API Evangelist API Industry Guide: Regions

To help API providers understand the growing importance of how geographic regions can be leveraged, I distilled down my API regions research into the follow areas, resulting in this guide that is full of considerations to share with your team when thinking about how to go global with your API operatons.

  • Regional API Deployment - Setting the stage for the regional deployment of your APIs.
  • Cloud Computing Fundamentals - Acknowledging the role the cloud computing providers play.
  • Regional Service Availability - Looking at the uneven landscape of services that are available.
  • Other Regional API Services - Moving beyond the cloud computing providers to understand regional availability.
  • Why Deploy APIs In Multiple Regions - Looking at the reasons behind regional API deployment and availability.
  • Multi-Region API Deployment Considerations
    • Deployment - What you should be thinking before you deploy in multiple regions.
    • Availability - Understanding how availability is impacted with different regions.
    • Operations - Considering how you should be operating across various regions.
    • Orchestration - Looking at how you can orchestrate across your regions.
    • Revenue - Thinking about what it costs, and revenue opportunities with regions.
    • Governance - Sharing a look at how we can govern API operations across regions.
    • Legal - Making sure we are considering the legal implications of this approach.
    • Health - Ensuring that our platforms are healthy with the assistance of regions.
    • Outreach and Support - Making sure you can actually support multiple API regions.
  • Break Existing Consumers Down By Region - Begin by understanding your existing consumers.
  • Awareness Of API Performance Across Regions - Making sure you have the awarness necessary.
  • Starting Out Small With A Single Region - Start with baby steps, then incrementally go bigger.
  • Thinking Beyond A Single API Region - Getting out of your single region API mindset.

I didn't want to just repeat the information that is already available on cloud providers website about regional availability. I wanted to actually think deeply about the challenges and benefits of deploying API infrastructure in multiple geographic regions. It is important that API providers think about the bigger picture when planning to go global, or diving into specific regions, and not assume that their cloud infrastructure will do everything they need. As with my other API industry guides I wanted to make sure API providers had what they need to understand the high level considerations for regional API delivery, before they start embarking on their regional expansion journey.

In this guide I talk about the different reasons why API providers will want to deploy into different regions in this guide, highlight the opportunistic reasons involving growing your business, but I also talk about the growing imperative to think about your operations at a regional level due to the growing data sovereignty and regulatory climating emerging around the world. Hopefully this guide can help elevate how you are thinking about deploying and operating within multiple geographic regions, and if this is a journey that you are embarking on within your organization I'd love to learn more about your approach, your concerns, and add to my API regions toolbox--helping others learn from your successes and challenges you have had along the way.

Thank you to Tyk for sponsoring this API industry guide. Without their assistance I would not have been able to conduct the research that went into this stop of the API lifecycle, which is a stop that is becoming more critical as the API economy expands, grows, and drives more of our world. If you read and share the information in this guide, I recommend you head over to Tyk, and learn more about how they can help you in your own API journey. Thanks!

Download the API Industry Regions Guide