API Modernization and Team Collaboration with AppSync

The podcast episode discusses the second part of the API modernization series called 'cross team federated API development in enterprises.' It focuses on how AWS AppSync enables enterprise developer teams to consolidate APIs owned and managed by independent teams into a single federated API exposed to clients. This approach helps promote team collaboration and performance at scale. The episode explores the history and popularity of GraphQL as a technology and clarifies that GraphQL and REST can coexist in a technology stack. It highlights the advantages of using GraphQL, including the ability to abstract REST APIs behind the GraphQL service, query multiple data sources, and enable real-time applications. The podcast also discusses the challenges of collaboration among multiple teams owning different APIs, including accidental breaking changes and difficulties in troubleshooting. AWS AppSync is introduced as a fully managed serverless API service that allows running GraphQL workloads at scale without managing any servers. The episode then dives into merged APIs, which enable federated cross-team API development. It explains how merged APIs allow independent teams to merge resources and types from multiple source APIs into a single AppSync endpoint. This allows the client application to retrieve data across multiple source APIs through a single merged API endpoint. The episode also compares merged APIs with existing runtime solutions, highlighting the performance and latency advantages of using AppSync's build-time approach. It emphasizes that merged APIs can work with any SQL or noSQL databases, as well as with data from microservices and other sources. The episode concludes by discussing common use cases for merged APIs, including data consolidation, real-time applications, and event delivery. It also mentions the benefits of AppSync, such as serverless scalability, integration with monitoring and caching services, and various security options to protect APIs.