azure apim send-request Options and Configuration

Azure APIM Send-Request offers a variety of options for customizing your API requests.

You can specify the HTTP method to use, such as GET, POST, or PUT, depending on the action you want to perform.

The Request Body can be configured to include a JSON payload, which allows you to send data to the backend API.

The Request Headers can also be customized to include specific headers, such as authentication tokens or content types.

To configure the Send-Request policy, you'll need to specify the URL of the backend API, which can be a static URL or a variable that's resolved at runtime.

You can also specify the Request Timeout, which determines how long the request will wait for a response before timing out.

Azure APIM Send-Request supports both synchronous and asynchronous requests, which can be useful for handling long-running operations.

Additional reading: Azure Devops Parallelism Request

Sending requests is a key feature in Azure API Management, and it's essential to understand how it works. You can use the send-request policy to make external HTTP requests to services like Hipchat, Slack, SendGrid, or MailChimp.

Intriguing read: How to Link Azure Devops Tickets to Github Pull Requests

The send-request policy can be used in various scenarios, such as making a request to a messaging system or a mail API. For example, you can use it to send a critical support incident to PagerDuty.

To make a request, you can use the send-one-way-request policy, which is a fire-and-forget style of request. This policy is useful for detecting conditions and making external HTTP requests when the condition is satisfied.

You can also use the send-request policy to perform complex processing functions and return data to the API management service. This can be done by using the send-request policy with a mode of "new" and a response-variable-name to store the response.

In some cases, you may need to extract query parameters from the incoming request and forward them to the backend. You can use the set-variable policy to extract the information from the request URL.

Once you have the query parameters, you can make requests to multiple backend systems and store the responses in context variables. API Management will send these requests sequentially.

Here are some common use cases for the send-request policy:

The send-request policy can also be used for response composition, where you can create composite resources aggregated from multiple different systems. This can be done by using the send-request policy to make requests to multiple backend systems and combining the responses to create a single response.

A fresh viewpoint: Azure Openai Access Request

You can use the send-request policy to leverage an external service for complex processing functions and return data to the API management service.

The send-request policy can be used to forward query parameters from the incoming request to the backend, so that you can make requests to all the backend systems.

API Management sends these requests sequentially, which is useful when dealing with multiple backend systems.

To extract query parameters, you can use the set-variable policy, which can extract information from the request URL.

Each request constructs a new URL with the parameter information and calls its respective server, storing the response in a context variable.

You might like: Azure Devops Trigger Build after Pull Request

To send a request in Azure API Management, you need to make a validation request to the authorization server.

This request must be authenticated to prevent malicious clients from accessing valid tokens.

The authentication process is required by RFC 7662, which calls this process introspection.

To make the request, you'll need to POST an HTML form to the introspection resource, which must contain a key/value pair with the key token.

The request to the authorization server should be made with the authorization token obtained earlier.

This token is required to validate the request and ensure that the client has the necessary permissions.

Consider reading: Azure Key Vault C#

Request Composition is a powerful technique that allows you to create composite resources by aggregating data from multiple systems. This can be achieved by using the send-request policy as a complete replacement for the backend call.

You can use this technique to create complex workflows by making requests to multiple backend systems. To do this, you first need to extract query parameters from the incoming request, such as fromDate and toDate.

The set-variable policy can be used to extract this information from the request URL. Once you have the necessary parameters, you can construct new URLs for each backend system and store the responses in context variables.

API Management will then send these requests sequentially, allowing you to build complex workflows that involve multiple backend systems. This can be a game-changer for applications that require data from multiple sources.

For more insights, see: Azure Send Email

Debugging Azure API Management policies can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with complex business logic and Liquid templates. You'll need Visual Studio Code, the Azure API Management extension, and an Azure API Management service in the Developer or Premium tier.

Additional reading: Azure Management

To get started, create your Azure API Management service and an API in the Azure Portal. Ensure tracing is enabled on your subscription, as this is required for policy debugging.

One of the biggest challenges with Liquid templates is troubleshooting and debugging issues, which can hinder developer productivity. To address this, you can leverage Azure Functions to offload complex transformation logic from Azure API Management policies.

By making HTTP calls to an Azure Function from within your API Management policies, you can move the complexities of transformation code to a separate, dedicated Azure Function. This approach offers improved code organization and maintainability, simplified API policies, and enhanced debugging and troubleshooting.

To secure the communication between Azure API Management and your Azure Function, use Managed Identity Authentication. This involves enabling a managed identity for your API Management service and granting the necessary permissions for this identity to access your Azure Function.

Here are the steps to enable Managed Identity Authentication:

By following these steps and leveraging Azure Functions, you can simplify your API policies, improve code organization, and enhance debugging and troubleshooting.