7 Ways to Improve API Performance

Performance problems are common. Below are 7 ideas to consider to help improve API performance.

1. Add pagination to solve relatively large response payloads
2. Breakdown APIs into micro-services
3. Create synchronous APIs
4. Use connection pooling
5. Add Caching
6. Deploy APIs within auto-scaling groups
7. Switch to asynchronous error-logging

Asset Management
To help increase website speed, it's essential to manage what goes on your web pages. For example, what size are your files? What type of images are you using? Even the most minor details matter when it comes to site speed.

Below are our best tips when it comes to assent management:

• Always manage the amount of content you have per page. Clear, succinct content is almost always the way to go.
• Be careful with rendering images. A poor rendering performance can translate into a relatively high bounce rate.
• The best image format is WebP. WebP provides superior lossless and lossy compression for images. You can use WebP to create smaller, richer images that make the web page faster.
• You always want to optimize images for different device sizes.
• Use real-time scaling for perfect sizes and widths.
• Size matters. File size, that is. The file size is the amount of space your file is taking up on your hard drive. Smaller images contribute to webpage faster load time.

Channel Management
Mobile vs. Desktop vs. IoT

You can learn how to speed up a website by addressing how you manage various channels. Of course, the way you manage your mobile site versus your desktop site will be different. As a general rule of thumb, desktop sites usually contain a wide range of content and information. Mobile sites typically include only the most important and time or location-specific functions and features. And what about the Internet of things (IoT)? IoT devices are the network of tangible objects that collect and exchange data in real-time using embedded sensors. IoT Device Management makes it easy to securely register, organize, and monitor data in the IoT environment. There are dedicated device management platforms you may want to consider.

Building a System for Various Channels: Increase website speed by ensuring your system is compatible with various communication channels. There's nothing worse than going on a mobile site and seeing extra-large images and unorganized content because the website owner didn't optimize the site for various channels. It's also a good idea to maximize the capabilities of the browser (like browser caching) to your advantage!

Minimize the Amount of Network Traffic: Nothing slows down a site like an incoming boom of unexpected traffic. You can reduce bandwidth by setting access restrictions, malware scanning, and identifying bandwidth hogs.

Read this Next: eCommerce API: What Is It & How to Harness the Power of the eCommerce API Economy

The Infrastructure
Next on the list of things that can make or break your page load speed is the infrastructure or the hardware, media, and software responsible for connecting computers and users to the internet. So yes, this one's a big deal. How your content as assets are distributed matters. Visitors expect a consistent experience.

Here's what your site's infrastructure should include for optimal page speed and performance.

• Caching policies
• Security policies
• Malicious traffic detection and blocking (web application firewall) to reduce traffic bottlenecks
• Unauthorized access identification and rectification
• Auto Scale for traffic spikes to maintain consistent response
• Redundancy for failures
• Reporting and monitoring (to identify abnormal behavior or poor performance 24/7 support and continuous upgrades)

Platforms
Finally, the platform you use will influence your site speed. Choosing a platform that will increase website speed while delivering everything you need can be a challenge.

Not sure what to look for in a platform? If a platform can check all the boxes below, it's considered adequate; if not, you may want to consider switching.

A good platform should:

• Have architecture designed for speed without bloatware.
• Reduce external systems.
• Stay updated with the latest software systems and upgrade platform components like operating systems, language, and latest DBs.
• Have the ability to deliver the tech without plugins.
• Reduce the need for 3rd party systems that slow down the experience.
• Have a modern framework for micro-services.
• Improve search performance and use tools like Elasticsearch etc.
• Offer flexible integration with other systems.
• Provide content modeling that meets your needs.
• Have a division of real-time vs. background activities to ensure that the user experience is maximized.
• Offer reporting to provide optimization opportunities. For example, reports should identify slow parts of the system and upgrade to tune results.
• Boast continuous platform updates for speed and security.
• Have performance SLAs that cover the speed and the uptime of the platform
• Provide ongoing performance tuning to ensure that the platform is working at peak performance and that any changes have not altered its performance.

Read this next: How will a SaaS CMS help my brand

Why Are Some Websites Slow?
There's a lot to consider when trying to figure out why your site's website speed isn't up to par. Response time and performance contribute to its success, so taking the opportunity to improve your site is well worth the extra effort.

Are you looking for a service that can keep up with your performance needs? Core DNA is a platform for modern websites featuring a Headless Framework, built-in native code ( no plugins), SAS, and speed. Core DNA handles everything from hosting, CDN, security, and upgrades (new features). The best part? It's ultra-fast to deploy - it won't take months to build your website.

Original Cora dna article can be found here.