Integration platform-as-a-service provider Boomi LP is building on its vision to simplify the way enterprises manage their information technology infrastructure with the debut of its first major application programming interface product, the result of two key acquisitions earlier in the year.
The company has just announced the launch of the Boomi API Control Plane, which is meant to be a centralized platform for companies to discover, manage and govern all of the APIs they use across their organization. Boomi says it hopes to fuel “accelerated business innovation, improved developer productivity and stronger API governance.”
Back in May, when the company held its annual user conference Boomi World, it announced it had acquired software assets from two companies – APIIDA GmbH and Cloud Software Group Inc. – in order to boost its flagship integration-platform-as-a-service product.
The Boomi API Control Plane represents the fruit of those acquisitions, merging APIIDA’s federated API management tools with its existing API Management offering to improve API discovery. Its unique capabilities enable it to discover what Boomi calls “shadow APIs” that may exist outside of the purview of IT teams. This is advantageous, the company says, because bringing these APIs under control can help to increase API consumption across entire organizations, driving new efficiencies and more opportunities for innovation.
Boomi Chief Product and Technology Officer Ed Macosky explained that APIs are the backbone of modern digital transformation, yet the task of managing them across multiple platforms and departments is a significant challenge for enterprises.
“Unlike other APIM vendors, Boomi provides a federated API management approach that is truly vendor-independent, enabling organizations to utilize existing on-premises and cloud API runtimes effectively while addressing API sprawl,” he said. “With the Boomi API Control Plane, we are offering an integrated, holistic solution that simplifies operations, strengthens governance, and accelerates innovation.”
Boomi’s integration tools are designed to help enterprises meet the daunting challenge of managing an ever-growing sprawl of applications, databases and APIs. This complexity has spurred the need for a streamlined approach to enterprise software solutions, focusing on integration and automation to simplify information technology infrastructure.
With its flagship iPaaS platform, Boomi helps companies to develop integrations that enable data to flow between cloud applications, databases and other workloads. APIs are a key part of that, as they’re the gateways that enable information to flow between various IT systems.
During Boomi World in May, Chief Executive Steve Lucas (pictured) told SiliconANGLE’s mobile livestreaming studio theCUBE that enterprises need a centralized integration platform to get all of these data flows under control to enhance business operations and drive innovation
“Customers have tons of applications, databases, APIs. That’s an integration challenge,” Lucas said. “Why would you solve that integration challenge with a dozen integration products? It doesn’t make any sense. For us, it’s a single solution for integration and automation.”
His opinion is shared by many industry analysts. According to International Data Corp. analyst Shari Lava, the best way to handle complex and diverse API landscapes that span multiple environments and platforms is to leverage federated API management. “A centralized, federated approach can enable consistent governance, security and monitoring across all APIs, reducing risks and enhancing operational efficiency,” he said.
Boomi said its API Control Plane makes API discovery much more efficient, enabling organizations to provide developers with a consistent API experience, together with insights into their performance and usage. It can also help teams to ensure consistent policies across all platforms, thereby reducing the risk of data breaches and making compliance simpler and more efficient, the company said.
Lucas believes that the API Control Plane will also pave the way for more intelligent artificial intelligence systems, which need data access to perform more complex tasks, such as those involving reasoning
“This new world of AI that we’re in, it’s not the same,” Lucas said. “This is not an apple/giraffe image recognition thing. This is the ability to reason. It really is powerful. We’re reducing the barrier to entry for new innovations.”
Here’s the full interview with Lucas: