Customizable API Agents in Provider Networks
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Cloud computing service providers face challenges in allowing customers to customize and extend the functionality of application programming interfaces (APIs) to match their specific use cases without requiring internal developers to implement all possible variations, leading to inefficiencies and limitations in API action execution.
Innovation Solution
Enabling customers to view, modify, and create custom API actions by selecting and combining 'agents' represented as a directed acyclic graph, allowing for the creation of custom API recipes that can be executed by the service provider network, thereby providing greater control and flexibility over API functionality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If provider network services provide fixed, pre-defined API actions, then the reliability and consistency of service execution is improved, but the adaptability to customer-specific use cases deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments API actions into reusable 'agents' that can be independently selected and combined. Instead of providing fixed monolithic API actions, the system breaks down functionality into atomic units (agents) that customers can compose to create customized API actions tailored to their specific use cases while maintaining execution reliability through standardized agent interfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent enables dynamic API action creation by allowing customers to select and combine agents at runtime based on their specific needs. The system transitions from static, pre-defined API actions to dynamic, customer-configurable API actions while maintaining execution consistency through standardized agent execution mechanisms.
2Adaptability or versatility
If internal developers implement all possible customer-specific API action variations, then the adaptability to customer needs is improved, but the device complexity and development burden increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a universal agent execution mechanism that can handle any customer-specific API action variation. Instead of developers implementing each custom API action separately, a single universal execution engine processes all API actions by selecting and coordinating appropriate agents, dramatically reducing development complexity while maintaining full adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system enables self-service API customization where customers can independently select and combine agents to create their own API actions without requiring developer intervention for each customization. This shifts the burden from developers implementing all variations to customers configuring their own needs using provided building blocks.
3Ease of operation
If the service provider network provides extensive API customization options, then the ease of operation for customers is improved, but the device complexity of the control plane increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary agent execution service that mediates between simple customer agent selections and complex service execution requirements. Customers interact with a simplified interface for selecting agents, while the intermediary execution service handles the complexity of coordinating multiple agents, managing dependencies, and ensuring consistent execution, thereby hiding control plane complexity from customers.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques are described for enabling customers of a service provider network to modify and extend the functionality of application programming interfaces (APIs) provided to customers by various services of the provider network. Services of a service provider network provide interfaces that enable customers and other users to define custom API actions representing functionality to be performed by the services upon receipt of corresponding API requests. In this manner, the functionality exposed by provider network services to customers via APIs becomes extensible and customizable to fit customers' particular use cases and without the provider network needing to contemplate and explicitly implement all possible customer-specific API action variations.