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Wednesday, July 11, 2018

API tools Comparison


Services being compared:
·        IBM API Connect
·        Tyk API Gateway 
·        Axway API Management
·        WSO2 API Management
·        Membrane Service Proxy
·        Repose
·        Apiman

Common API gateway usage cases:
·        Authentication - not relevant in communication system-to-system, as we are inside COT (Circle Of Trust)
·        Transport security - managing HTTP/HTTPS is important, other protocols are almost obsolete
·        Load-balancing - considered only horizontal scaling configuration
·        Request dispatching - propagation of dispatching errors handling, including fault policies and plain error normalization management
·        Dependency resolution - not relevant in COT
·        Transport transformations - crucial is rest-soap-rest transformation

Requirements:

1.    1 As a BPM Developer, I would like to have normalized protocol and format of APIs, so I can minimize cost of integration
2.     2As a BPM Developer, I would like to have incoming and outgoing requests validation, so I don't need to validate them inside BPM
3.    3 As a API Integration Developer, I would like to update exposed API documentation with minimal effort required, so productivity is increased
4.     4As a API Gateway Developer, I would like to configure my gateways through WSDL files to provide faster updates and API migration
5.     5As a API Gateway Developer, I would like to have an opportunity to create custom request transformations
6.     6As a API Gateway Developer, I would like to modify headers and query parameters of requests and responses
7.    7 As a API Gateway Developer, I would like to manage API life-cycle to version exposed API
8.     8As a API Gateway Developer, I would like to have my logs sent to Compass, to obtain one logging base
9.     9As a API Gateway Developer, I would like to scale horizontally gateway nodes


Stakeholders:
·        API Gateway Developer - developers responsible for supporting and maintaining API protocol/message normalization inside micro-gateway services
·        API Integration Developer - developers responsible for API endpoints normalization implemented in micro-services
·        BPM Developer - developers responsible for implementation of business processes in BPM Manager tool

Historical comparison:

Comparison:




IBM API Connect

·        Advantages
o   Support for custom Java based call-outs
o   Automatic REST-SOAP-REST conversion
o   Management via browser based GUI or REST API
o   Exportable configuration
o   Enterprise support from IBM
·        Disadvantages
o   Stand alone centralized instance model
o   Really bad look and feel - the interface look overwhelming and it's hard to find needed information on pages
o   Focus put on exposing API to external clients and magnetization aspects

Tyk API Gateway
§  Advantages
o   Management via browser based GUI or REST API
o   Gateway configuration only json files
o   Provide endpoint documentation pages
§  Disadvantages
o   Lack of WSDL support
o   Support only REST services
o   Additional pre and post processing available via JavaScript
o   Docs and tutorials limited only to tyk.io website
o   Long list of bugs and features todo

Axway API Management
·        Advantages
o   Cross platform OSX / Windows / Linux
o   Security-first enterprise approach
o   API orchestration and composition
o   Included API testing application
o   Embedded Firewall
o   Extensive monitoring tools
o   Elastic approach to centralized managed policies
o   Enterprise support from Axway
·        Disadvantages
o   Hard to configure and manage
o   Focused on managing SOA not micro-services
o   Does not support simultaneously existing multiple versions of same API
o   Management split into to way many places (apps and web services)
§  API management (Web)
§  API analytic (Web)
§  Policy Studio (Desktop)
§  Configuration Studio (Desktop)
§  API Tester (Desktop)

ApiGee Edge
·        Advantages
o   Distributed deployment to many environments (micro-gateways)
o   Browser based debugger and tester
o   Exportable configuration
o   Automatic REST-SOAP-REST conversion
o   Support for custom Java based call-outs
o   Enterprise support from APIGee and many support materials
o   Mature policy managment editor
o   Extensive versioning/revision management
o   Already used in Reuters by ApiGarden team
o   Documentation portal for API's
·        Disadvantages
o   I know it sound strange but it's hard to find any

WSO2 API Management
·        Advantages
o   Modular approach to API management (publisher, store, gateway manager, key manager)
o   Easy to manage APIs versions (support for multi version endpoint)
o   Support for dev and prod environments
o   Swagger documentation
o   Manual tests via swagger UI (API console)
o   Java based class plugable
·        Disadvantages
o   Lack of auto mapping SOAP to REST
o   Configure mapping via 'javascript' files

Membrane Service Proxy
·        Advantages
o   Simple http proxy
·        Disadvantages
o   Configure endpoint via configuration file
o   Poor panel (:))
o   Lack of advanced endpoint configuration
o   No endpoint documentation
o   No endpoint testing
o   Hard to add custom call-outs during request processing

Apiman
·        Advantages
o    
·        Disadvantages
o   Lack of WSDL support
o   Support only REST services
o   Configure (ex. translations polices, auth polices, threshold polices) via external plugins
o   Small number of external plugins


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