IBM API Connect v10 to power your digital business and enable partners to reach new markets
By Purush Das • January 31, 2023
Introduction
In the past, enterprise apps have focused on web browsers as the client. Now BYOD initiatives mean that the enterprise often has no control over the choice of client device. APIs open new channels to help reach out to multiple devices like wearable, IoT devices, smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc. The expansion of the number of mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, as well as the growth of social media presents new and additional business opportunities to create new channels with customers and partners. Enterprises needs to continue to innovate while achieving cost optimization to become a successful business and provide increased value to clients, trading partners, employees, citizens, members, patients.
• Not having an API today is like not having a website in the 1990s..
• Billions worth of items are added on eBay through APIs
• Millions worth of transactions in PayPal are through APIs
• Millions of people accessing Social media content through APIs
• API Management – More important than ever
To address these emerging opportunities, you require easy-to-use tools to define, assemble, secure, limit, and monitor services, while providing a self-service experience for rapid developer on-boarding.
This white paper will enable you to expose key business services to business partners as APIs to drive new forms of collaboration, increase revenue opportunities, and provide higher value services to your customers & partners using IBM API Connect v2018 solution.
Complete API Management Solutions from IBM
IBM API Connect v2018 is a complete, modern, intuitive and scalable Multi-Cloud API platform to create, securely expose and manage APIs across clouds to power digital applications. It delivers a complete set of API management capabilities that can be deployed on-premise in an enterprise’s data center or in the cloud.
API Connect allows businesses as API providers, to integrate the most important features that are necessary to enable the three most significant players in the API economy: application developers, business owners, and IT personnel. It offers a complete configuration no coding approach. Now doesn’t that make life simpler?
IBM API Connect v2018 provides capabilities for creating, proxying, assembling, securing, and scaling the APIs.
This solution also provides detailed analytics and operational metrics to the business owner and a customizable developer portal to socialize the APIs and manage applications that can be used by the developers. The developer portal enables self-service registration and provides links to social communities. API Connect requires IBM WebSphere® DataPower gateway appliances to act as the API gateway. These DataPower appliances can be either physical appliance that can be deployed on-prem or virtual appliances that can be deployed in multi-cloud environments such as IBM Cloud, Google, Azure and AWS.
IBM API Connect v10 KEY BENEFITS
API Connect is a complete solution, which offers critical API and service management features that include:
Managed self-service: Rapid, secure, and dynamic on-boarding of application developers who use APIs and services with a complete self-service, developer experience.
Empowered developers: Developers can register their application, select API entitlement levels, and test APIs via an Advanced Developer Portal. This portal enables API providers to build a customized developer portal for their application developers. In addition to allowing application developers to find and use APIs, the Advanced Developer Portal provides additional features including forums, blogs, comments, and ratings, together with an administrative interface for customizing the developer portal.
Visibility: Monitor use of APIs and services, and charge back developers for API usage.
Rapid API proxying and assembly: API assembly and proxying capabilities allow rapid creation of new APIs from existing business assets or cloud services through configuration. These API assembly capabilities are enabled by seamless integration with WebSphere DataPower appliances.
Support for iterative development and API versioning: Changes can be made dynamically to an existing API implementation. Reactivating new versions of the API can be performed in a non-disruptive, highly available manner.
Security and robust scalability capabilities: Access to APIs can be managed by using a combination of API keys and secret keys, and application users can be authenticated using HTTP basic authentication or OAuth 2.0. The solution provides built-in caching, quota management, and flood control, and can be configured to exploit existing DataPower appliances.
Business analytics and operational metrics: Detailed business analytics and operational metrics help you analyze how your company’s products are utilized. You can also view how well the APIs are performing and are being used by developers.
Ability to import existing APIs and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)-based web services: The API provider can derive Representational State Transfer (REST)-based APIs by assembling REST and SOAP based services. The API provider can also discover web services from WebSphere Service Registry and Repository (WSRR).
Ability to nurture innovation: The developer community can help the innovative application developers, whether they are private, partner, or public, to develop applications. This can expand a business’s brand loyalty and open new channels of business to attract existing partners.
Highly secure API support that is provided by IBM DataPower gateway: API Management requires and integrates with DataPower gateway appliances, which enables integration of API, web, mobile, SOA, and B2B workloads in a single, highly secure, highly consumable physical or virtual appliance.
Reference Architecture
An API developer can create, secure, control, deploy, analyze, and manage SOAP and REST APIs and services for internal or external consumption quickly through a single console.
API business owner can advertise, market, socialize, and sell APIs as a product in developer communities (private, partner, and public) worldwide.
Applications developers can easily find, understand, and have tools to help them consume the API, and are able to manage their application and understand its consumption.
IT operations can easily manage and upgrade the API environment to use existing investments in DataPower® with the ability to monitor and scale without disruption to service.
Scale and Flexibility with Multi-Cloud Design
APIC v10 supports Multi-cloud Architecture managing distributed clustered API Gateways co-located with provider backbends on virtually any cloud.
Container/Kubernetes & VMware support for API Connect components to run virtually anywhere
Unmatched scalability and performance through new container and microservices based design
Independently scale API Connect components leveraging container orchestration tools
Available in Cloud, Virtual and Physical form factors
API Analytics
Analyze API calls to get visibility and understand API consumption
Build custom dashboards and share to address specific reporting and visualization needs
Drill down and build custom queries for deeper analysis
API Provider: Optimize/Analyze Highly-used APIs
App Developer: Analyze App performance, Get notified
IT Admin: Optimize/Analyze API Runtime Monitoring
Enables chargeback or billing for API consumption
Offload usage data to external systems.
Conclusion
With the new business drivers, such as enablement of Mobile and IoT applications for better engagement with customers, and API economy for enabling partners to reach new markets and customers, the customers would like to leverage its existing services to create a new set of APIs. The business team knows that an increased mobile and device application presence will enhance their brand image and increase customer satisfaction. They want to leverage the capability to rapidly expose back end services, but use a lightweight protocol such as REST to facilitate the needs of the mobile developers.
This will allow them to enter the market quickly at a reduced cost. IBM API Connect v2018 with support for catalog and self-registration improves consumption experience of this API for both internal and external developers, and also helps to better govern access to this service with rate control through policy enforcement, and monitoring dashboard.
