Apigee API Management: A Complete Illustrated Guide

We’ll cover everything from what Apigee Gateways are, to why you should use Apigee to manage, monetize, and analyze your API.

Apigee API Management is a software platform that helps developers connect and manage a wide variety of APIs.

It incorporates existing enterprise, security, and compliance infrastructure to make your APIs adaptable and customizable.

 

 

The platform saves you time and effort when creating, maintaining, and scaling your APIs.

In addition, it can help you continuously improve your digital services.

Apigee API Management is available in both on-premises and cloud environments. It enables developers to build and deploy APIs for their company’s digital business models.

It also enables enterprises to securely leverage existing IT infrastructure and reach new target groups.

The platform is fully supported by Arvato Systems, which takes responsibility for integrated monitoring, professional maintenance, and continued development.

Apigee API Gateway and What It Does

 

 

The Apigee API gateway is software that connects traditional data stores with modern user interfaces.

It supports hybrid and multi-cloud deployments and has tools to manage, monitor, and troubleshoot APIs. Among other things, it lets you use API proxies and policies for securing your APIs.

These policies can alter the way your APIs are processed, the format of their messages, and how they are verified and approved.

To create a policy, you need to select the APIs you want to protect. Then, you can enter their name in the “Policy Name” field.

It is important to ensure that the name matches the name of the XML policy file and resource file. The DisplayName should be meaningful and describe the policy’s function.

The Apigee API gateway recommends a naming convention of short prefixes and sequences of descriptive words separated by dashes.

In addition, make sure you use the appropriate extensions for the policies.

What is Apigee?

Apigee is a Google Cloud product that allows enterprises to design API proxies, impose security policies, and scale their APIs.

It can also help organizations update legacy applications with modern developer-friendly APIs.

There are several Apigee products from Google, those that support mobile apps, Partner Apps, Cloud Apps, etc.

 

 

Apigee is available as an evaluation option, enabling you to see if this service is right for you.

It was founded in 2004 as Sonoa Systems but changed its name to Apigee in 2010. It was acquired by Google in 2016 for $625 million.

Its software helps companies track and measure customer behavior. Its products can help organizations make better decisions based on data.

When to Use Apigee?

If you’re looking for a platform that can provide powerful analytics on API usage, Apigee is an excellent choice. It’s the bridge between client apps and backend services.

 

 

Here are 3 scenarios when companies should use Apigee:

• When developers are creating connected apps
• When companies are updating legacy applications
• When companies want to facilitate data transfer between applications and services.

Apigee has a variety of options for generating custom reports and can even segment your audience based on top developers and apps.

The platform can collect various types of data such as headers, query parameters, and parts of XML and JSON. It can also collect data asynchronously from the request/response flow.

When constructing a client app, the common challenge developers face is how to consume different types of services.

Because service providers expose their APIs in different ways, the same app may need to use different mechanisms to access the same service.

However, Apigee makes this process easier by allowing app developers to leverage the platform’s features to make it a smoother experience.

The Apigee platform is truly beneficial, especially for a company that wants to expose its backend services to client apps on desktops and mobile devices.

For example, a company may expose product pricing, availability information, sales, order tracking, and other services. Additionally, Apigee allows developers to expose any other services required by a client application.

Apigee is a cloud-agnostic platform that allows organizations to connect their heterogeneous IT ecosystems and automate repetitive tasks. It also helps organizations secure access to their data.

Why Use Apigee?

 

 

Apigee is a powerful API management platform that bridges the gap between different APIs.

It allows you to add additional logic to your APIs without touching the API code itself.

This enables you to add authentication, data conversion, conditional logic, and more.

The Apigee platform also makes it easy for non-programmers to handle administrative and repetitive tasks so that your programmers can focus on development.

 

 

Essentially, you can use Apigee Edge enables developers to build RESTful APIs.

The platform also provides API proxies and allows users to discover and manage APIs. The Edge also offers integration benefits, including managing your application designers and relationships.

Apigee Edge offers a unified API management platform for developers, allowing them to create and manage RESTful APIs and easily integrate with any backend.

What Can Google Apigee Do?

Let’s examine the primary uses of Google Apigee. Here are the 5 things the Apigee platform can help you accomplish:

1). Design API Proxies

If you’re building an API-driven application, designing API proxies can help you keep things organized and streamline your development process.

An API proxy helps disengage the application designer from the back-end administration process, allowing them to focus on the front-end part of the application.

The Proxy Flow diagram explains it better:

 

 

An API proxy can also help you make changes to the administration and database without disrupting the existing application.

Apigee Edge provides visual tools for designing API proxies. The tool enables developers to create policies, design API behavior, and protect information from different attacks.

It also helps reduce the present time to treat (MTTD) while presenting a consistent client experience. Apigee Edge can be used to design hybrid APIs and API proxies.

2). Secure APIs

Apigee offers a secure and convenient way for app developers to interact with APIs.

It acts as an API proxy, mapping a publicly available HTTP endpoint to the backend service. It also performs security and authorization tasks.

In addition, Apigee keeps track of all API requests and responses. It stores the URL, query parameters, headers, body parameters, and response data.

This video is a walkthrough of the API security in Apigee:

 

 

Apigee uses a caching policy that automatically creates a short-lived L1 cache and persists it on the environment level.

This allows all message processors in the environment to access the cached data.

Apigee also offers a set of predefined analytics dashboards that show input and output values as flow variables.

In the case of an API call, the successful status will be returned, while the failed request should result in an error message.

a secure API, you must ensure the access control policies are uniform.

Apigee recommends Google Cloud Armor for this. This solution also provides Keystore management and a truststore for TLS handshakes.

3). Publish APIs

The Apigee API platform enables developers to create rich apps that integrate with backend services. Its features include a developer portal, API proxies, and API documentation.

Publishers can also view and modify information used to connect to backend services. The Apigee platform allows for both on-premises and cloud-based API management.

API publishing requires an API license from Apigee. To publish an API, you must register and get approved through the Apigee API Gateway.

Once approved, you will receive email notifications to let you know that your request was accepted. This process helps ensure that the API is available and meets minimum technical standards.

After you publish your API, you can manage and scale it using the Apigee Edge platform. Apigee Edge includes features for managing and analyzing API traffic.

It offers integration with SwaggerHub, which allows you to export your API definition as an API proxy.

4). Analyze APIs

You can analyze your API performance using the Apigee analytics dashboards.

This tool provides information on your API performance by displaying the average response time, the number of API errors, and more.

Apigee analytics data can also be used to create custom reports. You can use this tool to monitor the performance of your API and its backend target.

Utilize the rich API Analytics, API monitoring, and API alerting in Apigee to make well-informed decisions with your client apps.

 

 

Apigee has many useful features that make data transfer across different applications easy. It also works well for legacy applications and is highly compatible and secure.

Whether you’re running a complex online business or need to monitor how a client uses your services, Apigee can help you get a clear understanding of its impact.

With this tool, you’ll be able to determine which APIs are performing better than others.

Apigee also provides data visualization tools in the UI. You can use these tools to view API data in graphs, charts, and maps.

You can also view API traffic by proxy, IP address, and HTTP status code.

Alternatively, you can download the data and import it into your own analytics system.

5). Monitor APIs

 

 

You can monitor APIs with the Apigee API monitoring solution. Its real-time API traffic and performance data can help you identify problems and take remedial actions quickly.

It also lets you create custom reports based on your API metrics. Apigee API Monitoring is free, and all Apigee customers are eligible for it.

Apigee API Monitoring makes it easy for developers to access and analyze APIs directly. It works by mapping a publicly accessible HTTP endpoint to a backend service.

It also handles authentication, security, and authorization tasks. It also analyzes, monitors, and stores response data. It stores the API proxy endpoint URL, and query parameters, as well as headers and body parameters.

Monitoring API performance and traffic are crucial for any API. With Apigee, your operations team can make sure that APIs are available and performing as expected.

What Are Apigee Proxies?

Apigee proxies are HTTP endpoints that can perform data transformations, security, and other functions.

They are used to add additional functionality to applications and services. They also allow you to write custom code and conditional logic.

Apigee has several API proxies available, and they can all be purchased as separate products.

API proxies are a key component in building and managing applications that interact with APIs.

 

 

These proxies help organizations protect their backend services against direct access and ensure the privacy of data.

Apigee proxies use OAuth 2.0 for authentication and authorization, which allows third-party applications to obtain limited access to HTTP services.

API proxies can be managed from an Apigee Edge account. The Apigee Edge platform allows you to manage all your API proxies and packages, as well as developers.

It also helps you define policies to reinforce access control and analyze feedback messages for threats. Moreover, you can implement policies conditionally based on the content of the feedback messages.

What is Apigee Gateway?

 

Apigee gateway among other functions is also able to define policies. These can include authorization policies.

In addition, the gateway can transform messages into different formats. If necessary, it can call remote services.

It can also protect APIs by enforcing Cloudentity authorization policies. These features can be configured under the EXTENSION tree node.

Apigee provides enterprise-grade security, API development lifecycle management, and gateway capabilities.

The platform lets developers define API specs and easily create reusable gateway content. In addition, Apigee provides real-time, actionable insights into API traffic and helps track live API requests.

Moreover, it provides a broad range of security features and scalable technical support.

Where is Apigee Hosted?

Apigee can be hosted on-premises or in the cloud. For instance, it can be hosted on the Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Google Cloud Platform, like Azure, offers a scalable, secure cloud infrastructure for developers.

 

 

You can use Apigee as part of the Google Cloud Platform to design and scale your API.

You can use its network to route traffic. It’s also possible to use Netify to manage your network.

API proxies can perform data transformations, add security, or perform conditional logic.

They are also useful for mobile applications. The API proxies can be configured using the Apigee Edge management user interface applications or locally in text editors.

You can also use Apigee to develop backend services.

What is Apigee Hybrid?

Apigee hybrid is an operating model that combines a runtime plane with a control plane. The hybrid model is becoming more popular and has gained more traction in regulated environments.

Apigee hybrid offers an enterprise-grade control plane that works seamlessly with cloud services.

 

 

Apigee hybrid allows you to deploy applications, APIs, and developers. It also provides monitoring and troubleshooting tools to help you troubleshoot and upgrade your Apigee hybrid environment.

You’ll gain the knowledge and skills needed to deploy Apigee hybrid applications.

Apigee hybrid provides one API management platform for enterprise users. This platform offers complete control over APIs and ensures a unified API strategy across the entire enterprise.

The hybrid deployment model is part of Apigee’s hybrid cloud strategy and supports the company’s Cloud Native strategy.

This hybrid approach allows you to use one API management platform for both on-premises and cloud-based applications.

What is Apigee-X?

Google’s Apigee X is a new API management platform for the Google Cloud.

It brings AI capabilities to API operations and security and simplifies integration with Google Cloud services.

Apigee X also offers 24 regions for API hosting, caching across 93 points of presence, and new self-service capabilities.

 

 

Apigee X enables users to connect to multiple backends in different VPCs. It can use a private network or a shared VPC.

If the backend servers are in different VPCs, they use different peering connections.

Apigee X customers can also use a VPC peering service to connect to other backends. In this way, they can avoid using public IP addresses.

Why Consider Apigee For API Management?

If you are a developer, you’ll appreciate the benefits of API management services such as Apigee.

These services allow you to create and manage APIs without having to write a single line of code.

also allow you to easily add additional logic to your APIs, such as authentication and data conversion. This is the easiest way to handle errors from the client to the backend, and vice versa.

 

 

The platform also helps you to automate administrative tasks like managing API proxies and security. This frees up your time to focus on development.

Apigee API management is an effective platform that allows you to manage APIs and track their usage.

Whether your API is for a client or a developer, Apigee will provide the security and control you need. In addition to this, Apigee offers an easy-to-use interface.

Apigee has excellent service and support, according to user reviews. Although the product is a bit more expensive than its competitors, users report good technical support and good service.

In addition to these features, Apigee is scalable, reliable, and lightweight. You’ll also appreciate its high availability and customizable architecture.

Apigee tools make it easy for companies to maintain and manage APIs, as well as to develop a consistent interface for their apps and services. It also includes testing tools and helps track usage analytics.

It also allows organizations to publish a developer portal so that developers can easily discover and request access to APIs.

API Services

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Conclusion

Apigee has comprehensive API management and analytics platform that lets you build, monitor, and secure APIs.

It also provides a single-window entry point for users, and it handles protocol translations. Apigee’s RESTful APIs allow users to access data via HTTP requests.

The Apigee API platform includes additional features such as rate restriction, security, and investigation.

With this API platform, it’s possible to develop and manage APIs for a variety of industries.

Edge enables developers to write API rules using a graphical interface.

The platform also supports OData requests and payloads. This means developers can get analytics insight without changing their backend.