We’ll also talk about the “-ilities” of an API Management platform: scalability, manageability, extensibility etc. We will illustrate each of these with a real-world Layer 7 customer example. You’ll see why these and other non-functional requirements matter just as much as the solution’s technical capabilities.

So, please join me and Layer 7 Product Manager Dana Crane as we discuss these key API Management criteria tomorrow. There will be time for questions – both technical and conceptual – and all attendees will receive a free copy of the recently-published Forrester Wave for API Management Platforms. See you tomorrow!

Register now for How to Choose the Right API Management Solution >>

What I’m most proud of is our consistently high marks in every category; we have worked hard to make sure that our products provide both ease-of-use and deep functionality. The developer experience is just as important to us as the rich integration capabilities provided to technical architects and API administrators. And comprehensive business analytics for API owners are just as important as the availability and security features required by enterprise operations teams. Our scores reflect this breadth of solution strengths.

What might be more difficult to reflect in an “Emerging Market” Wave is product depth – and this is another area where Layer 7 shines. Enterprise customers value our flexibility in deployment options, our support for numerous message formats/protocols, our rich identity framework and our long list of security certifications gained through exhaustive testing and evaluation by some of the most demanding organizations and standards bodies in the industry. Our customers have long recognized Layer 7 as a Leader in this category and we thank Forrester for validating this with the first major analyst evaluation of API Management vendors.

Layer 7 had a similar previous showing in The Forrester Wave: SOA Application Gateways, Q4 2011, in which the company was also recognized as a Leader. This successful heritage is noted by Forrester in the new Wave, which states that “Technical adopters will find a lot of depth to Layer 7’s service management capabilities, including a variety of deployment options, sophisticated traffic shaping and routing capabilities, and extensive connectivity to existing enterprise systems.” By bringing these strengths to bear on the API Management industry, Layer 7 offers an IT-friendly option for enabling all open enterprise API use cases, including access to partners, developers, mobile apps and cloud platforms.

Get a complimentary copy of The Forrester Wave: API Management Platforms, Q1 2013

Recently, we began a series of free eBooks that will distill our communal knowledge into specific, targeted recommendations for dealing with a variety of challenges around APIs – from interface design, to security, to developer engagement. Today, I’m pleased to announce the first two of these, which deal with API exposure for internal mobility projects and for externally-facing open APIs.

First, we have Enterprise on the Go: 5 Essentials for BYOD & Mobile Enablement. This eBook focuses on the challenge of securely exposing internal applications and information assets to mobile employees, either on their own devices (BYOD) or as part of a larger mobility initiative. These five key points for a successful deployment are presented in an easy-to-consume synopsis and then backed up by white papers, webinars and customer case studies. Of particular interest to our enterprise customers are the sections on repurposing existing services and using middleware to optimize for mobile use cases.

Next, we have 5 Ways to Get Top Mobile App Developer Talent for your Open APIs. While not all enterprises have chosen to expose their APIs externally, those that have are faced with the challenge of acquiring a talented community of developers that will build useful mobile apps for the consumer marketplace. However, enterprises can’t simply assume “build it and they will come.” Getting devs onboard requires investment in documentation, branding and community development. This eBook discusses some of the best methods for onboarding and rewarding those developers who provide the most value.

Whether focused on internal or external developers, these eBooks are valuable resources for anyone looking to expose APIs for mobile access to enterprise assets. We welcome your feedback on this format and look forward to continuing the series.

For the Layer 7 perspective on these service technology trends, come see our presentations throughout the week. On Monday, I’ll be speaking about how traditional SOA technologies such as the enterprise service bus (ESB) need to adapt to an evolving IT landscape. On Tuesday, our CTO Scott Morrison will be giving a closing keynote about “The New Governance”.  Wednesday brings an API Management Workshop at the Canadian High Commission, hosted by Layer 7 along with our customer MoneySupermarket.com and analyst firm RedMonk.

Layer 7 is a Founding Partner at the Symposium and we’re excited to welcome a who’s who of analysts, vendors and enterprises to join in the conversation. These illustrious attendees have helped to define the industry and revolutionize enterprise IT – and I’m looking forward to insightful speakers and great networking opportunities. For a more intimate conversation, stop by our booth (#110) to see a demo or discuss your SOA, cloud, API or mobile use cases.

London has shown an incredible amount of enthusiasm for sporting events this summer, from the Olympics and Paralympics to the Tour de France, which was won by a Brit for the first time in its history. Let’s keep that excitement going – see you at the Symposium!

The importance of APIs continues once the infrastructure is in place. Applications in the cloud can expose their own APIs, opening data access to partners, mobile devices or other cloud technologies. This raises questions around how enterprises can effectively leverage cloud APIs while addressing the security and management concerns that will inevitably arise.

I’ll be discussing some of these concerns when I take part in Layer 7’s latest Tech Talk on Tuesday September 4 at 9am PDT/12pm EDT/5pm BST. The subject matter will be Publishing Cloud APIs and – like all our Tech Talks – this interactive Q&A will be broadcast live on the Layer 7 Facebook page and via Livestream.

Here’s how you can join the conversation:

• Tweet using the hashtag #Layer7Live
• Email techtalk@layer7.com
• Check in & Chat through Facebook

Feel free to ask questions around:

• Securely exposing APIs from a cloud-based solution
• Orchestrating APIs for value-added interfaces
• Enforcing access control and threat protection across hybrid cloud environments

I’m looking forward to chatting with you. Don’t forget to add the Tech Talk to your calendar. See you on Tuesday!

