Here at digitalML, we’re always excited for the “what’s next” in the API space. Over the past two decades, we’ve been committed to embracing change and offering solutions that support large enterprises’ specific needs. 2024 brings a fresh identity to our brand to mirror this. Let’s take a look back at the space’s evolution and how we got to the digitalML you know today.

Our continued commitment: responding to our customers’ needs and changing priorities

Over the past two decades, the evolution of the API (Application Programming Interface) space has been deeply influenced by shifts in technological and business paradigms.

From the old Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and canonical model management days, to embracing Representational State Transfer (REST) as the gold standard of API development, and now to multiprotocol programs and architects supporting newer technologies like AsyncAPI and GraphQL. The space is ever-changing, and large enterprises have found their own specific challenges in embracing these technology shifts at scale.

We’ve also seen a huge shift in the way we all think about APIs and their value. What were once seen as an IT-specific initiative, are now regarded as strategic business assets, central to enhancing customer experiences, enabling digital ecosystems, and driving innovation and collaboration.

A brief history of digitalML’s ignite Platform

digitalML has been a key player in supporting large enterprises through their evolving technology journeys, offering products that directly align with each significant industry shift and its challenges, from SOA to REST, and now to multiprotocol APIs and beyond.

We started out as an XML consultancy company, and with the growth of SOA developed a solution that addressed the complex integration challenges faced by large organizations, providing a way to build consistent XML payloads based around a centralized canonical model.

As the industry shifted towards RESTful APIs, we adapted again to offer teams a gold standard way to plan, design, and build reliable APIs, introducing automation and best practice governance to do so through our ignite Platform. We also embraced the move to multiprotocol as part of this, thanks to our unique abstracted approach which allows enterprises to develop and support any flavour of API that fits their use cases.

ignite in 2024 and beyond

digitalML’s latest strategic shift towards a Holistic API Catalog with Extended Lifecycle Management represents a ground breaking development in the realm of API management. This approach is designed to support enterprises maximize the value of their existing API investments. We’ve been busy building ignite functionality to support the management of APIs across multiple environments, tailoring and improving the API consumer experience, and enable actionable insights into the entire API portfolio and landscape.

But don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten about your legacy investments too. That’s why we have kept some of the best functionality from past iterations of our platform to help you manage SOAP, REST, and multiprotocol API portfolios in one unified approach.

The focus for us is to enable your enterprise to drive API adoption and reuse, resulting in increased IT efficiencies and API economy benefits, all in a well-governed and secure way. We’re combining our commitment to innovation and change with decades of experience in the API management sector and specific needs of large enterprises, to offer a unique blend of tried-and-tested wisdom alongside cutting-edge solutions.

New year, new digitalML branding

With this commitment in mind, we’re starting strong for 2024 with a new logo and branding. As a company, we want our look and feel to mirror our commitment to innovation, evolution, and growth. That’s why we’ve chosen clean lines and fresh modern colors representing our history and experience, customers’ perspectives and roadmap ideation, and market and technology shifts. We’ve also chosen a logo with a visual nod to upwards growth and progression.

Expect to see this reflected in our content, too. We know you’re busy getting your API programs to work in a streamlined way, so expect lots more thought leadership, best practices, and real examples of how to get there with ignite.

ignite roadmap sneak peaks

To help you reach these goals, here’s a few of our recent and upcoming features in Q1 2024:

1. Next-gen reporting capabilities: creating a unified view of design- and runtime metrics across catalog coverage, performance, API consumption, security and governance.
2. Harvesting from source code management (SCM) repos and pre-harvest governance checks in developer tools: to keep your catalog in-sync and active, while allowing development teams to work where they are most productive and check quality against ignite’s governance engine before they check in projects.
3. Integration with Oracle OCI Gateway: as part of our new partnership to deliver and end-to-end API management framework for Oracle customers.
4. Enhanced collaboration features: between API product owners working in ignite’s Holistic Catalog and API consumers working in Consumer Portals.
5. Multiprotocol support for Consumer Portals: so you can maximize value from all assets in your portfolio, not just REST APIs.
6. Bulk update capabilities: to accelerate API curation and reduce API core teams’ overhead.

To close, we’d like to give a huge shout out to our amazing and valued customers. We want to express our sincere gratitude for your continued trust and partnership. Your feedback and support have been instrumental in shaping our evolution, and we are excited to continue working with you to deliver solutions that address the unique challenges of large enterprises.

If you’d like to learn more about how ignite and digitalML can help your enterprise, book a demo with us today.