Federal Government Information Technology

Why Managing APIs is Critical for Federal Agencies

Nextgov: Even while federal CIOs juggle data center consolidation, IT modernization, and other factors, they must focus on providing user-friendly solutions that make federal employees’ jobs easier, more efficient and productive. That is why IT teams have supplied agency employees with commercial cloud-based solutions, along with their own homegrown applications. Indeed, today’s API economy has turned federal IT managers into software-as-a-service providers.

To thrive in this new world, IT organizations must become more adept at managing the building blocks of today’s web- and microservices-based applications: Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs. While APIs in and of themselves are important, they also need to be nurtured to be truly effective and add value. API management creates a supportive infrastructure that enables managers to open, package, distribute, control and monetize their APIs. Without it, agencies run the risk of wasting time, money and resources, and could even potentially sacrifice application security.

Read article