With microservices typically deployed in the form of con- tainers, the inter-process communication mechanisms used with microservices are different from traditional ap- plications. Because the microservices are more granular, so too are the APIs. This means client data requests may span a number of microservices, requiring the request to follow a “one-to-many” form of interaction. A number of API platforms, including API management platforms, are available today that address a variety of needs in the cloud. Choosing the right API platform in- volves a careful assessment of the application environ- ment. Setting the stage for cloud-enabled applications For many organizations, enabling applications for the cloud is a journey, which in many cases begins with the obvious step of setting a vision and goals. Establishing business objectives is an important first step, since there is a tendency to look at exciting technologies before fig- uring out direction and what specific business goals need to be achieved. Additionally, planning should involve all stakeholders – corporate management, IT, partners and even customers. Once goals are set, a team of development, security and operations personnel needs to be created that can take the cloud application implementation to the next level using a DevSecOps approach. One of the first decisions this team will face is which workloads represent the high- est priority in terms of cloud-enablement – and this holds true for both legacy and new, more modern applications some of which need to be created. The team will need to 40