Varnish Software Survey Identifies Performance as API Industry Blind Spot

Poll reveals current API management tools are likely inadequate to handle exploding API volumes

Oslo, London, Stockholm, Paris and New York – November 18, 2015 – Varnish Software, the company behind the HTTP engine Varnish Cache, today announced the results of an API management survey that identifies performance as the API industry’s blind spot in an environment where API volumes are growing on average 10-30% a year. A majority of the Varnish Software users polled say that their current API management solution provides no visibility into number of API calls they can manage and is inadequate to handle future API volumes.

Conducted at recent Varnish Software Summits in Paris, Stockholm and Amsterdam, the survey polled 96 Varnish Software users on their current and anticipated API management strategies. The survey focused on two distinct areas: the changing API landscape and what tools organizations are adopting to manage their API environments.

The API Landscape – The Varnish Software survey results portray a fast-changing API landscape where both API calls and traffic volumes continue to climb. Yet, the data also determined that more than half of the participants don’t currently use a formal API solution.

Usage: Participants report using APIs above all internally, 43.09 percent, or have them open for the whole spectrum of usage, i.e. internally, externally and publicly, 28.46 percent.
Volume: While 36.96 percent of respondents manage less than five APIs, 25 percent already manage between 15 to 60 APIs, and 7.61 percent manage more than 150 APIs.
Traffic: Year over year, API traffic volume is growing fast; 44.71 percent of the participants see a growth of 10-30% while 5.88 percent observe an increase of between 80-200% or more.
Scalability: With most respondents reporting a 10-20% monthly increase in API call volumes, 46.24 percent believe their current solution will struggle to tackle API traffic volumes in the future.

API Management Solutions – Despite the fact that organizations are struggling to deal with exploding API traffic volumes, the majority of participants, 53.13 percent, do not currently use a formal API solution. In fact, the survey reveals that most participants, 74.12 percent, use a home-grown solution.

Current Capacity: Half of the participants confirm the industry’s blind spot on performance as they have no insights on the number of API calls their solution can handle.
Expense: Three quarters of the respondents said that, to date, licensing costs of API management has not affected them.
Requirements: Security, real-time reporting and throttling are seen as the three most important API management features.

“The Varnish Software survey reveals that most organizations are either not using an API management tool or using a home-grown tool. The survey also determines that performance management is an industry blind spot,” said Per Buer, CTO and Founder of Varnish Software. “These results tell us that there is growing need for API management tools. Our API gateway, Varnish API Engine, can provide organizations with both the visibility and performance management capabilities necessary to stay ahead of the fast-changing API economy.”

Multimedia Resources

Read the full survey results here.
To read more about the new functionality in Varnish API Engine 2.0, read the white paper and data sheet or watch the product video.
For a more technical analysis of how Varnish API Engine 2.0 works in highly scalable environments, read the Varnish Software blog.
To learn more about Varnish API Engine 2.0, join the webinar, co-hosted by James Governor from the analyst firm RedMonk. Register here for the on-demand webinar.