Introducing VIP API Mesh: A New Way to Enable Composable Digital Experiences

Start building the digital world you’ve always imagined

Building a great digital experience isn’t easy. No one size fits all. The promise of cookie-cutter Digital Experience Platforms (DXPs) from a single vendor has proven fatally misguided. To succeed today, organizations must compose a digital experience from multiple systems and tools.

That’s easier said than done. 

Integrating one backend can be challenging enough, but integrating multiple can quickly overwhelm a development team. As projects designed to increase innovation and agility grow more complex, the exact opposite happens. Inconsistent APIs, ensuring performance across systems, and growing complexity all lead to messy and hard to maintain homegrown middleware.

We’ve seen this movie before. 

Every complex business application requires some form of integration layer, whether that’s ETL for data on the backend, SOA for business applications, or iPaaS for cloud integration. To solve the challenges of composable applications, we need a GraphQL middleware layer to rescue teams from the burden of maintaining their own integration solution—freeing them to move quicker, build faster, and stay ahead of the market and competition.

Enter the VIP API Mesh Powered by TakeShape

Today we’re introducing a new part of the WordPress VIP platform: the VIP API Mesh, which simplifies the integration of your backend systems. 

It handles the complex connections between WordPress VIP and other platforms, allowing front-end developers to retrieve all necessary data with a single GraphQL call. This streamlined approach reduces complexity, improves efficiency, and enhances the overall performance of your application.

Key benefits of the API Mesh

The API Mesh simplifies data integration with a single API, improves performance with caching, supports data transformation, and is accessible to both technical and non-technical users.

• Single API: Regardless where data needs to come from, the API Mesh manages pulling from various backends in a clean and consistent way.
  
• Performance acceleration: With built-in caching and indexing, queries go faster, improving your user experience and Core Web Vitals. The API Mesh also takes care of error handling and retry logic to recover from unexpected issues.
  
• Data composition and transformation: Enables data transformation per your schema across multiple systems.
  
• Prebuilt connectors, GraphQL, and REST: The API Mesh comes with dozens of prebuilt connectors for common applications. However, even for companies that may have legacy systems that don’t support GraphQL the API Mesh can support pulling data.
  
• Read/write/execute: Unlike alternatives, the API Mesh isn’t limited to pulling data from a backend. Just as easily update backend data across systems or invoke actions like triggering a marketing automation workflow on the backend.
  
• No-code/low-code tools for content practitioners: The VIP API Mesh integrates seamlessly with the WordPress Block Editor (Gutenberg), allowing non-technical staff to quickly and easily incorporate data from any API connected to the API Mesh into their content, without requiring  backend integration knowledge.

Common use cases for the API Mesh

Imagine a world where your digital experiences are seamlessly composed from a multitude of backend systems, enabling unparalleled flexibility and innovation. A world where overhead and costs are significantly reduced, while user experience and performance are elevated to new heights. 

This is the world made possible by the VIP API Mesh.

As we’ve worked with customers, we’ve noted many use cases where the API Mesh could help. Yes, no two customers are the same, but these are choice examples of how the API Mesh can solve real-world challenges.

Building a commerce experience from the ground up

A relatively new direct-to-consumer (DTC) brand wanted to create an integrated commerce experience. Starting from scratch, they needed to select not just a CMS, but also a commerce provider, solutions for customer service, loyalty management, and billing, plus two marketing automation solutions, one for an email channel and another for SMS. 

Some used pre-built connectors, others GraphQL, and others REST. Using the API Mesh, they delivered a top-notch commerce experience while accelerating development and ensuring maintainability—even as they rapidly evolved and experimented with new solutions.

Building atop of years of technology investments

Not all organizations have the luxury (or burden) of building from the ground up. 

Established brands have years of investments and domain-specific applications to integrate. In the second example below, on top of the CMS and commerce platforms, a brand leveraged Product Information Management (PIM) outside their commerce system. They also had a part fitment application from another provider that fed in data about which components were needed in which cases. 

Challengingly, this application typically returned data quite slowly (often measured in seconds) and returned it in XML format. Even with these limitations, the API Mesh’s caching and data transformation capabilities made it possible to build a compelling, permanent experience. 

Aggregating media from multiple systems

A media customer needed to build an application pulling data not just from their CMS, but also from a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system for imagery and rich media, a variety of external news, weather and advertising feeds, and systems for subscription management and editorial planning. 

Here, the media company delivered a compelling reader experience, even in the face of a complex and changing media landscape where not everything they needed to be successful was produced in their own newsroom.

The API Mesh: a great digital integrator

These possibilities are just the tip of the iceberg. Every organization is different, of course. But the true power of the VIP API Mesh lies in its ability to be tailored to your business’s unique needs and aspirations. 

In summary, the VIP API Mesh is a powerful tool that integrates multiple backend systems, enabling flexibility, innovation, and improved user experiences while reducing costs and overhead, providing:

• Seamless integration of backend systems for a unified digital experience
• Adaptability to evolve your digital ecosystem
• Simplified management and maintenance of your digital infrastructure

Why settle for a digital experience that falls short of your vision?

Embrace the future with WordPress VIP’s API Mesh and unleash the true power of your digital presence. Contact us now to get started.

Author

Michael Khalili, Director of Product Marketing, WordPress VIP