IBM API Connect v2018 Overview
IBM® API Connect is an integrated API management offering, with capabilities and tooling for all phases of the API lifecycle. Key steps of the API lifecycle include create, secure, manage, socialize, and analyze. IBM API Connect Version 2018 delivers enhanced capabilities for the market-leading IBM API management solution. In addition to the ability to deploy in complex, multi-cloud topologies, this version provides enhanced experiences for developers and cloud administrators in your organization.
Unit objectives:
- Explain what is IBM API Connect
- Describe the key capabilities of API Connect
- Describe how API Connect manages API through the entire API lifecycle
- Identify the components of an API Connect on-premises cloud
- Describe the use of the Cloud Manager user interface to administer the cloud topology and resources
- Describe the different gateway types for securing and managing APIs
- Identify the requirements for installing an API Connect on-premises cloud
API Connect overview:
- Gateway Options
- Software
- Hardware Prerequisites ( *Later, I’ll explain it)
API terminology:
What is an API?
- An application programming interface is a collection of remote service operations that you make available to API consumers
- In IBM API Connect, the API is a collection of REST service operations
- Representation State Transfer (REST) is an architectural style that uses a simple set of HTTP-based transactions, such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE
What is API Consumer?
- An API consumer is an application that calls remote operations in an API
What is an API provider?
- An API provider is an application or a system that implements the REST service operation in an API
What is an API gateway?
- An API gateway manages access to a set of API operations
- The gateway enforces service policies to restrict consumer access to APIs
What is API Connect?
- An integrated solution that includes creating, running, managing and securing APIs for a range of applications in a digital environment
What does API Connect provide?
- Automated, visual, and coding options for creating APIs
- Node.js Loopback framework support for generating API implementations
- Creation of models and APIs from diverse data sources
- Lifecycle and governance for APIs, products, and plans
- Advanced API usage analytics
- Customizable, self-service Developer Portal for publishing APIs
- Policy enforcement, security, and control provided by the IBM DataPower Gateway
API Connect key capabilities
Create and run APIs
- Write APIs in Node.js
- Loopback open-source framework
A- Develop and test by using a rich UI or CLI
B- Rapidly expose a wide variety of data sources as REST APIs
C- Build APIs code-first or by using model-driven development
E- Automatic generation of API models from a range of data sources
- Local API development and testing
- Visual API composition with the API Manager or API Designer
- Runtime management that uses a choice of container orchestration software
A- Docker, Kubernetes, IBM Cloud Private
Secure and control APIs
- Purpose-built, secure, and scalable gateway to enforcing API policies at run time
- A comprehensive set of built-in security, traffic management, and mediation policies
- Ability to define custom user-defined policies with GatewayScript
Manage APIs
- Manage API, Product, plans, versions, users, and subscribers
A- Organize APIs into catalogs and spaces
B- Manage API lifecycle
- Share and socialize APIs on self-service Developer Portal with API consumers
- Analyze API usage data to gain visibility and insight
Socialize APIs
- Enable self-service, company-branded Developer Portal for your API consumers
A- Built on robust, open-source Drupal contentmanagement system to customize developer experience
- Enable different API provider lines of business within an organization to socialize APIs to a single corporate Developer Portal
- API consumers can browse the available APIs, view API definitions, and test APIs
- Application developers can register applications, generate keys, and view analytics on usage
- Social portal with blogs, forums, and ratings
Analyze APIs
- Analyze API runtime usage data to gain insights and visibility
A- Powered by open source Elastic Stack
B- Understand performance with visualizations of call volume, error rates, and response times
C- Create custom dashboards and visualizations
- Analytics for both API provider and API consumer
- Out-of-the-box dashboards and visualizations for common metrics
Manage APIs through the API lifecycle
- Define and import REST or SOAP services
- Package APIs into products and tailor them for specific purposes
- Publish and promote products and APIs across different catalogs
- Manage the API lifecycle and version control from staging to the retirement of APIs
- API subscription and application access control
API Connect: Other user interfaces and user roles
Gateway options
Security and control with industry-leading DataPower API gateway
- Signed and encrypted gateway image without external software dependencies to minimize risk
- Well-established API security policies to protect services and data across multi-clouds
- Scalable architecture to help meet high-availability workloads
- Optimized built-in policies for security, traffic management, and mediation
- Workload tenant isolation to optimize governance on a single appliance across multiple lines of business
Downloading DataPower Gateway for Developers on Docker
- Docker
Search on “ibmcom/datapower”
Use this official IBM version
- IBM Fix Central (https://www.ibm.com/support/fixcentral/)
The download file (tar.gz) is under the firmware
Example: IDG-docker-2018.4.1.3 − idg_docker2018413.tar.gz
DataPower in the cloud
The DataPower gateway is available in the cloud, physical, virtual appliance, Linux, and Docker form factors
When DataPower runs in the cloud, it is running under a hypervisor, in Linux, or in a Docker container
- DataPower in a Docker container is supported in:
IBM Cloud
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Google Cloud
Microsoft Azure
