IBM apiconnect: Under the hood

IBM has just GA'd the API Connect Product offering. This offering is IBMs latest incarnation of their API-Management product set and combines several technologies.

This entry discusses what it is and how you would use it in your business.

IBM's API Connect offering is a number of products bundled into one upgradable IBM Product ID (PID). Under-The-Hood are three technical elements: IBM's recent API acquisition Strongloop and their longer-standing API-Management offering which uses their DataPower product. In to this they have combined a new secure gateway offering which is an upgraded version of the Strongloop gateway. I'll discuss each of those elements in turn and how they play in the final offering.

StrongLoop

With StrongLoop; IBM gained a developer centric best-of-breed node.js API-Manager i.e. it's designed from the developer upwards. In comparison to most of IBM's products it lacks some of the immense breadth that you may be used to. But, that's the point, it does what it says on the can... It gets you up and running really quickly with APIs.

Constructionally Strongloop is a slim-line, node.js based, API gateway server. This gateway can sit in your DMZ allowing external connections access to your API's (As I described in my API-Management introduction).

Strongloop: logical overview

Strongloop then supply tools to expose your current back-end data-sources or services as APIs. It does this by providing connectors to these back-ends and a framework in which you can write your own connectors if the ones they supply don't meet your needs.

btw: The version of the Strongloop gateway server that's included in apiconnect is actually an enhanced version of the original Strongloop gateway that came with the acquisition. I believe that the IBM Datapower guys have beefed it up a bit. This new gateway is called the 'Micro Gateway'.

DataPower API-Manager

In comparison to Strongloop the DataPower part of the API Connect offering is the other end of the spectrum. This is IBM's original, on-premise, enterprise grade, API-Manager. It's big, fierce and can do anything you want it to in the API-Management world. 

DataPower is IBM's best-of-breed secure gateway. It's a hardened appliance designed for the DMZ from the ground up. "Hardened" also has many other ramifications in terms of its Denial Of Service (DOS) and general security attack handling. 

DataPower: API-Management Configuration

Rather than rebuild the wheel when API-Management came on the scene IBM utilised their current DataPower appliances.To this end IBM's DataPower centric API offering includes a nice WYSIWYG editor for the API creation. This tool then merely outputs standard DataPower configuration configuration to the appliance. By doing this IBM use all of the DataPower function without any upgrades being required to the actual DataPower appliance and are building their API-Management story on top of DataPower's fearsome security reputation.

API Store

As part of the API Connect offering IBM offers you an API store. This is functionally rich and, as well as having the usual key and user management functions of an API store, also has things like Social contexts: forums, feeds, API rating ability etc. This API Store has to be installed and managed separately.

API Connect

We can see that the combination of Strongloop and DataPower covers both ends of the spectrum. The only question left is how do you use that spectrum to your advantage...

Developer Led API-M

If you're the kind of organisation (or perhaps department) who is very developer led then chances are that you'll have people who just want to get on with producing your APIs. In this case you're probably going to plump for the StrongLoop end of the offering. This will give you quick results and get you from a-to-b in the shortest length of time. It will allow your developers to create APIs from the ground up and expose them quickly in the built-in gateway.

Enterprise Grade

I appreciate that sometimes the words 'enterprise grade' are often associated with words like 'Silo', 'clunky', 'slow' etc. However, it's also associated with companies that design their solutions very thoroughly and expect the best results. If you're that organisation then you'll almost certainly already have a DataPower estate of some size. Adding API-Management function on top of that estate is probably a natural progression for you. Sure, you may find departments that could use the more developer led  Strongloop focussed API-Management functionality but you'll probably be looking to expose their final results through your secure DataPower estate.

Moving through the gears

This broken-down view on the IBM API Connect offering makes it look like two separate API products in one box, but it's not. The reality is that the offering is designed to be used flexibly. 

Having the two ends of the spectrum in one box allows you initially write your first APIs in the strongloop side of the offering, expose those APIs through the Micro Gateway and then, as you move through the gears as it were, deploy the APIs through the DataPower gateway side of the offering. Some of the reasons that you may do this is because you need the performance and greater security that the DataPower appliance give you but need to get running quickly as a developer led organisation.

Strongloop and DataPower Combined

Growing your system like this means that you wouldn't re-write the APIs that started out in your Strongloop server but merely expose them differently through the enterprise level DataPower  gateway.

Another option is that, as you grow, you may decide to start writing your API's directly in the DataPower API-Manager and leave well-alone the strongloop API's that you've already written. All these options are available to you in this single offering.

Pricing Options

Now (and this is where water gets a little murkier) although I've said that all these bit parts are under the same PID. The offering is actually broken down into separate price points (editions) within that PID,

IBM apiconnect editions

This split gives you the flexibility to buy in at the right price point that makes sense for you.

By providing the 'Essentials' offering at no cost IBM is allowing you to try before you buy as well as allowing you to just use it without any support if you're fine about that.

The Professional edition gives you the Micro Gateway as well as the option to upgrade at a later date to the DataPower gateway (virtual or physical).

With the Enterprise edition you're buying in straight at the top with the DataPower gateway option. However, IBM also throws in the Micro Gateway so you can continue to use it if you had projects written using it prior to upgrading to the enterprise level. Additionally, you could expose new assets using a combination of the Micro Gateway with DataPower fronting it.

IBM Terminology

This blog is very much my take on the IBM offering. 

IBM discuss the IBM Connect offering in the following terms

• Create:  
  The ease of API creation and developer centric view that Strongloop offers.
• Manage:
  The management that both the gateways afford you in terms of the throttling, security and policy management capabilities.
• Enforce:
  The Access control and Security that either the Micro Gateway or the DataPower appliance gives you in spades.
• Run:        
  The multi-level performance, scalability and analytics that you get in the offering.

btw: Somewhat confusingly IBM has now started calling the apiconnect offering by the acronym  APIC rather than API-M which is how they use to refer to their previous API Management offerings.

Cloud Anyone?

In the past IBM has made both of these individual offerings available in "the cloud" and when it comes to cloud you can see no better example of a PAAS (Platform As A Service) than IBM's BlueMix offering. Both Strongloop and IBM's DataPower API-M are available on BlueMix. But the one that's 'born on the cloud' is StrongLoop.

Given that Bluemix can run both on and off-premise having strongloop available in both those environments makes it a strong offering in my book. Add to that the possibility to incorporate Datapower into that blend as either a physical or virtual appliance and IBM look like they have a strong hand to play when it comes to giving you API-Management functionality in the way you want it and where you want it.

Conclusion

This blog turned out to be longer than I thought it was going to be. That's probably because the IBM API Connect offering gives you lots of opportunity to start small or start big and that, in turn, gives you plenty of opportunities to get confused. Hopefully I've given you more information about what it is and what you can do with it that can help you figure out where and how to use its various piece parts that make up the whole.