Skip to main content

Open Service Broker AP

Open Service Broker Application Programming Interface (API) is a specification that defines a consistent, REST-based interface for provisioning, managing, and connecting external services to cloud-native platforms.

  • Standardized Representational State Transfer (REST) interface for provisioning, binding, updating, and deprovisioning services (service brokerage)
  • Enablement of external backing services such as databases, messaging, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) through a common contract (service integration)
  • Support for service catalogs, plans, and metadata to expose service offerings to platforms (service discovery)
  • Interoperability layer between service platforms and service providers, independent of vendor implementation (platform interoperability)
  • Extensibility model for adding new service types and lifecycle operations while preserving the core API semantics (API extensibility)

More About Open Service Broker AP

Open Service Broker API is a technical specification that describes a common HTTP-based contract between platforms that consume services and service brokers that provide them (service brokerage). It originated in the context of Cloud Foundry and other cloud-native platforms that require a uniform way to provision, manage, and bind external backing services such as databases, message queues, and third-party APIs (service integration). The API defines how platforms interact with brokers to request services, manage their lifecycle, and supply credentials and connection details to applications.

The specification focuses on a REST-style interface over HTTPS, using JSON payloads and standard Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) response codes (API protocol). It defines core operations including catalog retrieval to list available services and plans (service discovery), provisioning and deprovisioning of service instances (service lifecycle management), binding and unbinding of credentials to applications (credential management), and updating existing instances with new parameters or plans (configuration management). Each operation is described with required and optional fields so that different platforms can communicate with different brokers using a shared protocol.

In enterprise environments, Open Service Broker API is used by platform teams to connect application runtimes or developer platforms with a broad range of managed services (platform interoperability). A platform that implements the client side of the API can integrate with any broker that implements the server side, which allows organizations to expose internal or external services through a single, consistent interface (service integration). Service providers can implement brokers that conform to the specification and then offer their capabilities into multiple platforms without creating bespoke integrations for each one (integration standardization).

The specification defines the structure of a service catalog, including service identifiers, plans, metadata, and schemas for parameters (service catalog management). It also covers asynchronous operations and last-operation polling, enabling long-running provisioning tasks without blocking client platforms (operations management). The API supports features such as service instance sharing and contextual information from platforms when explicitly defined in versions of the specification published by the project (multi-tenant service management).

Within an architectural taxonomy, Open Service Broker API sits between Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) or container orchestration layers on one side and service providers or infrastructure services on the other (cloud integration). It is relevant in environments using Cloud Foundry and can also be adopted by other platforms that require a brokered model for external services (cloud-native platforms). For enterprises, the specification provides a consistent mechanism for exposing service catalogs, enforcing lifecycle operations, and standardizing the way applications obtain service credentials, which can support governance, automation, and reuse across multiple teams and platforms (infrastructure automation).