New report explores how CSPs are leveraging (or not) open APIs in their journey to cloud native infrastructure

The Cloud Native Computing Foundation gives the following definition of cloud native:

"Cloud native technologies empower organizations to build and run scalable applications in modern, dynamic environments such as public, private, and hybrid clouds. Containers, service meshes, microservices, immutable infrastructure, and declarative APIs exemplify this approach.

"These techniques enable loosely coupled systems that are resilient, manageable, and observable. Combined with robust automation, they allow engineers to make high-impact changes frequently and predictably with minimal toil."

The glue that connects these "loosely coupled systems," enabling frequent changes with predictable results, is open APIs. The use of open APIs blows open the number of companies and developers that can leverage a communications service provider's (CSP's) network assets without requiring the developers to be telecom or networking experts.

To gauge how carriers are planning and implementing open APIs along with cloud native technology, and in collaboration with Juniper Networks, Nokia and Red Hat, Heavy Reading asked 92 global telco service providers about their plans for the transition to cloud native. In our report, The Journey to Cloud Native, Heavy Reading analyzes the choices service providers are making along the road to cloud native and the challenges they are encountering.

Open APIs keep cloud native running

Cloud native applications are divided into microservices under the assumption that these microservices can be deployed separately or called by other applications by using well-defined, open APIs. These APIs are critical to the seamless operation of cloud native applications, simplifying interoperability and, through reuse, accelerating design and CI/CD-based development. They can also be used to capture and export telemetry data from cloud native applications for improved lifecycle management (LCM).

Open APIs play a significant role throughout the lifecycle of cloud native applications. To understand the degree to which our survey respondents were leveraging open APIs, Heavy Reading asked how they use open APIs in digital projects for sustainable applications and infrastructure, as shown in the figure below.

The survey pool, as a whole, leans toward a baseline use of open APIs, with the largest percentage (28%) managing to use them consistently throughout the application lifecycle and measure their usage. Almost half (46%) of the respondents fall below this yardstick. On the other hand, just over a quarter of the respondents (26%) improve upon this, with the usage measurement of the open APIs aligned to business value or enabling business value to be optimized.

The only respondents that showed a more optimal use of open APIs are those that have already implemented cloud native applications. For those respondents, the second response — "usage measurement aligned to business value" — makes a modest jump to 24%.

CSPs are not yet leveraging open APIs to their full potential

Figure 1: n=92
Q: How do you use open APIs in digital projects for sustainable applications and infrastructure?
(Source: Heavy Reading)

Read the full report for more cloud native insights

Heavy Reading's findings are a good indication that CSPs and their partners are in the early stages of designing and deploying flexible and scalable cloud native applications through the use of open APIs. This ecosystem of applications will continue to expand as developers, inside the CSPs and out, are able to create applications that drive innovation in the cloud native use cases highlighted by our survey respondents, such as private 5G, smart city, mining, etc.

To gain more in-depth details of service providers' perspectives on cloud native migration, download and read the full report now.

— Jennifer P. Clark, Principal Analyst, Cloud Infrastructure and Edge Computing, Heavy Reading