APIs are changing the way in which web-based companies interact on the Internet and have become a complete distribution channel for Web services and a potential source of revenues. However, to exploit the full potential of APIs, companies need to build a management infrastructure. This generally includes the following features:
Key management and customer sign-up: Automated issue tracking, refresh and control of API access keys.
Limit management and enforcement.
Usage plan management: Creation, modification and management of standard usage plans, each with different features sets, limits and/or pricing rules.
Per customer limit and usage policy adaptation.
Developer community tools: Growing visibility and API usage through online management of documentation and developer forums/discussions.
Monitoring and analytics: Tracking information on a per user basis for hit patterns,volume and method usage.
User messaging, ticket tracking and support tools: Interactive tools to deal with developer support queries.
Billing and payments.
Traffic proxies and caching: Traffic filtering and management components to improve service performance.
There are some companies who offer these management tools for those web services providers who don't have enough resources to build them or want to stay focused on their core service
