Apigee, a Silicon Valley company that specializes in everything API (application programming interface), has released a product that manages APIs between applications and controllers for software-defined data center networks.

It’s really two products: a stand-alone platform for network management, integration and analytics and a piece of embeddable API-management software for providers of software-defined-network (SDN) controllers. In a nutshell, the two products help data center managers operate SDNs and networking vendors build SDN controllers, respectively.

Chet Kapoor, CEO of Apigee, said APIs were becoming a driving force behind the new era of networking innovation spurred by the advent of SDN.
“The ecosystem of apps being built around SDN – everything from simple task automation to advanced control logic and network management – will create more agile, efficient, flexible, and robust networking configurations,” he said.

Apigee’s embeddable API management software for networking vendors makes it easier to program SDN controller software. It provides control, visbility and analytics of apps using their northbound APIs.

The product for data center managers, the API platform, integrates network-management systems with SDN controllers that can be by different vendors. The solution’s capabilities include network analytics, dynamic policy execution on the controller and the use of trends as triggers of change in network behavior by network-based programs.

The solutions are building on the momentum created by OpenFlow, an open protocol and software for networking equipment. Specifying an API for network-switch programming, OpenFlow takes constraints of network control software off, allowing it to be written “in any language and run on any operating system and any hardware,” according to a whitepaper on the subject by Apigee’s VP of strategy Sam Ramji.

“As a result, the rules of the networking industry are being rewritten,” he writes. “Switches are getting dumber, cheaper, and more capable.”