API Management
Azure API Management (APIM) is a hybrid, multi-cloud management platform for your APIs. It provides developers with a consistent experience for publishing, securing, transforming, monitoring, and managing APIs. It also provides developers with a unified portal to discover and consume them.
Key Features
- API Gateway: The entry point for all client requests to your backend services. It handles request routing, authentication, authorization, rate limiting, and more.
- Developer Portal: A customizable, self-service portal for developers to discover, learn about, and test your APIs.
- API Lifecycle Management: Tools to manage the entire lifecycle of your APIs, from creation and publishing to versioning and deprecation.
- Security: Robust security features including authentication, authorization, threat protection, and OAuth 2.0 support.
- Analytics and Monitoring: Gain insights into API usage, performance, and errors with comprehensive dashboards and logging.
- Transformation: Modify request and response payloads, headers, and query parameters using policies.
- Hybrid and Multi-cloud: Deploy API Management instances in Azure, on-premises, or in other cloud environments.
Core Concepts
Understanding the fundamental building blocks of API Management is crucial for effective use:
- API: A definition of an interface for a backend service. It exposes operations that clients can invoke.
- Operation: An action that a client can perform on an API, such as GET, POST, PUT, DELETE.
- Product: A collection of APIs that can be offered to developers. Products are used to group APIs for subscription and access control.
- Subscription: A mechanism for developers to gain access to APIs. Consumers subscribe to products to receive a subscription key.
- Policy: Executable statements defined in a policy section of a request pipeline that are executed sequentially. Policies can be used to modify requests and responses, control access, and more.
Getting Started
Here are some common starting points for working with Azure API Management:
View Full API Reference Learn More About Concepts
Note: Azure API Management is a powerful tool for managing the complexity of your APIs and ensuring they are discoverable, secure, and well-performing for your consumers.
Tip: Explore the Developer Portal to see how your APIs can be presented to consumers, including interactive documentation and the ability to make test calls.