Blog on Ricky Moorhouse

Securing Sensitive Payload Logging in API Connect

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Unintentionally logging sensitive customer data (PII, financial info) is a major compliance risk. When deploying APIs, ensuring that this data is kept out of your logs requires robust, layered controls. Whilst developing APIs that will deal with this sensitive content you will often need to see what is being passed to ensure that everything is being handled as expected. Very often in a development or test environment you will be using a dummy payload to ensure the API is working as expected so it is key to ensure it is reflected at the different stages of processing as part of your test suites.

Cheriton Circular

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lovely way to spend the bank holiday on a circular walk around Cheriton. The route picks up a section of the Itchen Way around Cheriton, joining it into a circular walk with paths around the surrounding fields with gorgeous views across the landscape.

We parked near the village store in the centre of Cheriton and started off along School Lane until we saw the footpath signs to head off along the path between two fields - this was initially quite enclosed and narrow, but soon we turned right onto a wider path along the edge of the field. We continued along this path until we reached Broad Lane where we headed up to where it and Hinton lane joined. We followed Hinton lane up further to Prite lane where there were lovely views across the fields and down into the town.

API Versioning is a Contract Commitment, not a Technical Choice

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Teams spend a lot of energy arguing about whether to put the version in the URL, a header, or a query parameter. That debate usually misses the point. The real question is: what is your change management discipline, and how do you protect consumers from breaking changes?

Taking a step up from the versioning question - how are you managing changes to your API contract? Ideally this would be transparent to consumers unless there is something they are looking to take advantage of in the new changes. If your API is designed well it can abstract any internal requirements and technical limitations from your clients such that you can update the implementation internally and their applications will continue to operate without even needing to know about it.

Observability as a design requirement

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Observability is a design decision, not an afterthought. From the platform team to API consumers to AI agents, knowing what is happening across your API — and building that in from the start — is what gives you confidence when things go wrong in production.

Designing for Multi-Region API Deployments

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A practical guide to designing multi-region API deployments - covering data consistency, auth dependencies, traffic routing, and failure modes, with real-world lessons from IBM API Connect SaaS.

The SRE Mindset in API Architecture

Sat, 07 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

How my SRE experience with sizing, observability and SLOs shapes the way I approach API architecture - planning for reality, not hopes.

Building an AI Agent: From Inspiration to Implementation

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I've been fascinated by the idea of AI agents for a while now - programs that can not just chat, but actually do things. A few weeks back I came across Clawdbot - now called OpenClaw and it clicked something in my brain. This had a great potential for proactive workflows with a regular trigger to identify things that needed doing and the ability to extend itself with additional code and updates to it's own configuration. Very powerful, but also very risky if not controlled. I set this up intially as it's own user account and then fairly soon moved it into an isolated VM.

I really liked the potential here but wasn't comfortable with the complexity of the code and the power I was giving it or would need to give it to do more interesting tasks - I've still not let it access calendar or e-mail for example. However if I could build something I could read all the code for and understand - with my own selection of controls and tools that are limited according to my own sense of risk level.

So rather than just using someone elses platform I embarked on building something smaller and more personal that I could tune to the things I wanted it to do. This became a great learning experience in understanding the basics at the core of what is needed in an Agent but also how this can get much more complex as you start to deal with things like memory and control.

Global Deployment with API Connect - Serving APIs Worldwide

Wed, 17 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Why Global API Deployment Matters

If you have customers around the world, serving your APIs from a global footprint significantly improves their experience by reducing latency and increasing reliability. With API Connect's multi-region capabilities, you can ensure users call your APIs from locations closest to them, providing faster response times and better resilience against regional outages.

In this guide, I'll walk through deploying APIs to the 6 current regions of the API Connect Multi-tenant SaaS service on AWS. At the time of writing, these regions are:

Product Academy for Teams - San Jose

Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the three-day Product Academy for Teams course at the IBM Silicon Valley Lab in San Jose.

