This document discusses how APIs and big data analytics intersect and provides recommendations for building secure composite applications that leverage both. It notes that API traffic is outpacing web traffic and big data is growing exponentially in volume, variety and velocity. It then provides an overview of traditional versus big data analysis and discusses tools and hurdles in big data. The document proposes connecting data movement from backend to devices to all departments through a centralized API gateway that provides security, access control and analytics. It outlines an architecture for composite distributed applications and a field case study using secure big data storage and REST APIs.