Azure API Center: A Comprehensive Guide

The Azure API Center is a centralized platform for managing and securing APIs, allowing developers to create, publish, and monitor APIs with ease.

It provides a simple and intuitive interface for developers to manage their APIs, including features like API keys, rate limiting, and analytics.

With Azure API Center, developers can also integrate their APIs with other Azure services, such as Azure Active Directory and Azure Storage.

This integration enables features like authentication, authorization, and data storage, making it easier to build robust and scalable APIs.

Azure API Center is a centralized platform that helps you manage and govern your APIs in a single location. It provides a complete and current catalog of all APIs, enabling API discovery, consumption, and governance.

With Azure API Center, you can build a catalog of all APIs, regardless of their type, stage in their lifecycle, or deployment location. This allows you to track and manage all your APIs in one place.

API Center enables API best practices at-scale and enforces API design rules across your organization. This ensures quality and uniformity across all APIs produced.

Azure API Center fosters reusability of your APIs by enabling API consumers to quickly discover and consume the right APIs. This improves the developer experience and makes it easier to build new applications.

Here are some key features of Azure API Center:

By using Azure API Center, you can define the metadata for your APIs, such as their name, description, version, and endpoints. You can also define security policies for your APIs, such as who can access them and what they can do.

To get started with Azure API Center, you'll want to check out the video "Exploring Azure API Center: From VS Code to the Azure Portal". This will give you a solid introduction to the platform.

To build a complete and current API inventory, start by creating your API center using the Quickstart guide. You can also automate API registration with GitHub Actions or import APIs from Azure API Management to Azure API Center using the CLI.

If you're looking to elevate API discovery, consider self-hosting your API Center portal. You can find more information on how to do this in the documentation, and even access a GitHub Repo for the APICenter Portal Starter.

Getting started with API management can be overwhelming, but understanding the benefits can help you get on the right track.

You can create and maintain an organizational inventory of APIs, which means building a complete list of all the APIs available in your organization. This includes APIs from different management solutions, unmanaged APIs, and those still under development.

Having a complete inventory is crucial for fostering communication among API program managers and developers. It allows them to collaborate and promote API reuse, which in turn increases developer productivity and ensures APIs meet organizational standards.

With a comprehensive inventory, you can easily discover and filter APIs using built-in and custom metadata. This makes it easier for developers to find the right APIs and consume them in a secure manner consistent with organizational standards.

Here are the key benefits of API management:

Getting Started Resources are essential to kickstart your journey with Azure API Center. You can start by watching the video "Exploring Azure API Center: From VS Code to the Azure Portal" to get a comprehensive understanding of the platform.

To get familiar with Azure API Center, you can also check out the blog post "Navigating Your API Ecosystem - Example Scenarios for Azure API Center and API Management" which provides valuable insights and scenarios to work with.

To build a complete and current API inventory, you can follow the quickstart guide to create your API center. Additionally, you can automate API registration with GitHub Actions in Azure API Center using the video guide "Automate API Registration with GitHub Actions in Azure API Center".

You can also import APIs from Azure API Management to Azure API Center using the CLI, as demonstrated in the video "How to Import APIs from Azure API Management to Azure API Center using CLI".

To register APIs in your API inventory, you can follow the tutorial "Register APIs in your API inventory".

Here's a list of resources to get you started:

You can provision an Azure API Center instance in three ways: through Bicep, Azure CLI, or Azure Portal.

To get started, you'll need to choose one of these methods. For example, you can use Bicep to provision an instance, which is a great option if you're comfortable with infrastructure as code.

There are three ways to provision an APIC instance:

Once you've provisioned your instance, you can register your APIs to APIC using either Azure CLI or Azure Portal. This is a crucial step in managing your company's APIs in a centralized manner.

Instance Provisioning is a crucial step in setting up your APIC instance. There are three ways to provision an APIC instance: Through Bicep, Through Azure CLI, and Through Azure Portal.

The first option, Through Bicep, is a great choice for those who are familiar with Azure Resource Manager templates. This method allows you to define your APIC instance's configuration in a declarative way, making it easy to manage and maintain.

The second option, Through Azure CLI, is ideal for those who prefer a command-line interface. This method provides a lot of flexibility and allows you to automate your APIC instance provisioning process.

The third option, Through Azure Portal, is a user-friendly graphical interface that makes it easy to provision your APIC instance without requiring any prior knowledge of Azure CLI or Bicep.

Here's a quick rundown of the three options:

Registering your APIs to APIC is a crucial step in managing your company's APIs in a centralized manner. APIC tracks all histories from design to deployment.

To register your APIs to APIC, you can use either Azure CLI or Azure Portal. Let's say you have a weather forecast API you've designed and developed, but not implemented yet.

You'll need an OpenAPI document for the API to register it to APIC. You can do this using Azure CLI or Azure Portal.

Here are the steps to register your API to APIC using Azure CLI:

This process requires a few more steps, but it's worth it to get your APIs registered and managed in APIC.