This brought together members of our team from across different disciplines - design, product management, user research, and engineering. It was fantastic to spend time face to face with other members of the team that we usually only work with remotely and to all go through the education together learning from each others approaches and ideas. The API Connect team attendees were split into three smaller teams to work on separate items and each was joined by a facilitator to help us work through the exercises.

API Connect Quick Check

Sat, 05 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This script originated as part of a much wider framework of tests that we put together when I was in the API Connect SRE team. However I’ve found this set of functions to be something useful to be able to validate quickly from time to time in different contexts to give a high level answer to ‘Is it working?’

Gilbert White walk, Selborne

Sat, 31 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This walk came from the In Their Footsteps app from the South Downs National Park. The app is made in conjunction with historic venues and has a series of guides for walks across the South Downs. Each of the walks has a map, a text guide and audio clips along the walk to tell you more about what you are seeing and walking through.

We headed for Selborne for an early start before the day got too hot and arrived at the car park in the village for 7:15am. The first part of the walk was a fairly steep route up through Selborne Common from the car park taking the zig-zag path that Gilbert White and his brother had cut into the hillside. At the top the route took us along the top edge of Selborne Hangar, a woodland of mostly beech trees. When there were gaps in the trees we could see through to Selborne and Gilbert White's House. Nova seemed to have a great time exploring and played in the leaves.

Status Light

Sun, 11 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Whilst working from home it's useful for the family to know when I am on a video call or just a voice call. I was first looking at Busy bar which I came across via Hiro Report, but couldn't justify the cost of it and as I had a raspberry pi zero and a Blink! sitting around, I decided to build something simple myself. Maybe one day I could make it more complex and build a version using the Pico 2 W Unicorn Galactic?

Isle of Wight

Sat, 12 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We decided to take a short family break on the Isle of Wight dung the school Easter holidays. We found accommodation in Yarmouth through Airbnb at a lovely spot overlooking the River Yar.

On Thursday morning we took the WightLink ferry over to the island in the morning and as we got there early they put us on the earlier ferry so we arrived to the Isle of Wight just after ten o'clock. We decided to head to Alum Bay and spend the day there. We first went to the viewpoint to see the Needles and then took the stairs down to the bay as dogs weren't allowed on the chair lift we knew we had to do this both ways!

Time with the team in Kochi

Wed, 12 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I was fortunate to finally get a chance to visit my team in Kochi and had a fantastic few days with them, it was so great to be able to spend some time face to face after working together remotely for several years. I travelled to Kochi via Chennai with British Airways. In Chennai this meant I arrived through the international terminal and then had to clear immigration and head over to the domestic terminal next door. Immigration all went smoothly but then at the domestic terminal they didn't recognise my boarding pass for the Indigo codeshare that British Airways had given me, so I had to get help at the check in desks. Once this was all resolved I had to pass through security again and all went smoothly, efficient boarding and a short flight later I arrived in Kochi around 9 in the morning and was met by Akhil and Midhun at the airport to take me to the office.

TheCompoChallenge - Photography

Sun, 02 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For 5 weeks, Hiro ran a photography challenge series with the aim to focus on different techniques in photographic composition each week. I joined in from the start and found it really insightful to try and use the particular techniques during the week as I took photos. Some of these were much harder to find opportunities for than others and it was interesting to see other peoples photos shared on social media during the challenge as well.

Remote Gateway on Openshift

Fri, 07 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This post should guide you through the steps on how to deploy a datapower gateway to use as a remote gateway with API Connect Reserved instance, optionally configuring the inbound management traffic through IBM Cloud Satellite Connector.

France 2024

Sat, 24 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

France 2024

13 Aug - Utah Beach, Journey to Fondettes
14 Aug - La Membrolle sur Choisille
15 Aug - Château de Chenonceau
16 Aug - Château d'Ussé - Château de L'Islette
17 Aug - Tours
18 Aug - Candes-Saint-Martin
19 Aug - Le Baud'Rillé
20 Aug - Villandry
21 Aug - Cherbourg

Cherbourg

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

To finish off the holiday we spent a night in Cherbourg so that we didn't have such an early start for the ferry the next day. We spent a lovely evening exploring along the waters edge and had dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Tours

Wed, 21 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Villandry

Tue, 20 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We visited the Château de Villandry which has had gardens since the Renaissance. It was a lovely place to visit and see the different arrangements of vegetables and flowers that had been planted throughout the grounds.

