DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
  1. DZone
  2. Data Engineering
  3. Databases
  4. Open-Source Drag-and-Drop API Lifecycle Design Tooling

Open-Source Drag-and-Drop API Lifecycle Design Tooling

There should be an open-source API formation designer that spans cloud providers, allowing architects to define which resources are available that anyone can fork or run.

Kin Lane user avatar by
Kin Lane
·
Apr. 14, 17 · Opinion
Like (2)
Save
Tweet
Share
6.62K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

I'm always on the hunt for new ways to define, design, deploy, and manage API infrastructure. The AWS CloudFormation Designer provides a nice look at where things might be headed. AWS Cloud Formation Designer (or just Designer) is a graphic tool for creating, viewing, and modifying AWS CloudFormation templates, which translates pretty nicely to managing your API infrastructure as well.

While the AWS Cloud Formation Designer spans all AWS services, all the elements are there for managing all the core stops along the API lifecycle like definitions, design, DNS, deployment, management, monitoring, and others. Each of the Amazon services is available with a listing of each element available for the service, complete with all the inputs and outputs as connectors on the icons. Since all the AWS services are APIs, it's basically a drag-and-drop interface for mapping out how you use these APIs to define, design, deploy, and manage your API infrastructure.

Image title

Using the design tool, you can create templates for governing the deployment and management of API infrastructure by your team, partners, and other customers. This approach to defining the API life cycle is the closest I've seen to what stimulated my API subway map work, which became the subject of my keynotes at APIStrat in Austin, TX. It allows API architects and providers to templatize their approaches to delivering API infrastructure in a way that is plug-and-play as well as evolvable using the underlying JSON or YAML templates — right alongside the OpenAPI templates, we are crafting for each individual API.

The AWS Cloud Formation Designer is a drag-and-drop UI for the entire AWS API stack. It is something that could easily be applied to Google's API stack, Microsoft, or any other stack you define — something that could easily be done using APIs.json, developing another layer of templating for which resource types are available in the designer, as well as the formation templates generated by the design tool itself.

There should be an open-source API formation designer available that can span cloud providers, allowing architects to define which resources are available in their toolbox that anyone could fork and run in their environment.

I like where AWS is headed with their Cloud Formation Designer. It's another approach to providing full lifecycle tooling for use in the API space. It almost reminds me of Yahoo! Pipes for the AWS Cloud, which triggers awkward feels for me. I'm hoping it is a glimpse of what's to come, and someone steps up with an even more attractive drag-and-drop version that helps folks work with API-driven infrastructure no matter where it runs. Maybe Google will get to work on something. They seem to be real big on supporting infrastructure that runs in any cloud environment (*wink wink*).

API Open source Design

Published at DZone with permission of Kin Lane, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • Fraud Detection With Apache Kafka, KSQL, and Apache Flink
  • Microservices Discovery With Eureka
  • What Was the Question Again, ChatGPT?
  • Mr. Over, the Engineer [Comic]

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends: