Varnish Software, the company behind the web performance engine Varnish Cache, announced today the release of its new Varnish API Engine. The new product helps developers manage the proliferation of API calls in the modern age of apps and the Internet of Things (IoT). Early customer trials indicate that the Varnish API Engine can handle up to 20,000 API calls per second, far surpassing the performance of most alternatives.
“As scalable infrastructure is increasingly composed from and defined by services, high performance API management becomes a must-have characteristic,” said Stephen O’Grady, Principal Analyst with RedMonk. “With a long history in scaling web infrastructure and an excellent reputation amongst developers, Varnish’s entry into the API management space is welcome.”
As the Internet of Things nexus expands, APIs gain significance as the “glue” that connects and enables all the “things” to communicate. ABI Research forecasts that the installed base of active wireless connected devices will more than double to reach 40.9 billion by 2020. In addition to IoT, the booming apps industry is also keeping APIs busy. According to Statista, worldwide mobile app downloads amounted to approximately 2.52 billion in 2009 and are expected to reach 268.69 billion by 2017.
The Varnish API Engine was specifically designed to help developers overcome these challenges, not just for today but in the future. It can be scaled-up to handle up to 20,000 API calls per second, should this become necessary. The product itself is fully API-driven and takes the average developer less than 60 minutes to deploy.
The Varnish API Engine 1.0 is a simple and lightweight application designed to meet specific developer needs for performance. These include:
· Authentication – verifies the identity of the client. Varnish API engine supports a broad set for authentication drivers and can be easily customized
· Authorization – grants the client access to a specific API or API call
· Metering – counts the number of API calls towards a specific API or API call and can track e.g. the usage of a specific client or subscriber
· Throttling – places limits on usage such as number of calls from a certain client or subscriber or usage from a certain API
· Caching – caches read-only API calls to reduce call overload
“As Norway’s largest website and most popular platform for classified ads we had issues scaling up our API management. We used the Varnish API Engine prototype to tackle these issues with excellent results,” commented Karsten Mevassvik, API team tech lead, finn.no.
“With Varnish Cache, we boosted website performance, making it possible to cope with high traffic and changing content,” explains Per Buer, CTO and Founder of Varnish Software. “We observed in the market and learned from our customers that APIs are going down the same route as websites, with a proliferation of users, devices and applications causing serious performance problems for legacy and home-grown tolos. With Varnish API Engine we have created a simple and easy to use API management tool designed to give digital businesses a truly competitive edge.”
The current version Varnish API Engine 1.0 comes with a Call Level Interface only and is available through Varnish Software. Pricing starts at $47,000 for a three node cluster +admin server.
The next version coming in Autumn 2015 will include a graphical web interface and will also be available through the Cloud.
To learn more about Varnish API engine, join the webinar on May 6th at 3:00 to 4:00 PM CET/ 9:00 to 10:00 AM EST. Register here.
