DevOps to NoOps - cloud APIs (MuleiON)

Presentation content changed to DevOps to NoOps from Integrating SaaS applications with Mule iON

The speaker wen through a discussion on APIs explosion, popular ones, the ones he thinks we should be considering in cloud application and how MuleiON can be used to properly decouple an application from all the cool cloud APIs discussed and presented.

Presentation slides: here.

Agenda

• impact of APIs
• top 10 you should be looking at
• integrating with APIs

The impact of APIs

Programmable Web web site follows API proliferation (doubling/tripling every year!)

APIs more and more seen as revenue streams

Architecture change

The traditional 3-tier architecture (client, server, data) is being decomposed so that 3rd party applications can start using middle-tier APIs and the Data-tier changed from a typical DB into SaaS, web services, social media APIs, etc. - the data no longer lives in one place but distributed in the cloud

Technology shift

Traditional Application Environements: Application/Web-App server/DB/OS

New Application Environments: Application/PaaS (in place of Web/App server)/IaaS (in place of DB and OS, ex: Amazon EC2)

Top 10 APIs by usage

1. Google Maps
2. Twitter
3. YouTube
4. Flicker
5. Amazon eCommerce
6. Facebook
7. Twilio - Telephony service
8. eBay
9. Last.fm - Radio service
10. Google search

Top 10 cloud APIs - choices from speaker

1. Twilio: Telephony/SMS as a service - build text/sms/voice apps really easily (excellent API, takes seconds)
2. DropBox: File Sharing as a service - share files between all your devices/friends/coworkers
3. PubNub: Publish/Subscribe Messaging as a service - real-time, global messaging for cloud and mobile apps (as about as real-time as the web can get - low latency of about 55ms over web).
4. Katasoft: Application Security as a service (now in Private BETA) - user account management, authentication and access control in your application
5. AirBrake: Error Management as a service - interesting approach to error management, no need to hit the logs (can be connected to JIRA for example)
6. MongoHQ: MongoDB as a service - create MongoDB in seconds
7. SendGrid: email as a service - way better than normal email (like gmail) and no need to run an email server
8. loggly: logging as a service - manage logs and enables easy search and navigation
9. Amazon S3: file system as a service - simple API for storing both large and small files
10. xeround (the cloud database): MySQL as a service - direct replacement to MySQL

see slides for all the alternatives/contenders as well.

The API challenge

All APIS are not equal

• Hard to work with different APIs (different approaches, security schemes, data formats, interpretations of REST)
• lots of custom code in your app.

iPaaS: Do not clutter your app

Use MuleiON (integration PaaS) for loose coupling your app to this cool stuff

Your killer app --> integration layer (ex: MuliON) --> cool stuff (Twitter, etc. all that we just listed above)

Benefits

• Configuration approach to APIs
• Handled for you (security, session management, streaming, http callbacks)
• consume and invoke multiple services, retries, error handling

Essentially, decouples and keeps your application code clean

DEMO

"DevOps" - Change is NOT the Enemy

From Wikipedia (link):

"DevOps" is an emerging set of principles, methods and practices for communication, collaboration and integration between software development (application/software engineering) and IT operations (systems administration/infrastructure) professionals"

Sounds familiar? It should.

If you've ever been part of one of these groups at some point in your career, you probably said to yourself or heard things such as: "Those developers just want to rapidly push on us all this new technology but we've yet to handle issues with the currently deployed tech." or maybe "Operations are dinosaurs; they reject any opportunity to use our new software and make us stick to old outdated tech. without realizing the benefits of the new!". In essence, agile development creates change and operations want less change.

As organizations make the move to new technologies (e.g. cloud, SaaS, PaaS, WCF, .NET 4.0, etc...), the role of development versus operations teams is evolving and this change must be properly managed but, change isn't the enemy, the lack of alignment is. Businesses fail to see this and think pushing change down the pipe will magically break their reliance on monolithic applications and help them move towards more modern distributed service based applications. The fact to the matter is, distributed and loosely coupled applications are more complex to manage and also fail in a distributed way!

This type of change has to be monitored, measure and managed so both parties can establish a better communication and collaboration relationship. Can you think of any examples where this has happened to you? (post them in the comments)

Obviously, this post is merely skims the topic of "DevOps" but, I'm hoping it got you thinking a little and wanting to read-up on this more. I will be attending a presentation on Thursday more specifically on "DevOps" applied to addressing performance issues so hopefully I will have some detailed examples. I'll post a follow-up on this subject then.