Le Baud'rillé

Mon, 19 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We visited Le Baud'rillé for Jessica's birthday - so her and Kai went on the high ropes whilst Laura, Nova and I watched from the forest floor. We then went out for dinner in the evening

Candes-Saint-Martin

Sun, 18 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Candes-Saint-Martin is close to the confluence of the Loire and the Vienne rivers. We went on a lovely circular walk from the town up through the nearby vineyards to the view point.

Château d'Ussé

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Château de L'Islette

Fri, 16 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Château de Chenonceau

Thu, 15 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Château de Chenonceau is built spanning the river Cher and is one of the best-known châteaux of the Loire Valley.

La Membrolle sur Choisille

Wed, 14 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

On the first day in Fondettes we headed out for an evening walk along the nearby rivers - we'd expected to be able to take a circular route, but it appeared that the return route would be through a field of sheep which we decided probably wasn't best with Nova so we retraced our steps back along the way we'd come from.

Utah Beach and journey

Tue, 13 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We took the overnight ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg, arriving in Cherbourg at 8am. We then started our journey south to the Loire valley, stopping at Utah Beach on the way.

We then continued our journey to our destination of Fondettes near Tours.

Iona

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We took the ferry to Iona from Fionnphort which is a short 10 minute crossing - mostly passengers and a few vehicles delivering supplies to the island. First we visited the Abbey which is looked after by Historic Environment Scotland and they provide audio tours.

The monastry on Iona was founded by Colomba and his 12 companions in 563. We started the tour by going up Tòrr an Aba (Abbot's mound) - the site where it is understood Colomba's writing hut originally stood overlooking the Abbey.

Ulva

Wed, 02 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Ulva is a community owned island with a current population of 6 people. The first experience visiting Ulva is the ferry which you summon using by sliding the indicator on the ferry board to show red. I didn't initially spot this, but Kai and Laura did and managed to summon the ferry for us - otherwise we'd have been waiting a long time! This ferry is for passengers only and is a very short crossing across from Mull.

Staffa and Lunga boat trip

Tue, 01 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We headed up to Tobermory early on Tuesday morning for the StaffaTours Staffa & Treshnish Isles wildlife tour which is only available during the summer until the Puffins leave Treshnish. We were fortunate to catch them as the guide told us it would likely only be a few more days before the pufflings fledged.

After we'd headed out from Tobermory the crew were alerted to a pod of dolphins a little off our route, so we took a slight detour to see them. It was amazing seeing them so close to the boat. We also saw a lot of sea birds and an otter bobbing along beside us.

Central Mull

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

For our first day on Mull we decided we'd head out and explore the central loop of the island in the car following a route described in the brochure in the farmhouse. This gave us our first real insight to driving in Mull as most of the roads are single track with passing places - although the passing places are very frequent so you can almost always see one ahead of you. The route took us along between the mountains through forests and by lochs as we wound around the hilly landscape of central Mull.

Scotland 2023

Sun, 30 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Scotland 2023

28 Jul - Glasgow
29 Jul - 5 Aug - Isle of Mull
- 30 Jul - Central Mull
- 31 Jul - Aros park
- 1 Aug - Staffa & Lunga tour
- 2 Aug - Iona
- 3 Aug - Ulva
- 4 Aug - Lochbuie
Loch Lomond - 5 - 8 Aug
- 6 Aug - Inversnaid

Avebury

Sat, 24 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

We met my parents at Avebury and spent the day exploring the ancient landscape around the area. Avebury is one of the best preserved Neolithic monuments in Europe and is believed to have been constructed between 3100 BC - 2000 BC. The site consists of a large henge, or circular ditch, surrounded by a stone circle, two inner circles and two additional semi-circles outside the main ring.

