As described in the Preface of this book, APIs are not really new. What is new is how we refer to them in the context of the web architectures and the standards/technologies/protocols used to deliver them. For this reason, when looking back through time, one must also look at traditional integration platforms such as Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).
For example, Oracle's first ESB offering was part of the very first release of Oracle SOA Suite (10g) launched mid/late 2006. This ESB centric architecture, offered support for SOAP/WSDL-based APIs that at the time we referred to as web services. It also offered support for emerging standards such as Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) with BPEL Process Manager ...
