Overview
The Azure Compute API Management service provides a unified gateway for managing, monitoring, and securing your compute workloads—Virtual Machines, Scale Sets, and Containers.
- Unified API surface for all compute resources.
- Built‑in rate limiting, throttling, and quota management.
- Policy‑driven request/response transformation.
- Integrated Azure Active Directory authentication.
- Monitoring via Azure Monitor and Log Analytics.
The service sits in front of Azure Compute endpoints and applies a set of policies defined in the API Management instance.
Pricing is based on the number of API calls and the tier of the API Management service (Developer, Basic, Standard, Premium).
Tier | Monthly cost | Included calls ---------------------------------------------------- Developer | Free | 1 M calls Basic | $0.50 per 1 k| 1 M calls Standard | $2.50 per 1 k| 5 M calls Premium | $5.00 per 1 k| 10 M calls
Getting Started
Follow these steps to provision an API Management instance for your compute resources.
- Open the Azure portal and create a new API Management service.
- Navigate to APIs → + Add API → Azure Resource and select Compute.
- Configure policies (e.g., rate limit) in the Design tab.
- Publish the API and test it using the integrated Test console.
az apim create \ --name MyComputeAPIM \ --resource-group MyRG \ --publisher-email admin@example.com \ --publisher-name "Contoso Corp"
Reference
Below are the primary REST endpoints exposed by the API Management gateway.
| Endpoint | Method | Description |
|---|---|---|
| /vms | GET | List all virtual machines. |
| /vms/{vmId} | GET | Retrieve details of a specific VM. |
| /vms/{vmId}/start | POST | Start a stopped VM. |
| /scalesets | GET | List scale sets. |
| /containers/{containerId} | GET | Get container status. |
Best Practices
- Enable IP filtering to restrict access to known networks.
- Apply rate‑limit policies per consumer to protect backend services.
- Use Azure AD OAuth 2.0 for authentication and fine‑grained authorization.
- Leverage API versioning for backward compatibility.
- Integrate with Azure Monitor to detect anomalies.
FAQs
Can I use custom domains?
Yes. You can map a custom domain to your API Management gateway in the Custom domains setting.
How do I secure the API with a client certificate?
Upload the client certificate to the API Management instance and enforce it using a validate-client-certificate policy.
Is there a way to mock responses for testing?
Use the mock-response policy in the design tab to return static payloads for development.