February 2019 Release: SnapLogic API Management

Hi, in this video, I will show how SnapLogic enables customers to easily create and manage APIs within SnapLogic’s unified platform. With SnapLogic API Management, organizations can successfully build a digital ecosystem, connecting departments within their organization, partners, and customers.

The SnapLogic API Management solution is flexible and easy to use for API developers and managers, as well as consumers of APIs. API developers can use pre-built Snaps to create APIs with a no-code approach and achieve data and application integrations.

API Managers, on the other hand, can focus on API management lifecycle. They can create API proxies, the application of API policies, and monitor API usage trends and performance. API consumers can access data through the exposed APIs made available in the API management layer.

In this video, I have created an API in SnapLogic called Simple Test 2. Let’s go to the SnapLogic Manager view to drill down into the project that needs to be managed.

We have added a new SnapLogic asset type called proxies which acts as a container for the API proxies created in SnapLogic. Clicking on the plus icon initiates the process to create an API proxy. Here, we will assign a unique name to the API proxy.

Next, we will select the APIs that will be added to the proxy.

Then we will choose one or more API policies from a list we want added to our proxy. For example, selecting a security-related policy suggests basic authentication for IP restriction and ensures that these policies get applied in addition to the security flows that may be configured at the application level.

Now we will review the information that we have selected. If everything looks accurate, we will click on the ‘Deploy’ button to publish the API proxy onto the API management layer that is running within the SnapLogic platform. Finally, we can review the deployment status, and have the option to download the openAPI specification document for the given API proxy.

Once the API proxy has been published onto the API management layer, we can drill down into the proxy to access the API catalog and analytics section.

The Info tab provides information such as the API proxy’s name, location of the proxy in the SnapLogic ecosystem, the consumer URL, and policies that are associated with this API proxy.

The APIs tab acts as a catalog and provides a searchable list of APIs that exist in the proxy. We also have the option to drill down into each of the APIs to view critical parameters such as payload, server response, and response schema. This tab can also be used to perform API testing. By simply authorizing the consumer user against the API management layer we can click on the Try button to perform a test of the API.

Upon the execution of the test, we see a 200 response code, which indicates that the API call was successful. After validating the API’s design and functionality, API managers are ready to expose APIs to internal and external API consumers. Finally, the API analytics section can also be accessed through the API catalog by switching to the Historical or the Latency tabs.

The Historical tab holds information and provides a graphical representation of API usage and trends. The Latency tab holds information and provides a graphical representation of the API performance.

In this demo, I showed how easy it is to create APIs and perform API lifecycle management through SnapLogic’s unified platform. It’s never been easier to build a digital ecosystem that seamlessly connects your backend systems and to share data with partners, suppliers, and customers.