REST API Notes for 2016/08/25
As summer draws to a close for North America, I'm noticing an uptick in presentations, blog posts, and thought-provoking videos related to APIs. I'm certain that is not coincidence. The lineup of upcoming fall events is impressive and those speakers are test driving their material now. What material am I talking about? Let's take a look.
NETFLIX CASE STUDY
I've expressed my fondness for case studies. And when it comes to API architectures there are few companies more impressive than Netflix. In a fantastic piece by Daniel Jacobson we get a glimpse into how Netflix thinks about its API orchestration. What's more, refactoring a successful product isn't easy. But Daniel does a great job of explain the alternatives, articulating their pros and cons, and justifying the solution they subsequently picked.
MICROSERVICES AND THE MONOLITH
The Microservices Summit, held in June, has subsequently been uploading their conference recordings on YouTube. In "The Automated Monolith", Holger Reinhardt talks about the Haufe Group's journey toward a microservice architecture.
Anybody who has attempted a microservices rewrite of existing code quickly realizes that it isn't just about technology. As Holger describes, it is equally about culture, about management, and about businesses' ability to deal with change. Like the Netflix piece, it is great perspective from a team that has been there, done that. More importantly, it shows how to rescue a process that appears, at first blush, doomed to failure.
MICROSERVICE TESTING
While I'm on the subject of microservices, Daniel Bryant had a solid piece entitled "A Proposed Recipe for Designing, Building, and Testing Microservices". All the usual suspects - service boundary definition, behavior driven design (BDD), and outside-in thinking - make an appearance. If any of those references are new, the article is helpfully chock full of related links to help get you started.
WRAPPING UP
The final quarter of 2016 is shaping up to be a great one. In addition to all the exciting events coming up, I'm still hiring for my team. If you are interested in API design, speaking and writing about service architectures, and/or software governance, check out these positions:
- https://jobs.capitalone.com/job/vienna/api-product-manager-api-center-of-excellence/1732/2659607
- https://jobs.capitalone.com/job/vienna/api-quality-product-manager-api-center-of-excellence/1732/2659591
- https://jobs.capitalone.com/job/vienna/api-senior-product-manager-api-center-of-excellence/1732/2659592
Until next time, Matthew (@libel_vox), http://voxpop.co