Dawn of a new era

Recently Citrix announced its new strategy and innovation roadmap and it feels so comforting and empowering to know the path Citrix has chosen. It exudes empathy and commitment to customers and the maturity and confidence of a seasoned market leader. Wow!

I encourage you to go through the strategy or see the YouTube video where our GM Sridhar Mullapudi and VP Product Calvin Hsu talk about it.

I'm sure customers will love what Citrix is doing but today I'm going to talk about what I love the most in the strategy. If you know me then you know what I'm talking about - APIs. For the first time I'm seeing the bold mention of APIs in the company strategy. Not once but APIs are mentioned 5 times in the document. The word cloud in the cover is testimony to that.

Let me walk through the different contexts in which APIs find a mention in the strategy,

1. "We are committed to providing the same modern experience and REST APIs of Web Studio for our on-prem customers that our DaaS customers currently enjoy with the cloud studio."

We got this right on our cloud service and want to follow suit for on-prem in a classic cloud first followed by rest story.

Note: DaaS REST APIs make use of the REST API guidelines, API gateway and API portal that we instituted as part of our API transformation journey which started at the end of 2018.

2. "Available in preview, our new Workspace API unifies our web and services APIs, enabling you to seamlessly incorporate Workspace with your custom or third-party web portal. This unified API removes the complexities of redundant and duplicate calls for native Citrix Workspace apps, reducing maintenance overhead and support costs, as well as improving security by reducing attack surfaces."

This is a brand new API which is the culmination of many months of deep and complex discussions, design and implementation. This API aims to be modern, simple, unified and follow industry-standards for auth, payload format etc.

I was involved with the team which designed and built this API from the very initial stages and I can vouch that it was not an easy task and what is achieved is commendable that required breaking out of the legacy mindset and embracing something new.

Note: These APIs also make use of REST API guidelines and API gateway.

3. "Another way you can make the Citrix Workspace app experience entirely your own is with our app personalization service."

What is great about this capability is that it is delivered in a truly API first fashion. The only way to use the service is through APIs.

Note: The APIs make use of the REST API guidelines, API gateway and API portal.

It gladdens my heart to see how Citrix is maturing in its API journey - slowly but steadily. In 2018 when I took on the API platform initiative along with a small group of committed and courageous folks, I was not sure what it will lead to. The journey was challenging and exhausting to say the least and there were moments when I doubted if it was all worth it.

But today when I see the strides the company is making (and will continue to make) and the stupendous efforts made by the different teams in bringing about API renaissance in Citrix (and will continue to make) I feel it was completely worth it.

Kudos! and Thank you! to to all my awesome colleagues who made some magic happen with APIs. I could write an immensely fulfilling post like this because you brought those APIs to life.