As seen in our previous report, cloud performance has improved significantly over the last two years. All regions are better connected than ever. Cloud transit, connection, and DNS are ever-smaller issues in the API process. However, performance does still vary between clouds, regions, and locations.

As a developer or user of an API-based service, you should consider where is best to integrate from to maximize performance. As a provider, you should provide insight and resources for your customers and partners on the architectural choices as part of your standard Developer information.

Quality is improving. More and more APIs can consistently deliver a CASC score of over 9.00. In 2020, nearly two-thirds of the APIs we studied maintain a CASC of over 9.00 compared to less than a quarter in 2018.

Availability. Five 9s is a tough target and might not be necessary, but it is a goal that should be achievable for most APIs. DocuSign has demonstrated that significant API providers can achieve 100% reliability. But even with the improved quality of APIs we saw in 2020, two-thirds of those we studied for this report only achieved 99.9% or lower. This indicates an area of future focus for quality improvements.