Software Engineering Radio - the podcast for professional software developers
SE Radio 663: Tyler Flint on Managing External APIs
Apr 8, 2025
Tyler Flint, CEO of qpoint.io and an expert in managing vendor dependencies, shares valuable insights on handling external APIs. He discusses the differences between internal and external services, the challenges of tracking usage, and security concerns like authentication. Metrics for monitoring, acceptable error rates, and tips for managing outages are covered, along with the transition of qPoint from a proxy-based solution to eBPF. Tyler emphasizes the importance of understanding hidden dependencies and maintaining robust API relationships for operational resilience.
52:27
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Quick takeaways
- Effective management of external APIs is crucial in microservice architectures to ensure resilience and accountability against vendor reliability.
- Organizations must implement continuous monitoring and develop test suites for external services to mitigate risks related to performance and outages.
Deep dives
Managing External API Dependencies
Most modern applications have numerous external dependencies, which can range from a few to thousands. These dependencies often involve critical third-party APIs, like billing or customer relationship management systems. Understanding the type of dependencies an application has is crucial, particularly in microservice architectures where services operate independently. Various vendor APIs, including automation and language models, further contribute to the complexity of managing these integrations.
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