Hi guys, if you are new to Apigee World then this blog helps you to understand the basic features and functionality of Apigee in a better way.
So, here is a quick start for you.
To be started with Apigee let’s first know Apigee Edge, as it is provided by Apigee for development and managing proxies.
Apigee Edge:-
This product consists of API services layer as the core area for creating, publishing, and managing your portfolio of API proxies.
Now let’s have an overview of a proxy, as proxy plays an important role in Apigee edge.
API Proxy:-
An API proxy is an interface to developers who want to use your backend services. Developers will access the service through an API proxy, instead of consuming them directly.
Or simply you can understand it by a Bank example.
As we keep our Money in Bank, we have a layer between us and money. That layer provides us some benefits too, like:
– Security
– Interest
– Easy Usage
and much more.
An API Proxy is just like this. It is a layer between developers and the backend and gives us some of the benefits like
– Security
– Easy Usage
and much more.
So this was all about an API Proxy.
Now, we are going to see the basic functionality of all the options faced while creating API proxies.
The first page after login gives you these 6 following options:
- Specs
- API Proxies
- API Products
- Portals
- Learn More
- Community
Specs-
It is the Design phase, you define the requirements for your API. As an API designer, you plan the services you’d like to expose to consumers, and design RESTful APIs to access those services. You can create an OpenAPI Specification in an easy-to-read JSON or YAML format to capture your API requirements. Using this you will have an option to create service the way you want by uploading your OpenAPI (.yaml) file.
For uploading a Spec you have to Click on “+Spec “ button.
And after that, you will have 3 options like:
– To Write for your own. (New Spec)
– To import from URL. (Import URL)
– To upload by a file. (Import File)
API Proxies-
This particular section will help you to create and manage proxy.
To make a proxy you have to click on “+Proxy” button.
After that, you will get more options like:
– Reverse proxy (It is most commonly used for just having a route inbound request and managing backend services, and here you can use your Spec too).
– SOAP service (It is to create a RESTful or pass-through proxy for a SOAP service).
– No Target (It is for getting started with Apigee as it just creates a simple API proxy that does not route to any backend target).
– Hosted Target (In this we create a new app in Node.js and optionally add policies).
– Proxy bundle (When we have to import an existing proxy from a zip archive we can use this).
API Products-
As an API provider, you can create API products to bundle your APIs and make them available to app developers for consumption. It helps in generating an api-key which can be further used for security reasons.
By creating an API Product you can make an App and by creating an App it will provide you some security credentials which can be used to guard proxies in the Product.
To create an API Product, click on “+API Products” button.
Then you will get several input fields to setup your API Product. Like,
– Name of Product.
– Proxies to be bundled in the product, etc.
Portal-
Portal is used to enable app developers to:
– Learn about your data and service offerings.
– Learn how to use your APIs by reviewing comprehensive documentation, including example use case, tutorials, and reference documentation.
– Register using a self-service process in order to build apps that use your APIs.
For Creating a portal you must click on “+Portal” button.
It will only ask for a name and give you your portal.
In it, you will get plenty of options like managing your portal, updating use-case, managing the theme of GUI, managing developers, and much more.
This was all the basic of Apigee that how things are working over there.
