Unifying government platforms with API management
Raven Hedden
Apigee Customer Engineer Specialist, Google Public Sector
Government organizations around the world such as Hawaii's Department of Human Services and Italy's Veneto Region use APIs to modernize their legacy systems, create interoperability between departments and municipalities, and strengthen their own security posture. Apigee is a leading API management platform that can help government agencies do just that: build, manage, and secure APIs.
Many government agencies still deal with data silos and isolated platforms, resulting in inefficient and fragmented digital experiences. With Apigee, agencies can easily share access to applications and data in a secure and pragmatic fashion. In addition, Apigee allows developers to create modern web and mobile experiences that citizens and government employees can utilize.
Using APIs to securely connect government systems
It’s no accident that data in governmental systems is protected by a plethora of security measures such as firewall rules and authentication protocols. Data security is the highest priority for government agencies, and this is a good thing. However, this security shouldn’t come at the cost of inaccessibility. Data in government should be confidently secure as well as easy to access, understand, and share.
To access data safely, your organization can leverage Apigee API Management to provide consistent and secure APIs. The API layer sits in front of your backend systems, removing the complexity of connecting to it directly. By using Google Cloud networking services such as Cloud Interconnect or Cloud VPN, you can create a connection between Apigee and your backend systems that is private and secure. Since the authentication and networking orchestration happens in the API layer you can easily share data internally, as well as establish external connections with partners or nearby municipalities.
A unified government platform
Because Apigee can enable interoperability between data systems, government agencies have more freedom to improve and modernize their services and technology. Consider the fragmented experiences that people often encounter while navigating digital government services. Government leaders can improve constituent experiences by using APIs to share data and build connected applications.
A unified government platform can improve the user experience and help reduce strain on call center and help desk support services. Instead of a sprawl of department applications spread out across many websites, we want to help you create a platform that unifies department capabilities into a single intuitive application.
In addition to improving external user experience, API Management can also improve the experience and productivity of government employees. Inefficient processes created by data inaccessibility can be common in government and are typically solved with manual, time-consuming efforts. With API-enabled interoperability between systems, the problem of data inaccessibility is solved. Developers can use these APIs to create solutions that unify segmented systems, digitize manual processes, and expand operational capabilities.
Administering access to an API ecosystem
Even with connectivity enabled between data silos, there remains the responsibility of administering access to the APIs. Without a centralized API management system this can be a challenging task, but Apigee makes it easy to publish secure APIs through the use of API products and apps. API products bundle up API proxies into useful services, while apps provide the access keys needed to utilize API products. These resources are used to segment your APIs and restrict usage based on desired level of access.
Once API products are created, you can utilize an Apigee developer portal to confidently expose APIs using an OpenAPI specification & administer them for consumption. These portals are simultaneously flexible in capabilities offered and incredibly easy to deploy. They also play a large role in increasing your speed of development by making it easy for developers to explore, understand, and test APIs directly within the portal.