From there we walked along the West Kennet Avenue and up over the fields. As we reached the top, we started to see a glimpse of Silbury Hill - the largest artificial mound in Europe. We then headed down towards Silbury Hill and across to the West Kennet Long Barrow which is a really impressive structure. As we took in the sights of the long barrow and the views all around the landscape we watched the swallows flying into the barrow to catch flies.

Lambda Integration in IBM API Connect on AWS

Thu, 23 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This blog post will provide you an overview of our Lambda integration in API Connect on AWS, what you could use it for and a simple worked example of setting this up. If you’d prefer you can watch me demonstrate this in our video on YouTube.

Lambda is serverless computing platform provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS) which lets you build and deploy your code in a number of different programming languages with easy integrations to AWS services without having to manage infrastructure or servers. This makes it an ideal place to build out your API implementation and when you combine this with our API Connect on AWS SaaS offering you can quickly build, manage and socialise your APIs without worrying about the infrastructure behind them.

Using our Lambda policy in the SaaS service makes this simple and straight forward to integrate these so you can build out your apis around numerous different AWS services then manage them centrally through API Connect, sharing them with consumers through our customisable developer portal.

Extending our sample API with conditionals and mocking

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Video demo showing how you can use conditional logic and mocking in API Connect on AWS using our sample order tracking API as an example.

IBM Tech 2023 - Dubai

Sun, 19 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

IBM Tech 2023 was a celebration event in Dubai

API Days - Paris

Fri, 16 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I attended API Days in Paris to run a workshop on AI in API Testing, help man the API Connect stand and a couple of Smart Talks.

Workshop: Applying AI to API Testing across the lifecycle

Wed, 14 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I hosted a workshop at API Days in Paris about increasing developer productivity by applying AI to API Testing.

Workshop: Testing APIs to prevent the most common security vulnerabilities

Wed, 26 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I ran a workshop at API Days London showing how you can use API Testing to test for the OWASP top 10 API Security vulnerabilities.

Invoke IBM Cloud Functions from API Connect

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Cloud functions offer an easy way to build functionality and only pay for the time they are actually running without having to worry about how it will be hosted - you just right the code, save it and it is ready to be invoked. The function can be invoked through an event trigger or as a REST API - in this case I'm going to show how you can trigger a function as part of your API Connect assembly flow - providing an easy way to manage and socialise the functionality you have built.

Webinar: Automating API Development through DevOps

Tue, 27 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

For the third webinar in our series 'API Design Master Class' I showed how you can use CI/CD with API Connect to manage your API deployments.

20 years of fun and adventure

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

West Bay

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Our summer family break in West Bay, Dorset

New York

Tue, 12 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

The next morning I was up early and decided to head first to the High Line - a park/walkway created from an historic raised rail line which goes along the West Side of Manhatten. It's fantastic to see the way the plants have been selected and seeing trees growing in between the old tracks with different sections having distinct settings from wild prairy to wooded sections providing a relaxed park atmosphere with a unique historic character to it. At the end of the line I headed to the Starbucks Reserve coffee roastery to have a coffee before heading back.

Webinar: Launch of new API Connect service on AWS

Wed, 29 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Garden to Glass

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In the afternoon Laura and I did a 'garden to glass' experience at the Hotel, just the two of us, where Diego took us first around the gardens of the hotel to see their sustainability at work and the different plants they grow and how they can be used. We took a basket around with us and gathered lots of sprigs of herbs, flowers and even wild blackberries.

Selvatura Hanging Bridges

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

After a delicious breakfast at Belmar, this time I had the breakfast sandwich of pesto, avocado, egg and roast peppers, we were picked up by the Selvatura transport to take us to the hanging bridges tour. We got there early and were assigned to a guide to take us around the park. He took us backwards around in order to avoid the other groups which seemed to work really well! We started the tour with a Coati coming across a mini bridge to us before admiring more of the beautiful cloud forest flora. Then we reached the first bridge of ?, each of which gave us a different view of the forest - some in the trees and some above the trees, all at different heights.

