With the introduction of HTTP APIs into the enterprise, the concept of a schema has escaped from the world of databases, requiring more awareness and engagement across business stakeholders. Schema does for API operations what forms do for business operations. Schema allows for humans to get on the same page when it comes to something as simple as an address, or as complex as registration for a conference. Schema helps align business and engineering stakeholders, ensuring that the requirements provided by business are codified into API operations in a way that can be consistently validated throughout all areas of the enterprise, increasing product managers control in the following ways.
- Alignment - Speaking in terms of schema helps get product and engineering on the same page.
- Stability - Schema allows for automated validation across the lifecycle introducing more stability.
- Quality - When agreed upon schema exists the quality of APIs at scale is increased substantially.
- Simplicity - Aligning product and engineering using schema keeps things simple and plain language.
- Security - A lack of the shape of schema dominates OWASP Top 10 for common API vulnerabilities.
Schema describes all of the digital bits being passed back and forth within the enterprise, but also outside the enterprise with partners and the public via the web. Consistent awareness and usage of schema across business and engineering teams is important when your are looking to align different parts of the enterprise to move in the same direction confidently and repeatedly. Schema is not just the territory of database people and architects, and if business leadership is looking for more alignment between product and engineering, schema is how this will be defined and validated over time, requiring a radical rethinking of what schema means to enterprise operations–elevating it beyond technical realms.
