The API management market is forecast to be worth $2.665 billion by 2021, according to MarketsandMarkets. That’s up from more than $606 million last year, representing a compound annual growth rate of 34.4 percent.

North America represents the largest share of API management share, while the highest growth for this product category will be in the APAC region, according to MarketsandMarkets.

As the importance and number of APIs grow, so does the need to build, ensure compliance for, and manage them. That has given rise to API management solutions.

Akana, Apiary, Apigee, axway, CA Technologies, Cloud Elements, Dell Boomi, digitalML, HP, IBM, Mashape, Microsoft, MuleSoft, Oracle, Red Hat (3scale), SAP, Sensedia, Software AG, TIBCO Mashery, Torry Harris, WaveMaker and WSO2 are among the lengthy list of players in this space. The October 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Full Life Cycle Management lists Apigee, Axway, CA Techologies, IBM, MuleSoft, Red Hat (3scale) and TIBCO as among the leaders.

“It is impossible to provide the platform for any digital strategy, and run an effective API program to benefit from the API economy, without full life cycle API management,” says Gartner.

Within the API management product category, API security solutions will see the best growth rate between last year and 2021, MarketsandMarkets indicates. It explains that API security solutions do data authentication and authorization, encryption, mediation, perimeter security, protocol translation, scripting, and other threat prevention.

APIs will be a key area of focus at Communications 20/20. The event’s Contextual Processing Track will feature the session “Making APIs Mobile Friendly.” The full program is available at this link.