IBM API Management
 | |
| Developer(s) | IBM |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 2.0 [1] 12 July 2013 |
| Stable release | 4.0.2 [2] 22 July 2015
/ 22 July 2015 |
| Written in | Java |
| Operating system | Virtual Appliance |
| Available in | English, French, German,Brazilian-Portuguese, Czech, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese [3] |
| Type | Virtual Appliance |
| License | Commercial |
| Website | http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/api-management |
IBM API Management[4] (IBM APIM) is an API Management platform for use in the API Economy.
It runs as an appliance on Virtual Machines and uses IBM DataPower Gateways as a gateway.
It provides a developer portal to attract and engage application developers and foster use of published APIs. An administration portal allows you to establish policies for API attributes such as self-registration, quotas, key management and security policies. An analytics engine provides role-based insight for API owners, solution administrators and application developers in order to manage your APIs and ensure your service levels are being achieved.
Swagger 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 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 developer portal and 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 the IBM DataPower Gateway device.
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.
APIs
The product has REST based APIs for accessing and manipulating users, developer organizations, apps, subscriptions. The product has REST based APIs for accessing information about plans, APIs and analytics.
Extension points
The Advanced Developer Portal can be extended with custom content and themes.
Version history
Version 8.5.5 (March 2015)
This release added user interface enhancements that enable:
- Simplified SOAP service registration by new wizards and a new editing User Interface.
- Simplified view of a service on one page, using tabs to show endpoints, interfaces, and details.
- Simplified registration of a consuming service or application, by a new wizard.
A bulk load tool which loads a spreadsheet containing service definitions into WSRR and creates the service definition objects in WSRR.
A simplified service management profile which reduces the steps in the life cycle for services, service level definitions and applications. The profile also has simplified labels for states of objects and transitions to move between states.
Simplified promotion process where all objects on the target system are updated when a promotion happens to that system, rather than the previous behavior.
Performance improvements when loading large (around 1 MB or larger) WSDL and XSD documents.
The 8.5.5 release was a "mod pack" which means it can be applied as a fix pack to an existing 8.5 installation.
Version 8.5 (April 2014)
A faster and more simplified user interface that is self-contained within WebSphere Service Registry and Repository. Added support for the Google Chrome browser and the latest Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft™ Internet Explorer browser releases.
Usability enhancements that enable:
- Proactive consumer notification upon service change.
- Additional filter and download options
- Support for IBM® Integration Bus (IIB) Work Load Management (WLM) policy specification and management for usage with IIB objects modeled in WebSphere Service Registry and Repository (for example, services and workflows)
Version 8.0 (June 2012)
Including improved Business Space widgets including document loading, and impact analysis. New Business Space templates for Operations and Development, Government Enablement Enhancements for modelling REST services. API Enhancements for REST. Enforcement of Service Level Agreements with DataPower.
Version 7.5 (June 2011)
This release added improved UI Business Space widgets, allowing sophisticated configuration. Report hosting and activity monitoring can now be done from the UI. Full text search capability (based on Apache Lucene technology) is now included. The WSRR studio configuration tool has additional functionality to make configuration quicker including click to assign lifecycles, an access control editor and governance policy authoring. Upgrade performance has been improved. SCA Service endpoints have been added to allow governance of SCA endpoints.
Version 7.0 (Nov 2009)
This release added Integration with Tivoli Change and Control Management Database, Name Queries, Business Space User Interface, ATOM support with ATOM classification and Configuration APIs further SCA bindings. Feature Packs with Service Federation Management (SFM) and further Business Space enhancements are available.
Version 6.3 (June 2009)
This release added Websphere Service Registry and Repository Studio application for manipulating models and LIfe cycles using UML tooling. Service Discovery extended to Oracle WebLogic Server and JBoss Application Server. The Governance Enablement Profile was introduced which contains models, life cycles and support for best practices when governing Services using WSRR. An Advanced LifeCycle Edition offers Integration with Rational Asset Manager.
Version 6.2 (Jul 2008)
Policy Management introduced including support for Policy Authoring, Policy definition to create and update policies for an extensible set of SOA policy domains, Web services interoperability (WS-I) compliance for standards-based interoperability policies. Service Discovery from Oracle Application Server and Service Discovery framework to allow plugins to be developed for discovery from any target environment.
Version 6.1 (Dec 2007)
This release added Deployment Wizard, Graphical view of objects and relationships, Business modelling allowing you to represent the custom objects, Service Discovery, Scheduler framework, WSDL Parser Extension plugins, promotion, faceted search, auto suggest, REST interface and a governance profile.
Version 6.0.2 (May 2007)
This release added UDDI Integration, Clustering Support, business Profile, configuration profiles, binary document support, Policy support Extensions, Load Documents Wizard, Binary Document Support, Eclipse User Interface, email notification Service.
Version 6.0 (Sept 2006)
Initial release. Basic support for WSDL, XSD with a Web UI. Allows adding of properties, relationships and classifications.
Websites claiming or suggesting that WebSphere Service Registry and Repository is a notable piece of software
References
- ^ "WebSphere product lifecycle dates". IBM. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
- ^ "WebSphere product lifecycle dates". IBM. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
- ^ InfoCenter, Hardware and software requirements
- ^ IBM marketing website.