Mobile App Development on API Management Platforms

Organizations across the globe are making significant progress in their digital transformations, but delivery of enterprise mobile applications remains a key challenge. A high productivity backend, combined with effective API management, may provide the answer.

We work with a lot of organizations that have created their enterprise API layer using an API management platform who then struggle to deliver enterprise mobile apps. While they have made significant progress in their digital journey, the need remains for a high productivity app backend to deliver enterprise mobile experiences faster against those APIs. We recently hosted a webinar with 451 Research to help organizations understand the differences between an API and app strategy.

Leveraging APIs to Meet Modern Application Expectations
Applications are a key part of the digital transformation equation. Enterprises must be able to rapidly deliver new, innovative applications as required by the various needs the company faces. These could range from internal applications that improve workflow to customer-facing applications that drive brand engagement or sales opportunities.

A successful API strategy is a great start, enabling businesses to build out applications with rich features and tight integration with other systems. But an API strategy alone is not an application strategy - there are still a lot of other issues that need to be addressed, from the increased pressure on IT to deliver apps faster to stress on technology infrastructure.

This is where having the right backend system to power app development, such as Progress Kinvey, comes into play. For faster delivery, you need a high productivity application development platform combined with world-class API management. This enables businesses to reduce the number of dependencies and parties involved in the application development process, facilitating the delivery of full-scale, cross-platform enterprise apps up to 60% faster. And when you can deliver these apps even faster, it empowers your business to create competitive advantages that help separate you from the rest of the pack.

Below are popular platform services from Kinvey to build rich mobile experiences against your API management platform:
- Cross-platform libraries with built-in online/offline caching
- Access to firewalled enterprise data through mobile-friendly APIs
- Authenticate users via multiple identity systems like LDAP and OAuth
- Encryption protocols to keep your data safe on the network and the device
- Employ rich features, like push notifications, and connect to third-party cloud services
- Analytics to track usage and manage multiple versions of your app

If you want to take a deeper dive into the role of API management in modern digital app strategies, I recently conducted a webinar with Carl Lehmann, principal analyst a 451 Research. We discussed digital transformation, technology enablers, the role of APIs as digital accelerants and the importance of high productivity backends for rapid delivery of new application experiences. A large percentage of our customers leverage our rapid connectors for API management platforms such as Mulesoft, CA, Apigee and others.

If you're more of a hands-on type of person, then check out this tutorial on building apps against Apigee with Kinvey.

Sumit Sarkar is Chief Data Evangelist at Progress.