Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has become a popular software delivery model in recent times. It is driven by the proliferation of private and public cloud services and the increasing number of intelligent devices. Experts predict that the market share for SaaS platforms willhit $307.3 billion by 2026. Application programming interface (API) management plays a crucial role in building SaaS platforms.
Typically, SaaS platforms consist of several software services and components that must communicate with each other to achieve the desired purpose. APIs facilitate this communication by enabling different systems and applications to seamlessly exchange data and functionality. But what is API management? And what is its role in developing SaaS platforms? Let’s find out.
What is API Management?
As the name suggests, API management is the process of developing, administering, publishing, and analyzing APIs. It’s achieved through a set of services and tools that facilitate the provisioning, securing, and maintenance of APIs. Visibility is a critical factor in API management, as it helps ensure that APIs operate and are consumed as intended.
APIs alone cannot provide the visibility and oversight a company needs to ensure they meet their users’ needs while protecting APIs from malicious use and unauthorized access. Therefore, proper API management is essential in building SaaS platforms.
8 Roles of API Management in Building SaaS Platforms
Here are some key roles of API management in developing SaaS platforms:
1. Integration
As initially stated, SaaS platforms consist of multiple software components and services that need to communicate with each other. Simply put, these platforms often thrive by integrating with third-party developers, applications, and services.
API integration solutions helpyou create partner ecosystems, enabling external developers to discover, integrate, and access your SaaS platform’s APIs. As a result, it facilitates integration opportunities that drive growth and innovation for your SaaS business. In fact, it facilitates secure and seamless integration of the SaaS platform with external systems.
2. Security and Governance
SaaS platforms must comply with various security and regulatory requirements. API management facilitates compliance with business policies and external regulatory requirements around data security and privacy. When building SaaS platforms, you can enforce rules around API security and data governance. This ensures you won’t leave backdoors into your SaaS platform, potentially exposing sensitive data.
APIs contribute to a significant number of security breaches. API management helps you set security measures to limit access to users or applications using the correct authentication credentials or API keys. Also, it ensures only individuals with proper permissions can access your SaaS platform and its services.
3. Reporting and Analytics
At one point, you’ll need to analyze and assess your SaaS platform’s performance. An API can log the requests it receives and their corresponding responses. However, that data isn’t in a readily consumable format. And that’s where API management tools come in.
API management tools offer reporting and analytics capabilities. This helps you monitor the frequency of requests made to your SaaS platform. Therefore, you can discover popular services, guiding future API development.
4. Automation
Automating your SaaS platform helps you minimize manual errors. Also, it saves time spent on repetitive tasks, such as generating audit reports and sending emails. But how does API management help you automate your SaaS platform?
API management facilitates faster development of automation interfaces. Most API management platforms automate and templatize API development. This accelerates deployment and eliminates redundant work.
The centralized directory for APIs helps prevent duplicate work. It allows you to check for APIs that may fulfill your desired function. These capabilities enable your SaaS development team to follow agile practices without sacrificing security and quality.
5. Onboarding
Building a SaaS platform is not a one-person show. This means that during the development process, several parties will be involved. Even after deployment, new teams will come in and may need to update or improve the platform. And that’s where an API management system comes in handy.
An API management system has a developer portal where you can store documentation about your SaaS platform. Internal and external developers can access the documentation, helping them understand your SaaS platform. Also, this centralized repository enables engineers to quickly implement the correct methods for calling APIs. Also, they can easily know the responses to expect from the specific API calls. This smoothens the onboarding process.
6. Versioning and Lifecycle Management.
The APIs in your SaaS platform will likely evolve over time. Therefore, API management is crucial to track different versions of your APIs throughout their lifecycle. This enables you to introduce new API versions without breaking the existing integrations.
If a specific API version interferes with the functionality or performance of your SaaS platform, you can quickly revert to previous versions. Also, API management systems provide a mechanism for notifying other developers about changes, ensuring a smooth transition for clients.
SaaS platforms often deal with massive volumes of API traffic. So, when building SaaS platforms, you should set a rate limit and throttling policies to regulate the number of API requests clients can make per second or minute. This will ensure that your APIs are not overloaded, guaranteeing consistent performance.
API management platforms enable you to set rate limits and throttling policies8. As a result, it prevents abuse, ensures fair usage, and protects your SaaS platform’s backend systems from being overwhelmed.
8. Access Control
Your SaaS platform will likely have an open API accessible to the public. However, not all APIs will be accessible to the public – some are limited to specific applications or users. Access control lets you dictate who has what rights to request resources from the SaaS platform’s API. And that’s where API management comes in handy!
API management systems often include an API gateway, which acts as the entry point for all API requests. This gateway manages traffic, authorization, and authentication. This ensures that only authorized requests can access your SaaS platform's APIs.
Final Thoughts
API management is crucial in building SaaS platforms. It ensures seamless integration, versioning, security, governance, and access control and facilitates automation, smooth onboarding, and rate limiting. Simply put, prioritizing API management in building SaaS platforms is essential, as it provides the necessary tools and infrastructure to control, monitor, and secure yourplatforms’ API.
