API Management

CategoryArchitecture Component

API Management is the process of publishing application service endpoints, documenting their interfaces and managing their usage at runtime. The related platforms also handle client application registration, control service access and collect performance metrics.

Component Overview

Secure Access to Application Services

An API Management platform allows to describe, publish, secure, manage and monitor Application Programming Interfaces (API) exposed on the Internet or in a private computing environment.

Organizations are actively deploying APIs to achieve business agility in digital marketing, customer engagement and service operations. Some may use them internally for intra-system communication, while others may publish APIs to create technical synergy across value chains that involve customers, partners and suppliers.

Reusable and replaceable components of Micro-services Architecture use APIs to connect with each other, and expose application interfaces to development partners. The core API Management capability is application service lifecycle control, which involves considerations for both API producers and consumers:

  • API producers manage the processes for designing, developing, deploying, versioning, monitoring availability, measuring performance and reporting revenues collected from the API usage.
  • API consumers discover new services, understand versioning and updates, easily register for services access, integrate them in test environments, and collaborate with the API producer and other users.

API Management provides the ability to design and build APIs that are intuitive and easy for developers to adopt and use. With online documentation at their fingertips, development partners can quickly grasp how to use and compose APIs, and integrate them into a reliable and scalable service delivery ecosystem.

Implementing a secure and controlled facility to expose APIs empowers companies to quickly repurpose their legacy systems, add value to existing offerings and open new revenue streams. An API Management platform adds a security layer to ensure that hackers are unable to access, misuse or attack the exposed systems and data.

Some examples of API Management Platforms are: API gateway — CA API Gateway and DataPower Gateway; API cloud platform — 3scale, Apigee, CA API Management SaaS, Oracle API Platform and IBM API Connect.

api

API Management platforms present diverse information assets in a format that developers can understand and leverage.

Legacy enterprise functions and complex, SOAP-based interfaces can be exposed as simpler, RESTful APIs that exchange messages using web-friendly formats.

An API Gateway allows to easily discover and compose new APIs from mash-ups of existing application services.

An API Portal extends the value proposition to client self-registration, application key management and API consumer billing.