API Analytics overview

Pravin Y Pawar
Analytics

• Per Wikipedia
• [Analytics] is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data

• Analyzing data can determine the relationship between different parts of data and whether patterns
exists
 different ways to analyze data based on the type and origin
 analyst has to choose a certain analysis to perform - preferably one that fits the type of data they have collected

• The two main types of data are qualitative or quantitative

 Qualitative data can be an observation that is good, bad, colorful, tall, strong, etc.
 Quantitative data are observed as numbers

• API analytics are all the ways that we can record qualitative and quantitative data from our API requests
to be used in a meaningful way
 API Analytics and Monitoring

• APIs are enabling entirely new business models such as

 API as a Product, developer platforms and ecosystems, and new partner opportunities
• However if companies want to out-innovate competition and quickly grow API platform,
 need the right data to make informed decisions
• API Analytics are not just valuable for engineering teams
 but across the organization including product owners, customer relations, marketing, and sales teams
• API Analytics and Monitoring includes both engineering focused metrics such as performance and uptime
 but also tracking customer and product metrics such as engagement, retention, and developer conversion
• A variety of methods to perform such analysis - includes basic SQL and Excel to purpose built API
analytics platforms
Why Collect Qualitative Analytics?

• A quantitative analyst may measure the dimensions of the paintings and record numbers
• A qualitative analyst at an art show may describe the quality of a painting by observing it and then writing
down words

• Quantitative analysis
 If wanted to know how long an API request took, could measure the latency
 Latency is the time interval between events - usually measured in milliseconds (ms.)

• Qualitative analysis
 An example of qualitative data in API analyses is the HTTP method of the request
 can use qualitative data to help categorize quantitative data

• For example
 User is complaining that a certain action on their app takes a long time
 In analysis, notice that a POST request (a type of HTTP method) is sent when the user performs the action
 that it has an abnormally high latency
 the use of both qualitative and quantitative API analytics produced a meaningful discovery in the data
 API Analytics helps everyone improve

• Through a continual process of collecting, analyzing, and visualizing

data
 API Analytics helps API team improve their APIs and helps app developers
improve their apps
• API Team
 is tapping into internal systems to create interesting APIs
 wants to know how the API program is doing overall, how individual APIs
are doing, and how to improve their APIs
• App Developers
 By sharing analytics information with app developers, you get better apps
 These developers are innovating with your API and building creative apps
that help drive revenue to your enterprise
 Analytics help app developers know how their apps are doing and how
much they are contributing to the bottom line of your enterprise
• Ops Team
 wants to understand traffic patterns and anticipate when to add backend
resources or make other critical adjustments Google apigee

• Business Owner
 wants to see how their API investment is paying off and where to invest API
dollars in the future
Defining Key API Metrics

• Each team needs to track different KPIs when it comes to APIs

• The API metrics important to infrastructure teams will be different than
 what API metrics are important to API product or API platform teams
• Metrics can also be dependent on where the API is in the product lifecycle
 API recently launched will focus more on improving design and usage
 while sacrificing reliability and backwards compatibility

• API Analytics collects and analyzes a broad spectrum of data that flows across API proxies such as:
 Response time
 Request latency
 Request size
 Target errors
 API product name
 Developer email address
 App name
 Many others
Reference:
API Analytics overview
by Google apigee

API Analytics and Monitoring: Best Practices to Grow API Platforms

Moesif blog

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