Application Programming Interface (API) is a mechanism that performs a specific task and acts as a bridge between two applications – one acts as a client and other as server. API Management is the process of managing, maintaining, accessing, and controlling the data to their corresponding API’s. This article will outline what API management is and best practices to build, maintain, and manage APIs efficiently within the systems.
Consider few cases:
- Without API management, each developer would have hardcoded the API access point and all the calls related to it in the code. Changing a simple thing such as the API URL causes a lot of issues, not only for the API owners / developers but also for the business owners / end users who rely on them. If an API is attached and accessed via API management, the backend API call URL and anything related to it can be hidden from the API consumers. The API itself can have whatever URL and it will always stay the same for API consumers.
- With the help of API management, the API providers can change API backend implementation / location without disturbing developer productivity, end users’ access / business.
What is API Management?
API management is a set of processes and tools which allow an organization / developer to maintain this information, manage access to their APIs, maintain versions and control the release of these.
It provides the API developers the ability to:
- Provide the information about the APIs and documentation
- Version the APIs and support older versions
- Design, publish and deploy the APIs
- Provide secure access and apply security policies
- Manage the access control and maintain API store
- Monitor access/usage and set usage limits
- Use analytics to understand trends and identify the most used APIs
- Generate various reports of API usage to understand performance, identify areas for improvement.
API management software is built to make API design, deployment, and maintenance easier and more efficient. Although each individual API management tool has its own unique set of features, most of them include essential features like documentation tools, security, sandbox environments, high availability, and backward compatibility.
Implement / Enable API management
API management software can be built in-house or purchased as a service through a third-party provider. The open API movement (earlier known as the Swagger Specification), spearheaded by big-name companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter, has led to significantly reduced API dependency upon conventional service-oriented architecture (SOA) in favor of more lightweight JSON and REST services. Some API management tools are capable of converting existing SOAP, JMS or MQ interfaces into RESTful APIs or JSON content.
Some of the API management platforms:
| 3scale | Widely used API management solution. This is available under a commercial license and can be deployed on premises and on cloud. Suitable for startups, mid-sized or enterprise applications |
| Akana | It has all the benefits of API management features with strong analytics and UI-based API design platform for developers. This is available under commercial license and can be deployed as on premises and on cloud for enterprises |
| Apigee | Widely used and spread API management solution with hundreds of customers. Offering a wide analytics capability, developer community. Supports Swagger specs. This is available under commercial license and can be deployed as on premises and on cloud for enterprises |
| Azure API Management | Recently compared to other platforms, this can be called the complete set of solutions for API management. This is available under a commercial license and can be deployed on premises and on cloud. |
| TIBCO Mashery | Can be considered a complete set of solutions for API management. Supports Docker and Swagger 2.0 specifications. This is available under commercial license and can be deployed as on premises and on cloud |
| MuleSoft | Based on open-source technologies with a large developer and user community, this is a unified solution connecting SOA, SaaS, and APIs. It is available under a commercial license and can be deployed on premises and on cloud. |
| WSO2 | Can be considered a complete set of solutions for API management. This is available under Apache license as an open-source platform. This is available under a commercial license and can be deployed on premises and on cloud. Suitable for both startups and enterprise applications |
| AWS API Gateway | A cloud-based platform which works as a pay-as-you-go service. Using the API Gateway console, APIs can be defined, managed, SDKs can be generated for clients. Suitable for startups, mid-sized or enterprise applications |
Spring Boot – Swagger
As we know, spring boot supports the development of components that are suitable for micro services, as these components are loosely coupled and can be run independently. The various RESTful APIs developed with spring boot can be well documented, presented, modeled, and tested with Swagger integration. Swagger provides the ability to design the model, create UI to test the APIs, generate code (to provide SDKs) in various languages to be used by the API end users.
The springfox-swagger2 and springfox-swagger-ui dependencies in a spring boot application can be used to generate the API docs and UI for testing the REST APIs
Case Study: Implemented 3-scale authentication for Marketplace API for a large Product Data Management company in USA
The marketplace provides two APIs for items “search” and “fetch” for end-users. The authentication is provided by 3-scale application id (as user id) and secret key (as password) for the end users to access the APIs when they register for it. The end users make the call to the API by securing and passing the application id, HMAC hashcode generated by signing the request parameters of the URL with the secret key provided by 3-scale to them. All the calls are done through 3-scale, which authenticates the user by verifying the application id provided by it to the users to gain access to the marketplace APIs. Once the call is authenticated the secret key is passed by 3-scale as request header in a secure manner to the backend marketplace service. The backend marketplace service re-computers the HMAC hashcode and verifies the one passed in the request by the end user. If the hashcode matches, the call is allowed else denied. Since all the calls to the marketplace APIs are through 3-scale, the authentication of the call, monitoring, usage limits are all handled by 3-scale.
Conclusion API management is essential to exchange, maintain, and control the API information between the B2B systems as well as Marketplace services provided to developers consuming the APIs.
At Techwave, we understand the vital role that APIs play in driving digital transformation. Our comprehensive API management solutions are designed to help your organization unlock the full potential of your digital ecosystem. Don’t let outdated processes hold you back. Embrace the future with Techwave’s API management solutions and drive innovation in your organization.
Our expert team is ready to aid you in designing and implementing a customized API strategy that aligns with your business goals. Contact Us today to learn more about how our API management solutions can transform your business.
About the author – Amar Patwari
Amar Patwari has done Graduation in Electronics and is a Sun Certified Java programmer. He has over 15 years of experience in design and development of Enterprise Systems in Retail and Finance domain. He holds great interest in latest technologies.