Augmenting Existing APIs With Event-Driven Architecture

More APIs are moving towards an event-driven way of doing business. Meaning instead of just responding to requests made to the API paths, they respond to events that occur in real time and to schedules, pushing and streaming data to when and where they are needed. Event-driven approaches to delivering APIs are more efficient and help applications reduce the noise and chattiness that can often be present within active platforms. Helping make platforms better serve end-users and ensuring our API-driven applications respond with more meaningful interactions and the signals that matter to users.

The biggest challenge with the event-driven evolution across the API sector is not all API providers are to the place in their journey where they see the importance of an event-driven approach or have the resources to begin investing in the infrastructure that is needed. Putting the burden on API consumers to do the heavy lifting of sorting through the noise, polling existing endpoints for relevant signals, and making sense of what is happening. Luckily, there are ways in which we can help API consumers better optimize the API infrastructure they depend on from the outside-in, augmenting existing APIs with the event-driven architecture that is required.

Streamdata.io has always been in the business of augmenting existing web APIs with data streams, but we've also been investing in the development of unique approaches to augmenting existing APIs with event-driven layers. Providing scripts and connectors that provide topical subscriptions to existing APIs, and external webhook solutions that teach common request and response APIs to behave more like event-driven solutions — without having to wait for API providers to play catch up. Version one of Streamdata.io is all about proxying, caching, and streaming existing APIs, but our roadmap is full of event-driven solutions, based upon what we are seeing emerge across the landscape.

We are in the business of providing both API providers, and API consumers with the event-driven API infrastructure they need to be successful. While we prefer API providers get on board and begin investing in their native solutions, we are happy to augment API platforms from the outside-in, to get the job done. Streaming existing APIs, providing augmented webhooks, and topical subscriptions — adding the event-driven behavior that API consumers will need. There are many high-value APIs out there who lack the event-driven features they need to continue moving at the speed required to do business in the current environment, and we are here to help make sure they can keep up. Bridging the API sector that currently exists, with where everything is headed in the next five years.