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Sharing our knowledge is what we love most!
At Archers, we build on our expertise by knowledge sharing. Through blogging, we make sure we get the most out of our knowledge and make everybody grow in their passion for integration.
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- API MANAGEMENT
- SERVICE ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
- MICROSERVICES
- CONNECTIVITY ARCHITECTURE STRATEGY & ROADMAP

How Archers inspired this organization to evangelize their APIs
We recently worked together with an organisation on their API Management Program. They already had a good track record with integration. This was mostly application to application work and some partner integrations as well. However, much of their effort had gone towards the technical aspects of integration, mostly vendor related. Things like architectural oversight and guidance or design patterns were not part of their approach.

Choreography vs. Orchestration
Our debate on choreography vs. orchestration isn’t one to be had at concert halls or ballet recitals. It’s one architects and developers started having in front of whiteboards, when distributed event-driven systems first started appearing.

How an API portal can accelerate your API initiative
API Portal plays a key role in the success of companies like Google and Facebook. In this blog we will go overwhat an API Portal encompasses and what advantages it brings to the table to empower your API landscape.

[RECAP] API Community Belgium - Finding The Approach That Works For Your Organisation
Organizations strive to create qualitative and easily consumable APIs. Defining an API Design approach is one of the key steps to accomplish this. Reference Authorities tend to position their API Design approach as being the one to use. However, do we really believe that there is a "one size fits all" approach?

Integrating an Event Driven Architecture with a Micro services Architecture: using Event Sourcing and CQRS
Micro service architectures come with many new challenges. In this article, we zoom into the challenge of data islands/consistency. You will learn why this problem arises and what it is. We go deeper into what Event Sourcing and CQRS are and how they might solve this problem, if applied correctly.

Observability in our microservices architecture with Elastic Stack
As I have always been interested in microservices, I was happy to join the microservices team within Archers. A proof of concept, exploring some of microservices’ key concepts, was already well underway. However, a solution to trace calls through the architecture in order to facilitate easier troubleshooting and system debugging was not yet present. In this blog article we introduce Elastic Stack as a solution to face these challenges.

[RECAP] API Community Belgium - Online Lunch Meetup: Insights & Highlights
In order to get you on track and ensure a game-changing success story, our integration architects Matthias and Thomas shared their expertise during an Online Lunch Meetup of the API Community Belgium.They take you with them in their API expertise and formulate an answer to the overarching question: how to define your step-by-step approach for your API journey? Hands-on insights and a real-life example are provided by Colruyt, sharing the past, present and future of their API Journey.

The Importance of API and Service Categorization
Many organizations have been looking at SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) in the past to tackle and govern their integration challenges. One of the key aspects within a SOA landscape is the layering and classification of services. At Achers, we have seen many organizations each having their own way to classify their services. Some of them are based on the service layers defined by Thomas Erl, others are based upon a more technical approach like the service categorization defined by Oracle (Process, Activity, Data, Utility services).

API Maturity Model: A Step-by-step Approach
We often get the question how to increase an organization's API maturity. Not an easy job as you need to change the daily behavior of people. It is not just a matter of training: you need to make people aware and convince them of the new way of working and thinking. So, you need some change management techniques to increase your maturity. In this blog we will explain how your maturity can grow step-by-step. This approach is formalized in our API maturity model.

A database for your microservice (part 2/2)
Before you consider your options in choosing the right database, you should at least know what your options are. In this blog we'll explain you four types of different database and how they can be used in your organization.

A database for your microservice (part 1/2)
For those of you who’ve read Quinten’s previous blogpost about Microservices, know that we already decided on Cassandra as the primary persistence layer of our Microservices architecture. “I do not regret that decision, but I have to admit that I made it without fully understanding the consequences”, Quinten explains.

Authentication & Authorization in API Security: Are you doing it the right way?
APIs establish an important channel to your enterprise’s systems, data, and services. It's important to keep focus on API security to prevent business/reputation loss, competitor’s gains and so much more. There are numerous aspects that you must consider in securing your APIs. Have you been thinking about a security approach for your APIs?

Webinar: API Economy
We are connected to the world and each other like never before. Due to instant connectivity, the world is at our feet. APIs are at the heart of this ever-growing connectivity. Without even knowing it, we interact with many APIs on a daily basis. Hence, APIs play an important role in business environments.

How Pieter could fulfill his entrepreneurial ambitions at Archers
After several years of experience as an integration specialist, Pieter has chased his dream of becoming an integration architect. However, this dream was not the only one he cherished. Pieter had a great passion for entrepreneurship; A dream he also could turn into reality when he started to work for Archers.

Securing APIs ... do we have to consider an API gateway?
This short article aims to provide an insight into the role and the added value of a gateway component when introduced into the landscape of an organization exposing API's.

Why I need to start with a redesign of my monolithic application
A redesign of an existing large application always causes a big impact on an organization. In this blog, we talk about the efforts to introduce the evolution, taken into account the sensitive nature and the dependencies all around the enterprise.

Architecture principles for non-legacy systems
Since you got to know Archers better and learned about the (non-) legacy systems, the time has come to talk about the 8 different architecture principles for non-legacy systems.

An introduction to our enterprise architecture team and their legacy challenges
At Archers, we tackle challenges that different organizations are facing, such as budget constraints, outdated technologies and limited integration possibilities.

The API Management Program Pillars - Make your API management ambitions successful!
In this blog, we will cover each pillar and demonstrate their relevance to the success of the API program.

Cedric's path towards being an Integration Architect
“Seniors and juniors will always help you out and nobody should be afraid to ask questions. The more you work in team, the more progress you’ll make!”

Michel's integration story
"Every week, we get the opportunity to share ideas, bring up issues and discuss potential solutions with the team." Michel talks about being an enterprise architect and it does not only revolve around integration but also around service design, technical topics, service-development and much more!

Quinten's story - our Microservices ambition
There’s something satisfying and fascinating about leaning back in your chair and looking back at the blueprint, the architecture of a fully distributed system you’ve brought to life. Let's find out what Quinten has to say about Microservices and the future of IT.

API Gateways vs ESB: Mediation
With the advent of API Gateway solutions to the Enterprise Integration World, Integration Architects have a new solution option for solving integration issues. But how should we position this solution. We already have Enterprise Service Busses, B2B Gateways, so where do these API Gateways fit into the picture?

Gaining run-time insights into your distributed IT landscape
Run-time analytics for your distributed IT environment using the elastic stack.
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MICROSERVICES
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We help you meet today's integration challenges!
We can help you to become a digital connected enterprise by meeting today’s integration challenges. From strategy, over project architecture and analysis, to implementation guidance, our services are geared to help you with every step in the process. Be it API’s, microservices, or other aspects of the integration landscape.