Apidays London 2024 - Battle-tested APIs_Tech and Business working together, Jean Burellier.pdf

Battle-tested APIs
Jean Burellier, Principal Engineer, Platform Team Lead - Sanofi

apidays London 2024 - APIs for Smarter Platforms and Business Processes
September 18 & 19, 2024

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Battle-tested APIs:
Tech and Business working
together

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APIdays London
2023

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We are all working with


- knowingly or not !

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But when we think about APIs this is
always a technical point of view.
●How is the API working ?
●What technology do you use ?
●Which cloud architecture ?


⚠ Never as a business
opening solution.

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Jean Burellier

Team Lead Platform @ Sanofi
Professor @ Supinfo
Open Source Contributor @ Node.js ~
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➢@shepsheplu
➢sheplu.bsky.social
➢github.com/sheplu

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Battle-tested APIs:
Tech and Business working
together

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?

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-Did you say API ?

-Changing the world -
but first the mindset

-Bridge between
Business / Engineering

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Vision of APIs

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Vision of APIs
Today, both humans and machines are consuming data.
Humans consume data through applications, often from many different devices
●Smartphones
●Laptops
●Tablets
●And desktops

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Vision of APIs

But for companies APIs are mostly unknown to the majority of the people.
An API is not a product it is only part of a more global - and most of the time - a
visual product
●We need an application to create a contract
●We need to sign a pdf online
●We want an internal social network

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Vision of APIs

APIs is always hidden behind some complexity - yet this is the core of your system
Remove the API part and everything collapse.
●You can have an API without a frontend application
●You can’t have a frontend application without APIs

14. @shepsheplu
Vision of APIs

APIs is always hidden behind some complexity - yet this is the core of your system
Remove the API part and everything collapse.
●You can have an API without a frontend application
●You can’t have a frontend application without APIs

15. @shepsheplu
Vision of APIs

APIs is always hidden behind some complexity - yet this is the core of your system
Remove the API part and everything collapse.
●You can have an API without a frontend application
●You can’t have a frontend application without APIs

16. @shepsheplu
Vision of APIs

APIs is always hidden behind some complexity - yet this is the core of your system
Remove the API part and everything collapse.
●You can have an API without a frontend application
●You can’t have a frontend application without APIs

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So APIs are the core of your company, it IS
the core product.
Everything else is only a mean to display
some items.

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Changing the world - but first the mindset

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Changing the world - but first the mindset




What is API First ?
●APIs are treated as “first-class citizens”
●An API-first approach involves developing APIs that are consistent and
reusable
●Establish a contract for how the API is supposed to behave
○Involves spending more time thinking about the design of an API
○Involves additional planning and collaboration with the stakeholders

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Changing the world - but first the mindset



APIs allow companies to break down capabilities into individual, autonomous
services (aka microservices)

An API-first strategy allows organizations to build APIs that serve all applications,
and applications can be developed and maintained efficiently for all devices,
platforms, and operating systems.

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Changing the world - but first the mindset



Benefits of an API-First Approach

●Parallel development
●Cost reduction
●Standardization
●Speed to market
●Better developer experience
●Product oriented !

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Changing the world - but first the mindset



We can define and design our API without writing code and so you can - and
should - involve the business in the creation of the API

●Using OpenAPI (v3.1 currently) standard
○Based on Swagger
○Example: https://editor.swagger.io/
●Writing Yaml or JSON

23. @shepsheplu
Changing the world - but first the mindset



We can define and design our API without writing code and so you can - and
should - involve the business in the creation of the API

●Using OpenAPI (v3.1 currently) standard
○Based on Swagger
○Example: https://editor.swagger.io/
●Writing Yaml or JSON

24. @shepsheplu
Changing the world - but first the mindset



With a governance group, you can then follow and standardize all the APIs in your
ecosystem
●Mixed group of people (Engineering & Business)
●Guarantee compliance and use case
●Validate new APIs
●Monitor testing of APIs
●Discover missing APIs

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Bridge between Business and Engineering

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Bridge between Business and Engineering
With APIs now being a core product it is only normal that this should be known by
the business - because it can bring value to the business
●Opening APIs to new customers and markets
●Having a monetization strategy (or not)
●Get more data
●Allow other business to rely on our APIs

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Bridge between Business and Engineering

From the engineering side
●Provide data to the business about the APIs
●Be proactive about Analytics and Observability
●Be a voice on all projects
●Report success and failures
●Do not hide complexity

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Bridge between Business and Engineering

From the business side
●Involve the engineering side for feedback earlier
●Directly work with engineering to build feature
●Be present for the testing phases
●Ask feedback from engineering on a live project
●Learn the basics about APIs

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Bridge between Business and Engineering

On API directly, it can be a good idea to consider the API contract as the product
●Build the openAPI spec with the business
○Better knowledge on the possibilities
○Good understanding of the use case
○Way to find new features that could be useful
●Have the business involved in testing
○Final product is validated by the business
○Reuse tests done to have them setup in your pipelines
○Implement a “continuous business testing” policy

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