Adding a Suggested API Definition for API Portals to My API Management Spec Collection

One layer I am working to add to my API research, are machine readable API definitions that I find, or generate from the APIs of the API service providers I keep an eye on. Within this new layer I'm aggregating these API the specs of the companies who are offering services within the emerging areas of the API sector.

The first area I've started aggregating is within API management. 3Scale was very forward leaning with their willingness to open up their API definitions for their own API management infrastructure APIs. These are API specs that describe all of the features of the 3Scale API management platform, and represent one possible blueprint that API management service providers could emulate.

I have four separate API definitions included from 3Scale on my new page, something that could be broken down further if it makes sense. I also just added a suggested API definition for API portals--crafted by the APIMATIC team. They thought my idea for defining a common set of definitions across the 17+ areas I monitor was an interesting cenough oncept, and was something they wanted to explore further with me.

Zeeshan Ejaz Bhatti of APIMATIC pulled together this spec:

 

 

This is just one potential starting point for providing a common interface for managing your API portal. Zeeshan feels that , if "API-Portals-as-a-Service", and other API management providers agreed on a common publish API format, it would benefit other API service providers like APIMATIC who are providing services to their customers via these API portals.

I agree with Zeeshan, and might play around adding an API facade for managing your API portal using Github + Jekyll, like I do with my standard API Portal template. This is all work in progress. Right now I am just aggregating the API definitions for API service providers that have APIs. In my opinion this layer of the API space will differentiate API service providers from each other, demonstrating which ones will actually scale in the fast growing the API economy.

Next I'm taking API monitoring services like Runscope and API Science, and aggregate their API definitions as part of my research.