Kubernetes has been called the "platform of platforms" and the final major evolutionary step of cloud native computing. What's needed to build an API Platform on it? A great developer experience? An API Marketplace for managing all APIs together in one place? Auto build and deploy onto multiple flavors of K8s? Multi-tenancy? SaaS model hosting with multi-tenancy? Team based development? Ability to create new microservices and APIs? Support for sync and async protocols? Analytics? Metering, monitoring, policy enforcement? What else? Are we done? Or will we need to rebuild the platform again on serverless functions? Watch Recording : https://youtu.be/kQjETt_c8Ac

1. Now That We Have Kubernetes, Can We
Stop Re-Inventing API Platforms?
June 30, 2021

2. Hello!
Eric Newcomer
CTO
eric@wso2.com

3. How it started - how it’s going now
3

4. Some brief notes on this sea change in computing
4
● Once upon a time it was typical to be in the same room as the computer
⦿ You would come in, run your program, get your results (i.e. print out), and leave
⦿ Sometimes you could get a remote terminal connection, even using a dial up modem
⦿ But it was the same story, and the computer was always in the same place
⦿ Networking was not considered a first class resource such as CPU, disk, and memory
● With cloud native computing your program can run anywhere - and for sure
security will not even let you into the data center at all
⦿ You have no idea which computer is actually running your program - and don’t care
⦿ Networking has become a first class resource - apps connect multiple microservices
⦿ Docker containers run a microservice on any computer
⦿ Kubernetes orchestrates the containers across computers
⦿ This is better in many ways, for scale, reliability, agility, cost...
● Trade offs, different assumptions, and reinvention of the stack happen, but
things seem stable now - at least in this aspect of computing evolution

5. 5
Just give us your containers! We’ll figure out where to run them.

6. (Interesting side note - you can get a data center in a container ;-)
6
So we have containers in
containers...

7. Kubernetes - standardizing container orchestration for cloud native
computing - how and where to run all those containerized programs
CLI
UI
Kubernetes Control Plane
API Server
Scheduler
Controller-Manager
Etcd
Workload Node 1
Container Runtime
Pod 1
Container
Pod 2
Container
Container
Kubelet Networking
Workload Node 2
Container Runtime
Pod 1
Container
Pod 2
Container
Container
Kubelet Networking
Kubernetes Cluster
Looks easy, right?
What could go
wrong?!?
7

8. Troubleshooting Guide
8
Source: https://learnk8s.io/troubleshooting-deployments
But yikes!
Have to navigate a complex
path to to fix problems

9. So how about a Kubernetes-based platform?
We can assume some kind of Kubernetes is going to be there, right?
9

10. Choreo
Architecture
10
Dev
Ops
APIs
How about a Kubernetes platform for APIs?

11. Platform
Features
11
Microservices
Kubernetes
Low Code
DevOps
API Marketplace
Existing
Enterprise IT
SaaS APIs
AI & Machine
Learning
Service Mesh
Security &
Compliance
GitOps
API Management
No Code
Apps
Low Code Integration
Zero Trust
Network
Observability
Solution
Architecture
GitHub
Domain-Driven
Design

12. Evolution of API platforms - maturity of Kubernetes
● The evolution of computing clearly points to Kubernetes as a lasting “platform”
⦿ Yes, everyone always says “until something else comes along”
⦿ They said that about Web services 20 years ago, and we still have WSDL and SOAP
out there ;-)
⦿ Of course something else will come along, but for the moment the industry is
standardizing on Kubernetes for container orchestration the way it’s already
standardized on Docker for containers
⦿ Sorry Heroku, Cloud Foundry, Open Stack, Mezos, Swarm…
● Yes, there are problems with Kubernetes but these are getting solved by
abstracting the “flavor” of Kubernetes into platforms (on platforms....?)
● Now that we know Kubernetes will be there for our containers
⦿ We can develop and auto-deploy APIs with confidence
12

13. wso2.com
Thanks!
Appendix