I've been thinking about the concept of a wholesale API for some time — going beyond how we technically deploy our APIs and focusing more on how we can provide a wholesale version of the same API resources, with accompanying terms of services that go beyond just a retail level of API access in the cloud. Not all APIs fit into this category of API, but with the containerization of everything and the evolving world of the Internet of Things (IoT), there are many new ways in which API resources are being deployed.

You can see this evolution in how we are deploying APIs present in one of the latest API deployment platforms that I added to my API deployment research, Nanoscale.io. This image is just a portion of their platform, but the separation of deployment concerns articulates the technical side of what I'm talking about. We just need to add in considerations for the business and political side of how this works.

We've seen API deployment move from on-premise and back again, and now we are seeing it move onto everyday objects like cameras, printers, routers, and other everyday objects. I'm watching service providers like Nanoscale.io emerge to help us deploy our APIs exactly where we need them. I'm guessing that the companies who have their business models in similar order, allowing for API service composition from the management layer to further slide down the stack to the deployment layer, will come out ahead.