Public API Repository Launched By MuleSoft

Cloud Integration specialist MuleSoft has launched what it is calling the APIhub, which is a public repository and community for APIs.

APIhub enables developers and enterprises to discover and use more than 13,000 APIs and enables application developers and software as a service (SaaS) providers to publish and document APIs on an open, collaborative platform.

Public Repository

The convergence of the SaaS, mobile and big data trends brings about the need for a new type of platform – one that connects and takes advantage of the explosion of endpoints and data caused by organisations, each choosing a diverse set of best-of-breed applications to power their business, MuleSoft said.

“Everyone is talking about SaaS, mobile and big data, but companies need to realise that the power is in bringing it all together,” Greg Schott, president and CEO of MuleSoft, said in a statement. “If enterprises don’t get that, they’ll be left behind. APIs are the lingua franca for the Web, underlying all of these mega-trends and changes in the enterprise. MuleSoft’s ‘New Enterprise’ vision revolutionises the way the world connects, shares and manages data and applications. We have the only platform that solves all of the integration challenges of enterprises and SaaS providers, spanning the continuum of on-premise and cloud.”

MuleSoft is already solving the connectivity problem, helping organisations drive value by connecting and automating business processes across applications, APIs and data sources, all powered by the company’s integration platform. At the core is MuleSoft’s Anypoint technology, which provides instant API connectivity to hundreds of on-premise and cloud-based applications and systems.

With the launch of APIhub, MuleSoft announces the first pillar of its vision to create a new set of services that will form the first end-to-end platform for powering what the company refers to as the New Enterprise. The New Enterprise needs a platform for both publishing and discovering internal and external services and APIs, as well as for connecting, securing and managing those services and APIs, MuleSoft officials said.

In a 11 December blog post on the APIhub launch, Sumit Sharma, director of API solutions at MuleSoft, said, “So Amazon ended up being the de facto e-commerce destination for both buyers and sellers; Facebook for people needing to connect and companies needing a social strategy; and GitHub for everything developers and enterprises looking to share code. How about APIs?”

Sharma added: “With new APIs added daily, APIhub is the world’s largest API repository and serves developers and API publishers by providing a powerful publishing and community platform along with consoles and developer tools to ensure rapid API adoption. So if you are a developer and you are looking to search for photography APIs, feel free to browse the photography category on APIhub – and like this we have over many more categories and filters. We’ve taken great effort toward producing a rich ontology and taxonomy of describing APIs. The best part about this is that you can really get into the guts of an API by exploring objects/resources, their methods and experimenting by making calls and seeing the response workloads.”

Cloud APIs

In addition to the APIhub, MuleSoft offers a set of products that address the pains involved in publishing, consuming and connecting applications, data services and APIs including a cloud-based service registry repository to govern and manage internal services and APIs, both on-premise and in the cloud. And the MuleSoft API management capability helps enterprises

“As REST APIs have become the core building block of application development, developers should be moving towards an API-first approach to software architecture,” Tony Tam, CEO and technical co-founder of Wordnik and committer on the Swagger API open-source project, said in a statement. “Creating an information hub where the development community can focus on APIs is the next big step in this direction.” Swagger is a specification and complete framework implementation for describing, producing, consuming and visualizing RESTful Web services.

For developers who are looking to consume APIs, APIhub offers a vast catalogue of APIs, whether open or closed, as well as an extensive ontology to easily browse APIs by category, as well as a rich search capability. The platform also provides interactive documentation and testing capabilities as well as rich community content, including discussion forums, tips and tricks, ratings, code samples and client libraries. It also features capabilities to follow APIs and be notified about version updates and changes that impact applications.

Meanwhile, for API providers, APIhub offers a platform for driving discovery and adoption of APIs, including features for publishing the descriptive profile, detailed specifications and technical documentation. The repository also offers simple import and transformation from various API specification formats to the standardized APIhub format for easy consumption. In addition, there are platform capabilities for simple creation of interactive documentation as well as infrastructure for driving community engagement, including user ratings, comments and code samples.

“Open APIs have become more important than ever as enterprises break away from legacy applications and move to the cloud,” Chris Yeh, vice president of Platform at Box, said in a statement. “Our open API is a critical element of our business strategy. MuleSoft’s APIhub is a great step towards providing a focal point where developers can easily find and consume APIs, and where open platforms like Box can drive interest and adoption of our service, ultimately better serving our users through the power of community.”

Box, which provides a secure content-sharing platform, served as a MuleSoft APIhub launch partner by publishing their API – the Box API – on APIhub.

APIhub is a free online resource for developers, SaaS vendors and enterprises. To join the community go here.

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Originally published on eWeek.