API discovery is an essential process within the API lifecycle, referring to the mechanisms by which available APIs and their associated endpoints, functionalities, and data structures are found and cataloged.
Because of today’s microservices and complex IT infrastructures, companies sometimes have hundreds or thousands of APIs. API discovery helps developers understand the APIs available, enabling them to use existing APIs instead of creating new ones that replicate functionality.
Service identification: API discovery helps identify all APIs in use within an organization. This helps in avoiding redundancy, identifying potential security risks, and promoting the best use of resources.
API documentation: Discovered APIs should be well documented. Good documentation includes information about the API’s functionality, its endpoints, how to authenticate, and examples of responses. This makes it easier for developers to understand and use the API.
Integration and interoperability: By identifying available APIs, API discovery supports better integration and operations between different systems and applications within an organization.
API discovery tools can automatically find, document, and catalog APIs within an organization. These tools often integrate with the organization’s API management platform to show an up-to-date overview of all existing APIs.
API discovery is important for security and compliance. By identifying all of the APIs, teams can make sure each one meets the security requirement standards. Any APIs not following these standards can be identified and improved or fixed.
Overall, API discovery plays an important role in API management and security.
Early beginnings — The concept of API discovery originated alongside the adoption of application programming interfaces (APIs). In the early stages of API use, developers manually shared APIs, and there was no system for automatically discovering APIs.
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) — The formalization of API discovery began with SOAP–based (Simple Object Access Protocol) web services, where WSDL files were created. These files allowed users to understand the functionality that made them discoverable.
Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) — This was introduced as a registry for businesses worldwide to list themselves and their APIs.
REST APIs and OpenAPI Specification — REST APIs led to a need for new API discovery methods. The OpenAPI Specification (formerly known as the Swagger Specification) became popular for describing HTTP-based APIs.
Modern API discovery — API discovery today includes tools and platforms that automatically discover APIs and keep documentation.
API discovery’s advancements show the quick growth of APIs, showing the progress of handling APIs at scale in IT systems.
Akamai leverages existing API data for efficient discovery, providing complete coverage of every API. Deployment is simple and quick, and offers the deepest insights for security teams.
Continuous API discovery — Our perpetual discovery operates 24/7, identifying new APIs and updating existing ones. This continuous oversight gives security teams unmatched visibility, alerting them when a new API or service is deployed.
Eradicate shadow APIs — Our ongoing discovery keeps you updated about newly discovered APIs or changes to existing ones, eliminating shadow APIs. Akamai bridges the gap between developers and security teams, detecting shadow APIs in their environment.
Risk audit of discovered APIs — Every discovered API must be audited to determine its risk posture. Akamai examines each API for misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, and understands which ones carry sensitive data like PII.
Prioritize sensitive APIs with data classification — Identify crucial APIs that carry sensitive data. Akamai labels endpoints handling delicate information such as PII, assisting in prioritizing API security.
Ensure comprehensive API documentation — Akamai checks all APIs and generates Swagger files for undocumented ones. These files help the API documentation process across all systems.
API discovery is an important part of the software development process, because it allows developers to leverage existing systems and build more solutions. It’s also useful for organizations that want to integrate systems with partners.
One common way to discover APIs is through the use of directories, which are sites that maintain listings of APIs and provide documentation on them. Some directories allow developers to search for APIs based on specific criteria, like language or pricing model.
API marketplaces are platforms that allow developers to discover, purchase, and manage APIs. These marketplaces may offer a wider range of APIs and may provide tools for developers to use in building and deploying applications.
To find and use APIs effectively, developers need to understand the specific specifications of the APIs. This includes understanding the input and output formats for the API, as well as any authentication or authorization requirements.
Some APIs may also have specific limitations or usage quotas that developers need to be aware of.
REST API discovery is identifying all REST APIs in a system. This could range from public-facing APIs to internal APIs used by different services in a system.
Discovery is the first step in effectively managing and securing APIs, as it provides an understanding of what exists and how it’s being used.
Akamai API Gateway is a tool that is used for API discovery. It helps you catalog all of your APIs, observe their behavior, identify data types they manage, and monitor their performance.
An API, or application programming interface, is a set of rules and protocols for building and interacting with software applications. APIs are used to enable the communication between different software systems, allowing them to exchange data and functionalities.
APIs provide a standard way for different components of a software architecture to interact and work together.
An everyday example of an API is the weather app on your smartphone. The app uses a weather service’s API to retrieve the current weather data, which it then displays on your screen.
API discovery provides a view of all APIs within software. It enables the identification of rogue or shadow APIs, prevents security vulnerabilities, and assists in maintaining API documentation. It also helps streamline things by providing a clear understanding of available functionalities across the system.
An API key is a unique identifier used to authenticate a user, developer, or calling program to an API. It acts as a security measure to control access and track usage of the API. These keys ensure that only authorized entities can interact with the API, adding an extra layer of security.
API discovery is the process of identifying and documenting all APIs in a system. API management is a set of tools used to oversee and control these APIs.
While both terms are often used interchangeably, they have subtle differences. An API is a broader concept that represents any way for different software systems to interact. A web service, on the other hand, is a type of API that operates over the web. All web services are APIs, but not all APIs are web services.
Akamai is the cybersecurity and cloud computing company that powers and protects business online. Our market-leading security solutions, superior threat intelligence, and global operations team provide defense in depth to safeguard enterprise data and applications everywhere. Akamai’s full-stack cloud computing solutions deliver performance and affordability on the world’s most distributed platform. Global enterprises trust Akamai to provide the industry-leading reliability, scale, and expertise they need to grow their business with confidence.
