Title

AWS re:Invent 2023 - Building APIs: Choosing the best API solution & strategy for workloads (SVS301)

Summary

The session focused on building APIs and choosing the best API solution and strategy for specific workloads.
The speakers, Josh Kahn and Arthi Jagannathan, discussed modern modular architectures and the role of APIs in integrating these systems.
They presented a real-life system example, a leaderboard service, and discussed the design decisions involved.
The session covered API design principles, including API-first design, access patterns, API architecture styles (REST, GraphQL, gRPC, Async API), and non-functional and API management considerations.
AWS managed options like Amazon API Gateway, AWS AppSync, Application Load Balancer, Amazon VPC Lattice, and Lambda function URLs were discussed.
The speakers emphasized the importance of understanding business use cases, making APIs easy to use, and adopting a product mindset for API design.
They provided insights into when to use different AWS services for API development and highlighted the importance of codifying design decisions as infrastructure as code patterns.
The session concluded with a walkthrough of the leaderboard plugin's end-to-end architecture and key takeaways for API design and management.

Modern modular architectures benefit from APIs as they provide scalability, performance, and innovation opportunities.
An API-first design approach is crucial, focusing on the business use cases and consumer ease of use.
Access patterns and API architecture styles are key considerations in API design, with REST being the most popular choice.
Non-functional requirements and API management needs, such as API visibility, service SLA, and team skills, influence the choice of API technology.
AWS offers multiple options for building APIs, and the choice depends on the specific requirements of the workload.
Managed services like AWS AppSync and Amazon VPC Lattice simplify operations and offer various benefits, including real-time data use cases and simplified networking between VPCs.
Adopting a product mindset in API design can lead to a better developer experience and faster service adoption.
Reusable infrastructure as code patterns can accelerate future API builds and standardize best practices.
The session highlighted the importance of choosing the right API technology based on the workload and the benefits of using AWS services for API development.