support composable architecture. So, how does your solution stack up? Compare the top API management solutions according to the latest Forrester Wave report. And find out why Akana is well-suited for “buyers aiming to align and coordinate API strategy across large diverse enterprises and/or federated ecosystems".

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How to Use APIs to Build Composable Architecture

The best way to build composable architecture is by using APIs.

APIs bring the cohesion, security, efficiency, and systems management required for thriving in a digital-first economy.

And the best way to do it? The right API management platform.

1. Ensure Cohesion

Composable architecture allows you to shift workloads across data centers and private cloud environments more efficiently.

But how will you actually manage your data centers as separate private clouds and applications? APIs and API management are truly the only technology suited to this task.

When you build an API on top of each data center, cloud provider, and system, you can then manage them all from a single interface using API management software, such as Akana.

This helps you ensure cohesion.

2. Strengthen Security

When you split a data center or private cloud into composable pieces, you’ll open new endpoints to security threats. These will require new security protocols and monitoring.

Without appropriate measures, multicloud, cloud-native, and serverless environments can lead to major security challenges. API security best practices are the best way to maintain your data center’s integrity.

At Akana, we incorporate the latest OAuth 2.0 protocols with our platform to ensure you can secure all endpoints and monitor them accordingly. That means you can sleep at night with the knowledge that no security threat will go undetected.

3. Increase Efficiency

IT efficiency has not historically been associated with greater profit. But when you manage IT at scale using APIs, you can achieve greater profits.

Naturally, composable architecture is also about efficiency and agility. And API management unlocks both.

How?

When you use a platform like Akana, you can control applications, data centers, cloud providers, and web properties from a single interface. When you scale APIs across your digital ecosystem, you can sync your ecosystem using an API management platform.

4. Manage the Entire Ecosystem

With a composable architecture model, you can tame the complexity of a digital-first IT footprint.

As data center, cloud, and hybrid cloud environments are scaled up and down, using a platform like Akana makes it easy to manage the entire ecosystem from a single interface. 

Achieve Composable Architecture With Akana

Composable enterprise architecture is in your reach. But you don’t have to transform your IT infrastructure overnight — or all on your own.

Akana partners with large enterprises to accelerate digital transformation.

And Akana enables composable architecture with the following ready-to-use features:

• Akana API gateway: Improve security and regulatory compliance with automation. Make it easy to manage, deploy, develop, and run APIs.
• Developer portal and marketplace: Make it easy to market and publish APIs. Drive more revenue through API monetization.
• Lifecycle management: Manage the full API lifecycle. And enable collaboration across the business, developers, and IT operations.
• Analytics: Understand API usage and performance.
• API management services and support: Gain the expertise you need to be successful — and gain a competitive advantage.

See for yourself why the Akana API platform is the best choice for building composable architecture.

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Explore additional resources:

• API Basics
• Microservices and APIs
• Enterprise Cloud