Finca Madre Tierra, Monteverde

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Finca Madre Tierra was the first carbon-neutral farm in Costa Rica and we were really excited to visit and learn more about it. We met at reception at 2pm to travel with Oscar, one of the people who run the farm, to travel to the farm, which was about 25 minutes away from the hotel. When we arrived, we were greeted by the farm dogs and the sounds of the animals who after washing our hands we went inside the barn to meet.
First we got to feed the donkeys and then Laura and Abi had a go at milking the cow. Some of the milk was then put into bottles for the young animals and Abi and Jessica fed it to the calves and lambs. The milk from the cows is also used in making cheese for the hotel.

Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Early start for a quick breakfast (I had a delicious home-made granola with chia and coconut milk) and then meet our driver at 7am to take us to the Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. We had a private guide for the walk around the reserve with whom we saw lots of things and heard lots of birds - nightingale, 'squeaky-door bird (Solitaire), toucanettes and quetzal.

Abi spotted a female Quetzal. The guide was great at showing us everything around on the ground and in the trees and how climate change has affected the area. They used to have only 30 dry days a year and now have 90! 50% of frogs have disappeared with a knock on effect on everything else. I particularly liked the tree ferns, and the tanagers. We also saw a tarantula in its hole.

Zip-lining, Arenal

Sun, 17 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We started with an early breakfast at 7 with seats right by the front of the restaurant overlooking the volcano watching birds over the water and then headed over to the reception to be picked up at 8:15 for Sky trek.

When we arrived, we put our bags in the lockers and got kitted out with equipment and they gave me a special helmet with a mount for my go-pro so that I could film from there rather than from my chest strap. We were then given the briefing on how to use the equipment and importantly how to brake and were taken up to the stop of the first zip line in the tram.

Arenal Volcano Hike

Sat, 16 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

This morning we had a relaxing morning in the pool enjoying the swim-up bar and the views across to the volcano whose peak kept peeping out from behind the clouds. We got wood-fired pizzas for lunch by the pool overlooking the volcano and watching wildlife by the lake.

We were picked up after lunch by Canoa Aventura for our volcano hike, which took us along the course of the 1968 lava flows to a view point where we had great views of the volcano and across to the Arenal Lake. The lake is man-made and covers the area to the west of the volcano which was destroyed by soot and gases from the eruption and is used to generate hydro-electric power.

Tirimbina - a bonus

Fri, 15 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Originally our plan had been to fly from Tortuguero to La Fortuna but, due to maintenance issues with the plane, the flight was cancelled and there were no others available. Instead, we travelled by land - initially leaving Laguna Lodge on the boat and travelling by coach to Guapilles and then being picked up by Juan Carlos to take us the rest of the way. This meant that we were able to stop off at Tirimbina on the way where we had a guide, Luis, to take us around the reserve.

Exploring Tortuguero

Thu, 14 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

We started the day with an early wake up (not too hard as we weren't adapted to the timezone yet) at 5am for coffee before an early morning boat tour leaving at 5:30 and taking us around the riverbanks and into the park spotting wildlife. The tour started with the local banks just up from the hotel where we started off with an Iguana lounging on a branch of a tree, just a little way up from a Tiger Heron (Tigrisoma fasciatum). José pointed out the different stages of coconuts growing along the side of the river as they go from green with mostly milk to brown with mostly flesh, we then saw a solitary howler monkey or 'mono congo' (Alouatta palliata).

Travel to Laguna Lodge, Tortuguero

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

After an overnight stay in San José, the next part of our travels began with a coach to the docks at La Pavona, followed by a boat from there to Laguna Lodge, as Tortuguero can only be accessed by boat or plane.

We set off from Hotel Presidente at 6:10 after a quick bite for breakfast. José, our guide, had met us at the hotel and took us to meet the bus with the others who were travelling to Tortuguero. After a couple more pickups we headed out of San José along the route 32 heading higher up as we left the city, passing alongside coffee plantations.

Costa Rica 2022

Tue, 12 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Costa Rica 2022

Tortuguero (13-14 Apr)
- Travel to Laguna Lodge
- Exploring Tortuguero
Tirimbina (15 Apr)
Arenal (15-17 Apr)
- Volcano Hike
- Zip-lining
Monteverde (18-20 Apr)