DEVOPSdigest

Industry experts offer thoughtful, insightful, and often controversial predictions on how DevOps and related technologies will evolve and impact business in 2022. Part 5 covers integration.

Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 1

Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 2

Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 3

Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 4

Start with: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 5

API Economy Will Remain Hot

After a busy year of acquisitions and funding, some might think the API economy will only continue to grow in 2022. As a more diverse range of industries like e-commerce, financial services, healthcare, and more see the value of investing in APIs, such as faster time-to-market and more efficient workflows, the API market will experience even more significant growth than in 2021.
Gleb Polyakov
CEO and Co-Founder, Nylas(link is external)

OPEN AND VENDOR-NEUTRAL API

Kubernetes and containers have forever changed the way software is packaged and maintained, and have offered unprecedented application portability. These technologies have freed developers from vendor lock-in and enabled APIs and microservices to become the new fuel for our digital world, providing the foundation for unlimited innovation. As we enter 2022, I expect more developers will adopt open and vendor-neutral APIs so they can create applications in their preferred environments without being locked into a particular vendor ecosystem. While this approach offers great flexibility, it puts organizations at risk of a cloud vendor's embrace, extend and extinguish policy towards open APIs.
Marco Palladino,
CTO and Co-Founder, Kong(link is external)

NUMBER OF COMPANIES USING SINGLE PLATFORM TO DELIVER APIS WILL BE REDUCED BY HALF

With the growing need for API-first companies, I strongly believe that the number of companies that use a single platform to deliver their APIs will be reduced by half as more companies realize they need many different services to manage APIs across the API lifecycle.
Kin Lane
a former Presidential Innovation Fellow and Chief Evangelist, Postman(link is external)

API SECURITY

Due to the rise of API-related security incidents, I have no doubt that there will be a fresh round of API security company acquisitions, consolidating, and absorbing the latest round of investment in API security startups.
Kin Lane
a former Presidential Innovation Fellow and Chief Evangelist, Postman(link is external)

NEED FOR COMMERCE API

I anticipate an increased attention on retail and commerce API providers as the world continues to remake itself in a COVID world of deliveries and digital commerce.
Kin Lane
a former Presidential Innovation Fellow and Chief Evangelist, Postman(link is external)

MULTIPLE API GATEWAYS

I believe that more companies will begin seeking solutions for managing policies across multiple API gateways after realizing they have actual needs to use multiple types of gateways across different teams.
Kin Lane
a former Presidential Innovation Fellow and Chief Evangelist, Postman(link is external)

API TESTING ACCELERATES

Toolchain refinement will accelerate in 2022 to meet the continued digital quality demands of customers as well as the need for companies to have testing tools for iterative development and shorter release cycles — as such, API testing will accelerate. Companies don't need to rip and replace their toolchains; different teams need different tools, but all teams need to follow a consistent approach to quality. A single version of API health will allow engineers and testers to ensure unified frontend and backend quality across common organizational silos.
Matt Wyman
Chief Product Officer, Sauce Labs(link is external)

API TEST AUTOMATION

API test automation will become increasingly important in 2022. Developers will, more and more, be held accountable for what company's ship. As such test automation becomes even more critical to success and speed. As developers switch from focusing on systems of record to systems of engagement (e.g., mobile apps, web platforms, web services, etc.), they need cloud-based testing tools that are much better at things like scaling up/down for changing needs and aggregating global test data to create a single version of truth about frontend and backend quality. This makes for much more usable feedback loops and reporting. Systems of engagement (and systems of innovation) are very much API-driven and architected with decoupled microservices that require development and ops teams to work independently on increasingly complex test cases. Much of the business logic, functional and end-to-end testing that once took days or weeks can now be done in seconds with API test automation and AI-driven testing.
Matt Wyman
Chief Product Officer, Sauce Labs(link is external)

API TO SDK<

APIs will enable the creation of applications by developers writing code (pro code), knowledge workers writing specifications (low code), and frontline workers just using the applications as needed. This will require abstraction of APIs into SDKs that are easy to deploy, regardless of domain. For example, a web developer should be able to easily use a video API. Hence, API solution kits by vertical will start to become more popular.
Savinay Berry
EVP, Product and Engineering, Vonage(link is external)

Go to: 2022 DevOps Predictions - Part 7, the final installment, covering quality and testing.