Rapid deployment and onboarding has always been a key requirement for Layer 7 solutions, which is what initiated our strong partnership with VMware years ago. These announcements will showcase the next step in that evolution.

Layer 7 will be presenting at the VMworld Solutions Exchange and we’d love for you to stop by to talk about how we take advantage of the latest VMware technology. Come discuss your use case and find out how we can:

• Protect and manage vCloud APIs
• Securely expose APIs from a vCloud-based solution
• Govern infrastructures based on the vCloud Architecture Toolkit (vCAT)
• Orchestrate APIs for value-added interfaces
• Dynamically provision vApps from policy based on SLAs
• Enforce access control and threat protection across hybrid cloud environments

We’ll also be giving demonstrations of our VMware Ready certified products, including the SecureSpan Mobile Access Gateway and Layer 7 API Portal. In case you can’t catch us on the west coast, we’ll also be at the VMware Forum in Toronto on September 20.

Next week, IT professionals and enterprise decision makers will descend on San Diego for the Gartner Catalyst Conference. While I hope they have the opportunity to see something of the city, there will be plenty of sights at the Manchester Grand Hyatt from Monday to Wednesday. Discussion topics will include building out a mobile strategy, creating a hybrid cloud infrastructure and making use of “big data”. And Layer 7 will be there in force.

Stop by our booth (#K24), have a drink with us at the reception or visit our zoo-themed hospitality suite in the Oxford room, on Wednesday night. You’ll be able to see our SecureSpan Mobile Access Gateway and the latest version of our API Portal in action, including fun demos of functionality for OAuth and streaming Web protocols.

To hear about a real-world application of our technology, come listen to Thomas Nienhaus of Lilly present on the topic of “Secure Data Access Through a Mobility Gateway” (at 4pm on Tuesday). You could also schedule some time with one of our experts, who will review your technology needs, match them with a Layer 7 solution and provide a live look at our products. We can even give you some hot tips on where to find the best fish tacos in town.

A true solution does more than just check boxes on a list of functional requirements. It addresses a real-world issue and provides the platform, the context – and yes, the features – necessary not just to solve a problem but also to give the enterprise additional value.  At Layer 7 Technologies, our customers count on us for solutions to their toughest challenges around security, identity, integration and governance of applications exposing data to partners, mobile devices, the cloud and the Web. That’s why I’m pleased to introduce our new solution brief for Mobile Access.

Many of our customers cater to consumers and have mobile initiatives (and public apps) geared toward the general population. But secure mobile enablement of an internal employee population is often even more important, as those employees need to interact with (and modify) corporate data that isn’t open to the public. Whether mobile devices are provided by the enterprise or are of the bring-your-own variety, the exposed apps and data need to be managed effectively.

Layer 7’s Mobile Access solutions focus on exposure of APIs to developers – public, partner or private – using the Layer 7 API Portal, and runtime enforcement of policies defined upon those APIs using the SecureSpan Mobile Access Gateway. While the products can certainly check a lot of those functional boxes – developer onboarding, API analytics, OAuth, geofencing, WebSockets support, caching, throttling and many more – the complete solution is what makes our customers successful.

This solution brief focuses on three customers – an airline, a health insurer and a telecom company – that use Layer 7 solutions to solve real problems. In each case, the business was able to see real value from the apps and APIs exposed to partners and employees. Take a look and see how these solutions can provide value to your enterprise.

Read the Layer 7 for Mobile Access solution brief

However, these technologies are only half the story. The other half is the API that provides a method of interaction with the server. To provide a rich, functional interface, this API must be user-friendly for people and machines. It should be easy to develop against, with or without extensive documentation. And it should be able to represent both the current application state and the operations available to the client. These API design principles were discussed by Layer 7’s Principal API Architect, Mike Amundsen, in his fascinating talk on Wednesday.

QCon was yet another in a long line of analyst, enterprise and developer conferences to draw the same conclusions about the future of enterprise IT. It’s time to look at software development in a new way – and Layer 7 is helping enterprises get on board with these new technologies. Our recently-announced SecureSpan Mobile Access Gateway provides the middleware necessary to adapt internal information assets into secure, optimized APIs consumable by mobile devices for enterprise mobile enablement or BYOD.

At Layer 7, our enterprise customers are sometimes constrained by industry regulations regarding data privacy. These restrictions, especially in the healthcare and financial services industries, often prohibit medical or financial data from traveling across international (or even state) borders, to ensure compliance with local regulations. Some may require additional forms of authentication when connecting from a new physical location.

Many enterprises are also rolling out BYOD initiatives based on the employee’s proximity to company offices – they can use their own phones to access company data while in the office but that access is restricted when they head for home. More complex GIS integration is sometimes necessary for mobile employees and field technicians.

Building strict geolocation rules into every mobile application is possible but time-consuming to develop and difficult to maintain. Managing these policies in a centralized Mobile Access Gateway allows flexibility of design and easy updates. Compliance auditing is simplified and policies are reusable and configuration-driven. If you want to tighten distance restrictions or change GIS providers, you only have to make the change once.

Layer 7′s SecureSpan Mobile Access Gateway is far more than just a simple API proxy. It provides mobile-specific features around identity, security, adaptation, optimization and integration. It is these integration features that allow powerful orchestration of third-party APIs (including geolocation), legacy applications and mobile notification services for a truly comprehensive Mobile Access solution.