Global InformationIBM API Management information
| Developer(s) | IBM |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2.0 [1] 12 July 2013 |
| Stable release | v10.0.5 [2]
/ 30 June 2023 |
| Operating system | Virtual applianceDocker |
| Available in | Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, US English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish [3] |
| Type | Virtual appliance |
| License | Commercial |
| Website | http://www.ibm.com/software/products/en/api-management |
IBM API Management[4] (with version 5 renamed to IBM API Connect) is an API Management platform for use in the API Economy. IBM API Connect enables users to create, assemble, manage, secure and socialize web application programming interfaces (APIs).
It runs as a Virtual appliance on a Virtual machine and uses the IBM WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances as gateways.
It provides a developer portal for application developers and to view published APIs. An administration portal allows users to establish policies for APIs such as self-registration, quotas, key management and security policies. An analytics engine provides role-based analytics for API owners, solution administrators and application developers in order to manage APIs and ensure service levels are being achieved. There is also a service called Cloud Manager where the platform is set up with servers, clusters, gateways, user repositories, etc.
Swagger (now called OpenAPI) and WSDL documents can be loaded and parsed into APIs. APIs can be created by describing the input and output in the API Manager User Interface by configuration. APIs can then be decorated with additional data in the form of tags, binary documentation and documentation URLs. APIs can proxy an existing API or use an assembly where a flow is created. In such an assembly flow it is possible to call out to other services, transform response data, redact information and map response data from external APIs to the response of the API.
Plans can be created which specify rate limits, whether sign ups need to be approved, and a collection of APIs to offer to developers. Plans can be published to a specific environment.
An environment consists of a management server (with management console and developer portal) and an API gateway. Plans published to an environment can be visible in the developer portal, enabling developers to sign up to plans and use the APIs contain within. API business owners can customize their developer portal with their branding to advertise, market, socialize and sell APIs. Plans published to an environment can be invoked on the API gateway, delegating to the API gateway responsibility for rate limits, rejecting unknown users and scalability. The API Gateway is one or more IBM DataPower Gateway devices.
The API gateway collects invocation metrics which are available for analysis in the developer portal and API Manager user interfaces. Example metrics collected are API usage, success and failures.
- ^ "WebSphere product lifecycle dates". IBM. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
- ^ "IBM Support".
- ^ IBM API Management V4 announcement
- ^ IBM marketing website.