Articles
🔍 10 Best API Documentation Tools for 2024
This article offers an analysis of the top 10 API documentation tools expected to dominate in 2024. It underscores the value of API documentation in improving user and developer experiences and promoting API adoption. The tools discussed include Apiary, Slate, SwaggerHub, DapperDox, Knowl.ai, Docusaurus, Apidog, Redoc, Gitbook, and DevDocs, each bringing unique features such as interactive documentation, support for various programming languages, AI integration, and collaborative capabilities. The article also includes a few honorable mentions and emphasizes the importance of selecting the right tool based on specific documentation requirements.
🔍 An API Commons Base for Problem Details for HTTP APIs
This article delves into the proposal for a common base for managing problem details in HTTP APIs, as suggested on the API Evangelist platform. It stresses the need for standardizing how APIs communicate errors to enhance interoperability and the developer experience. The initiative seeks to create a shared understanding and structured format for error handling across different APIs, improving consistency and efficiency in troubleshooting and maintenance.
🔍 API Contracts Defining the Next Phase of API Evangelist
This article explores the next phase of API Evangelist, with a focus on API contracts as a key theme for governing enterprise APIs across various platforms. The author reinterprets API contracts as a shared, machine-readable agreement of business and technical requirements between API producers and consumers. This new focus aims to effectively manage and govern HTTP APIs and Webhooks across different business sectors. The article outlines several strategic and tactical services offered by API Evangelist, including API contract management, guidance, and lifecycle management, aiming to provide comprehensive support for enterprises in API governance.
This article emphasizes the significance of a well-planned API strategy for organizations. It highlights how a strategic approach to API development and management can drive business success, enhance integration, and improve overall service delivery. The piece also outlines key components of an effective API strategy, including setting clear goals, understanding user needs, and ensuring robust security measures.
🔍 Data Integration vs. Application Integration
This article contrasts and underscores the importance of data integration and application integration in business environments. Data integration is about consolidating diverse data sources into a unified dataset for analysis and decision-making, while application integration connects different software applications to streamline processes and improve operational efficiency. Both types of integration address challenges like data silos, legacy systems, and security, and are crucial for enhancing business efficiency, decision-making, and regulatory compliance. The article also highlights the benefits of using integration platforms like Boomi to manage these integrations effectively.
🔍 How To Find And Protect Sensitive Data In APIs
This article underscores the importance of securing sensitive data in APIs and provides strategies for achieving this. It defines personally identifiable information (PII) and sensitive data, and highlights the regulatory considerations for protecting such data. The article suggests using automated scanning and discovery to identify exposed data, classifying data based on its sensitivity, and implementing proper authentication and authorization measures. It also recommends using encryption for data in transit and at rest, and limiting data collection to only what is necessary. The article emphasizes that securing sensitive data is not only a legal requirement but also crucial for maintaining user trust and delivering a positive user experience.
🔍 Most APIs Suffer From Specification Drift
A report by APIContext reveals that 75% of production APIs tested had variances to their published OpenAPI Specifications, a phenomenon known as API drift. The report also found that 43% of APIs do not have a public API specification and that 52% of APIs have not been updated in over six months. The report recommends making OpenAPI Specifications (OAS) public and regularly updated, and testing production APIs against the published spec to minimize API drift.
🔍 Top Five Policies for Runtime API Governance
This article highlights the importance of runtime API governance and outlines five key policies for its effective implementation. These include using a developer-friendly approach for API deployments, making comprehensive API documentation available to users, securing API traffic from unauthorized access, providing precise API change impact analysis, and offering proactive API monitoring and comprehensive observability. For each policy, the author provides specific governance standards and metrics to help organizations measure their compliance. The article emphasizes that runtime API governance is crucial for ensuring that APIs are consistent, compliant, and secure throughout their lifecycle, not just during the design phase.
🔍 What’s The Difference Between Shadow APIs and Zombie APIs?
This article explains the differences between shadow APIs and zombie APIs, and the security risks they pose. Shadow APIs are APIs that exist without organizational awareness or documentation, while zombie APIs are APIs that have been deprecated or abandoned but are still usable. Both types of APIs can lead to security vulnerabilities due to their lack of proper documentation and management. The article suggests several ways to mitigate these risks, including improving documentation practices, ensuring proper lifecycle management, implementing strong security measures, and conducting regular audits. The author emphasizes that understanding and clarity are key to enhancing overall security and that organizations should address the presence of shadow and zombie APIs as a priority.
