St1 selected Frends to unify and simplify its API architecture. During the migration project, over 500 APIs were migrated into Frends processes. With the new simplified API solution St1 was also able to reduce the number of unwanted network traffic by 50%.

Business Goals

St1 is an energy company that wants to challenge the status quo. In addition to sustainable energy production and consumption, St1 constantly wants to digitalise their business and offer new services to their clients.

HiQ has been an integral part of St1 digitalization projects by designing and developing business critical features to the mobile applications creating totally new business for the St1 and Shell brands. Those projects included the development of new features like:

• Mobile fueling & car washes,
• Subscription-based coffee agreement,
• The St1 Mastercard account.

During the years, the co-operation has extended to a new area with St1 selecting Frends iPaaS as their new solution for API management and mobile back-end integrations.

With the growing number of digital solutions developed by St1, the company found itself in a situation when the existing API architecture was no longer meeting the business requirements. St1 was looking for a solution that could help them reduce IT burden and the total cost of ownership (TCO), as well as to reduce delivery cycles of APIs and integrations.

With Frends we can take care of all our API management requirements. We selected Frends as our long-term API management solution and so far, it has proven flexible, reliable and cost-efficient. Linda Pihl, Head of Digital at St1 Nordic

Integration challenges

St1 selected Frends iPaaS to unify and simplify its API architecture. The old API solution had grown complex, needed multiple different tools and was costly to maintain. Frends unified the API management layers acting as a single solution in front of dozens of core business systems:

• Data management layer
• Application layer
• Integration layer
• Interaction layer

With Frends, St1 moved to the API-first architecture approach, and created a secure ecosystem for all applications. Some of the implementations included:

API management

Enables a full life-cycle management of APIs: designing, publishing, monitoring, and managing. API management feature lets Frends take care of API execution, process automation (BPA), and more advanced integration needs, all the way to scheduled file transfers and conversions enabling automated processing of the requests and enrichment of the data on the API layer. API management also offers a facade layer to all APIs and legacy systems to ensure security without the back-end APIs getting exposed.

API gateway

Adds the additional layer of security to the microservices and back-end functions as a load balancer to handle requests in the most efficient manner. With Frends, St1 can have the full control on the processing of API requests and routing to back-end systems also enabling a secure storage for different variables used commonly in the integration processes. This improves the re-usability and security in the APIs and integrations and significantly reduces unnecessary traffic towards St1 back-end services.

Results

During the migration project, over 500 APIs were migrated into Frends processes. With the new simplified API solution St1 was also able to reduce the number of unwanted traffic. St1 API platform had over 1 000 000 process executions within the first month in use, and currently handles over 3 million API calls per month.

The co-operation between St1 and HiQ also covers the support and maintenance operations for all the mobile apps and Frends integration solution.

About St1

St1 - Energy Company that Challenges the Conventional

St1 operates in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The focus of our operations is on fuels marketing activities and renewable energy solutions as well as developing and refining liquid fuels. St1’s distribution network for transport fuels comprises over 1,400 St1 and Shell petrol stations in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The Shell brand is in use under a license agreement. The two brands complement each other: with their different offerings and strong service concepts we can reach a wider customer base. All in all, there are over 600,000 customer visits at St1’s sites every day.

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