Telecom Lead Europe: Citrix Systems and Olliance Group have shown interest in Alcatel-Lucent’s open source software engine.
apiGrove will enable companies to effectively manage the application programming interfaces (APIs) they use to expose the capabilities of their cloud platforms, telecommunications networks or enterprise infrastructure.
apiGrove gives companies way to manage the APIs they use to make their networks programmable, supporting the development of services for both internal operations and for delivery to consumers and businesses.
“We’ve reached a point where basic API exposure and management is ‘table stakes’ for doing business in today’s economy. Network exposure, through APIs, is becoming a commodity. The future of the API ecosystem lies in building on an open industry foundation and a holistic approach that spans the network, cloud and enterprise/IT spaces. We believe apiGrove gives our customers and the community the foundation they need to make this a reality,” said Laura Merling, senior vice president, Application Enablement, Alcatel-Lucent.
The apiGrove installation package, source code, and documentation are available effective immediately on the open-source repository and collaboration tool GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license. The apiGrove software is based on Alcatel-Lucent’s Open API Platform used by communications service providers around the world.
“This is a bold move by Alcatel-Lucent and an even bigger deal for the API industry. They are making API management readily available to everyone as an open source project that will set the de facto standard for how APIs are managed,” said Kevin Kluge, vice president, Products, Citrix Systems.
“There’s a collective momentum around open source in cloud computing. This move by Alcatel-Lucent continues that momentum, taking the API piece of the puzzle deeper into the cloud computing and communications network infrastructure stack. They’re effectively doing to the enterprise API market what RedHat did to the enterprise server market,” said Andrew Aitken, senior vice president, Olliance Group.
Companies can contribute to the basic apiGrove code, helping ensure that their particular requirements are captured. As this open source initiative moves forward, Alcatel-Lucent will continue in its role as lead contributor to the project. API management remains a key tenet of the company’s Open API Platform and the company will continue to make additional capabilities available as part of Alcatel-Lucent’s commercial API management offer. At the same time, the company will actively support the efforts of open-source software developers worldwide.