🔍 What you need to know about Classic Queues in RabbitMQ
This article offers a comprehensive understanding of Classic Queues in RabbitMQ, a popular open-source message broker. It discusses the evolution of Classic Queues, from their initial design to the introduction of versions 1 and 2, and the shift to a default 'lazy' behaviour in RabbitMQ version 3.12.0. The article also explains the concept of Mirrored Queues, which provide high availability and data redundancy, but have some design flaws that can impact performance and synchronisation. The author recommends using Quorum Queues for high availability and redundancy needs, and always using Classic Queue version 2 for improved performance and lower memory usage. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of staying updated with the latest features in RabbitMQ.
Apache Camel
🔍 Apache Camel AI: Leverage power of AI with DJL component
This article explores the use of Apache Camel AI, a suite of components that integrate various AI-related technologies with Camel. The author introduces the DJL component, which allows the integration of the Deep Java Library with Camel routes, enabling the running of models trained with popular machine learning frameworks for inference in Java. The article provides examples of how Camel AI can be used for intelligent routing based on neural network model inference, including image recognition and speech recognition. The author also discusses the importance of accurate models for specific applications and the trade-offs between performing inference within a Camel route or delegating it to an external server. The article concludes by highlighting the potential for further exploration and enhancement of AI technologies in the field of enterprise integration.
🔍 Modernizing Camel's Test Support Code: What You Need to Know
This article delves into the modernization of Apache Camel's test support code. The author explains that the test support code, which is associated with the CamelTestSupport and CamelSpringTestSupport classes, has been largely overlooked until recently. The modernization process involves refactoring code, evaluating APIs, reviewing tests, and updating code to leverage the latest features of Java. The author provides several tips to help users prepare their code for these changes, including avoiding reliance on deprecated interfaces, using new classes for adjusting test behavior, and ensuring a clean environment between tests. The author concludes by stating that following these tips can ensure a smooth transition during the modernization process.
Apache Kafka
🔍 Handling the Producer Request: Kafka Producer and Consumer Internals, Part 2
This article offers a detailed insight into the inner workings of Apache Kafka, focusing on how it interacts with the cluster through producers and consumers. The author explains the journey of a produce request from the producer to the broker, detailing each step of the process, including the role of network threads, the request queue, I/O threads, and the page cache. The article also discusses the concept of "purgatory", a data structure where requests are held until the replication process has completed. The author provides tips on how to monitor and configure various stages of the process for optimal performance. The article concludes by emphasizing the complexity of Kafka and the importance of understanding its nuances for effective debugging and problem-solving.
Gravitee
🔍 Configuring conditional API responses using API Keys
The article provides a guide on how to filter backend API responses using API keys with Gravitee's Assign Content Policy. It explains how to uniquely identify API Keys to filter results from a backend resource and respond to the consumer with specific results. The guide also demonstrates how to configure the message filtering of the backend response using Gravitee’s Policy Studio and how to use the “Assign Content” policy with the Freemarker template engine for complex transformations.
Mulesoft
🔍 Design AsyncAPI Specifications With a Practical Example
This article offers a step-by-step guide on how to design AsyncAPI specifications using Anypoint Design Center. The author uses a practical example of a system that sends a welcome email to new users. The system uses two services: an Accounts service that handles account signups and an Email service that sends the welcome email. The author explains how to create AsyncAPI specifications for both services, detailing each step of the process, from adding a description and servers to defining channels and components. The article also explains how to publish the specifications to Exchange for others to discover. The author concludes by emphasizing the ease of designing AsyncAPI specifications in Design Center and the benefits of publishing them to Exchange.
Oracle
🔍 Introduction to OIC API Catalog & Portal
Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC) has introduced a new version of digitalML's API management platform, Ignite, exclusively for OIC. The platform offers API lifecycle management and developer access to APIs, allowing users to manage the lifecycle of integration APIs, decide which APIs to expose to developers, and control who has access to those APIs.
Releases
Apache Camel 4.8 LTS has been launched, bringing new features and improvements such as new functions in the simple language, improved performance of the Camel tracer, and the ability for the core to automatically read the cloud configuration. The release also includes improvements to the Camel JBang CLI, the addition of a Camel Context reload based on Kubernetes Secrets update, modernization of the testing framework, and new components.
Kong has introduced Kong Gateway 3.8, a major update to its API management platform. The new version offers faster configuration processing, enhanced security, improved observability tools, and a single source of configuration and cache information. It also introduces new updates to the AI Gateway, including semantic intelligence to accelerate GenAI performance, lower computational overhead, and improve LLM security.
Books
📚 Pentesting APIs: A practical guide to discovering, fingerprinting, and exploiting APIs by Maurício Harley
This book offers insights into vulnerabilities and attack vectors for RESTful and GraphQL APIs. It provides practical advice and best practices for securing APIs against potential threats, and guides readers through setting up a penetration testing environment, conducting API reconnaissance, performing basic and advanced attacks, and implementing secure coding practices for APIs.
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