What is Apigee X, and why is it a powerful API tool

In our fast-paced, data-driven world, we need efficient and scalable solutions to navigate the vast seas of data. That’s where Apigee comes into play. This platform has been making waves and is at the forefront of revolutionizing the data management landscape. Together, let’s embark on a journey to discover what Apigee truly is, uncover its remarkable features, and explore how it can be a game-changer for data scientists. Ready to dive in?

What is Apigee X?

Apigee is a powerful platform for creating and managing APIs. APIs are like digital bridges that connect different software applications and services. They allow applications to share data and functionality with each other.

What is Apigee used for? Apigee makes creating and managing APIs easy, even for complex systems. It provides many features, including

• API design and development tools
• API security and management features,
• API analytics and reporting.

Apigee is used by a wide range of companies, including Google, eBay, and Walmart. It is a trusted platform for creating and managing reliable, secure, scalable APIs.

What is the difference between Apigee X and Apigee Edge?

Apigee Edge and Apigee X both offer robust API management solutions, but they do have some important distinctions.

Apigee Edge, the original Apigee product, has been a trusted choice for many customers. However, it is no longer an option for new purchases. If you’re a new customer, your selection should be Apigee X.

Apigee X represents the latest version of the Apigee product, encompassing all the features of Apigee Edge and exciting new additions. It’s the go-to choice for new purchases.

The key difference between Apigee Edge and Apigee X boils down to availability. Apigee X is readily accessible to new customers, whereas Apigee Edge is not.

If you’re a new customer contemplating a hosted Apigee solution, your best bet is to opt for Apigee X.

Why choose Apigee X?

Large organizations use APIs to connect their customers, employees, and systems. Apigee X is a powerful API management platform that can help large organizations manage their APIs effectively.

Apigee X can help large organizations to:

• Store API data securely: Apigee X offers a variety of options for storing API data, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid storage. Large organizations can choose the storage option that best meets their security and compliance requirements.
• Define and enforce security policies: Apigee X provides various tools for defining and implementing security policies for APIs. This includes authentication, authorization, and client validation. Apigee X can also help large organizations control API calls and set usage limits.
• Manage API lifecycles: Apigee X provides a comprehensive set of tools for managing the API lifecycle, from development to deployment to retirement. This helps large organizations to ensure that their APIs are well-managed and secure.
• Monitor and troubleshoot APIs: Apigee X provides a variety of tools for monitoring and troubleshooting APIs. This helps large organizations to identify and resolve API problems quickly and efficiently.
• Analyze API usage: Apigee X provides various tools for analyzing API usage. This helps large organizations understand how their APIs are used and identify improvement areas.

A Little History

Apigee was founded in 2008 by Raj Singh and Srinath Perera and has since become a leading API management platform. Apigee Edge, its flagship product, helps businesses design, develop, publish, and manage their APIs.

In 2015, Apigee became a founding member of the OpenAPI Initiative, a community-driven effort to create a standard for describing APIs.

In 2016, Google acquired Apigee for $625 million. Google has since integrated Apigee Edge with other Google Cloud Platform services, such as Cloud Functions and Cloud Endpoints.

Today, Apigee is used by a wide range of businesses, including AccuWeather, PayPal, 20th Century Fox, the American Cancer Society, Target, Twitter, and Bloomberg. Many government agencies, such as the US Department of Veterans Affairs and the US Department of Defense, also use Apigee.

In addition to these recent updates, Apigee is also working on many new features and capabilities.

Apigee X Features

Key features of Apigee X include:

• API design and development: Apigee X provides various tools for designing and developing APIs, including a drag-and-drop API designer, an API sandbox, and a comprehensive set of API policies.
• API publishing and deployment: Apigee X makes it easy to publish and deploy APIs to a variety of environments, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. Apigee X also provides many features to help you manage your APIs, such as API versioning, caching, and load balancing.
• API analytics and monitoring: Apigee X provides various tools for analyzing and monitoring your APIs, including real-time API usage analytics, API error tracking, and API security monitoring.
• Hybrid cloud and multi-cloud support: Apigee API getaway can be deployed in different environments, including on-premises, cloud, and hybrid environments. Apigee X also supports multi-cloud deployments so that you can deploy your APIs to multiple cloud providers.
• Machine learning and analytics: Apigee X uses machine learning and analytics to help you improve your API performance and security. For example, Apigee X can use machine learning to identify and block malicious API calls.
• Monitoring tools for API troubleshooting, security, and optimization: Apigee X provides many tools for troubleshooting, securing, and optimizing your APIs. These tools can help you to identify and resolve API problems quickly and efficiently.
• Ability to scale as needed: Apigee X is designed to scale, so you can easily handle increased API traffic.
• Add-ons for monetization, compliance, and deployment: Apigee X offers a variety of add-ons for monetizing, securing, and deploying your APIs.

Components and Flavors of Apigee X

Apigee offers flexible deployment options, including:

• Fully managed SaaS: Apigee X can be deployed as a fully managed SaaS offering, so you can focus on building and designing your APIs without having to worry about managing the infrastructure.
• Apigee hybrid: Apigee X can also be deployed in a hybrid model, with the runtime plane installed on-premises or in a cloud provider of your choice and the management plane hosted in Apigee’s cloud. This deployment option is a good choice for businesses that need more control over their API infrastructure or that have specific compliance requirements.

Key components of Apigee API Management Services:

• Apigee services: These APIs allow you to create, manage, and deploy API proxies.
• Apigee runtime: This distributed runtime environment manages and executes API proxies. It is built on Kubernetes and is highly scalable and resilient.
• GCP services: Apigee X integrates with various Google Cloud Platform (GCP) services, such as Cloud Logging, Cloud Identity and Access Management, Cloud Monitoring, and Cloud Scheduler. These services provide essential functionality for API management, such as logging, authentication, authorization, monitoring, and job scheduling.
• Backend services: These are the services your applications call through Apigee X to access data and functionality. Backend services can be hosted on-premises, in the cloud, or a hybrid environment.

Apigee Services: Design, Deploy, Manage

Apigee X empowers you to provide secure access to your services through a well-defined and consistent API across all services, regardless of the backend implementation. With Apigee X, you benefit from a dependable API that offers several advantages:

1. Simplified Consumption: Apigee X makes it effortless for application developers to consume your services.
2. Backend Flexibility: You can alter the backend service implementation without affecting the public API.
3. Integrated Features: Apigee X unlocks the potential of analytics, security, and other built-in features that Apigee Edge offers.

Rather than having application developers directly call your services, they interact with an API proxy established on Apigee X. This proxy acts as a front-end for a publicly accessible HTTP endpoint linked to your backend service. This API proxy allows Apigee X to efficiently manage your services’ security, authorization, monitoring, and analysis.

Summary

Apigee X is a fantastic API management platform that can help businesses of all sizes build and manage their APIs. It’s like a superhero for APIs, allowing them to be faster, stronger, and more secure.

As a Google Cloud Premier Partner, Cloudfresh can help you to get the most out of Apigee. Our expert team can help you design, develop, deploy, and manage your APIs using Apigee. We can also help you troubleshoot and optimize your APIs and provide you with training and support.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Apigee can help your business or need help getting started with Apigee, please get in touch with our Google Cloud consultants. We would be happy to help you!