Dev Watch 6/14: API Management Heats Up

Developer tool and platform vendors are kicking the summer off with a slew of product and partnership announcements. In particular, we've been hearing a lot from providers of tools for publishing, promoting and overseeing application programming interfaces (APIs). Here are some API management product notes that wouldn't fit into the main news feed we thought you shouldn't miss:

• Apigee unveiled a new feature for its API platform that should appeal to devs building API-powered apps: push notifications. According to the company, its backend-as-a-service (BaaS) capabilities can now be used to deliver relevant and context-aware notifications directly to customers. "Sharing information directly with a carefully targeted audience has proven to be the most effective way to connect with customers," said Ed Anuff, Apigee's head of product strategy, in a statement. He added that the new feature enables highly focused, context-aware push campaigns. The free, self-service Apigee platform is available as software-as-a-service or on-premises. More information about the new push notifications feature is available here.
• SOA Software has added support for Windows Azure to its API Management solution. The newly released API Management solution for Microsoft is designed to help developers "plan, build, run, and share your APIs on Windows Azure," the company says, both in on-premise environments and hybrids. The API management software integrates natively with the Windows Azure Service Bus, BizTalk Server, and Windows Communication Foundation (WCF). "SOA Software's approach to API management is to emphasize management across the full lifecycle," the company said in an email. "In our experience, working with large corporations, the best practice is to involve stakeholders and processes fully through the plan/build/run/share phases of an API's life." For more information, visit the API Platform page.
• Enterprise middleware maker WSO2 has released API Manager 1.4, which the company says is the first API manager that can run on a private, public, or hybrid cloud environment. The company also claims that it's the first such product to enable federated access to APIs across multiple entities, "enabling new models for organizations to collaborate and monetize APIs." Launched last year, this birth-to-death API governance and analysis tool/platform is the company's bid to "democratize API management" with an affordable piece of software for controlling and managing the API lifecycle.

Posted by John K. Waters on June 14, 2013