Containers Will Do for APIs what APIs Do For Companies

I was just having another conversation about virtualized cloud containers like Docker.io, and the approaches from leading cloud providers like Amazon with Cloud Formations, and RedHat with OpenShift. This is a subject that seems to be coming up more and more, and is definitely something you’ll see more of on API Evangelist, as well as being discussed at future API Strategy & Practice and API Days.

John Sheehan (@johnsheehan) of Runscope put it best, a couple weeks back during a similar conversation:

Virtual containers will make API driven resources even more agile, nimble and scalable--not just for providers, but also for consumers. Everything we have right now I’d consider to be a retail API market—where even though APIs are sold b2b, they are generally a one-size fits all API solution. Think about when API resources become modular, customizable, scalable, wholesale resources that can be bought and sold, and deployed anywhere, making all digital assets into commodities that are ready for use in the API economy.

In preparation for some research on the subject, I pulled together my stories on this subject from the last couple months:

Hopefully I can organize some of my thoughts, review some of the more innovative implementations I’m seeing out there, and shed even more light on how virtual containers are being used to deploy the next generation of APIs. If you are doing something cool in this space, please let me know.