Overview

You can create APIs from your own specifications or from your SnapLogic Pipelines and Assets. To make your APIs available to users outside SnapLogic, you can publish those APIs in a Developer Portal that is customized with your own branding. You can also create proxies to allow you to integrate with third-party APIs.

Key Features and Components

SnapLogic provides API Management features and components to help you develop APIs, manage their lifecycles, and monitor their performance.

Features include:

• Support for Design First. API Management supports the creation of APIs from Open API Specification (OAS) 2.0. You can design an API based on your specification, then upload a file or reference a URL containing your specification.
• API Lifecycle Management. You can manage the entire lifecycle of an API or API version from creation to publication to deprecation to retirement.
• Multiple API Versions. You can modify the initial specification of your API, then create and publish a new version from the modified specification.

Components include:

• API Manager. The console where you manage your APIs.
• Portal Manager. The console where you set up and manage your custom Developer Portal.
• Developer Portal. The custom site where you publish your APIs for consumption. In this site, API consumers can search and browse through your API Catalog and try out your APIs. Each API provides basic documentation and its specification.
• Subscription Manager. The console where you can approve and manage subscriptions to published APIs.
• API Policies. A suite of security policies that handle authorization, authentication, and traffic control to manage access to your APIs. You can apply these policies at various levels, such as the Org, the API, the API version, the shared folder of the Project Space, and Project folders. Org Administrators can define permissions at very level of the hierarchy; API developers can set permissions on their own API versions.
• API Dashboard. The API tab in Dashboard where you can view the usage and traffic metrics of your APIs. You can track the popularity of an API or analyze target and response errors to understand how to enhance the API consumer experience.

Prerequisites

• Your Org must be subscribed to the API Management feature. Contact support@snaplogic.com to subscribe to this feature.
• Snaplex requirements:
  • Groundplexes must have at least one node.
  • Cloudplexes must have a Cloudplex FeedMaster node and a load balancer.
    1. Contact support@snaplogic.com to provision the Cloudplex FeedMaster node and the load balancer as needed.
    2. When the load balancer becomes available, your Org admin (Environment admin) must update the Load Balancer URL in the Snaplex Settings. Learn how: Updating a Snaplex
    3. You must use the load balancer URL in your Triggered and Ultra Task endpoints.

The Design-First Workflow

You can create a new API in the /apim space of the API Manager and import or reference an API specification that defines the API. The new API comprises a Pipeline that is the scaffolding for the API and the Task used to call it. You can then create versions, add API policies, and modify the underlying SnapLogic assets to build the business logic for your API. Learn how: Creating the API using Design First

The Pipeline-First Workflow

You can also create an API in the API Manager by referencing existing Projects in Manager. This allows you to design, build, and test your Pipeline first, thereby taking advantage of your existing SnapLogic infrastructure. As you build Pipelines and create Triggered Tasks from them, you vet them for production individually and concurrently. When your Pipeline and Tasks are production-ready, you can create APIs in the API Manager.  Learn more: Creating the API from Existing Project Assets

Limitations

• Only one instance of an API policy type is applicable at each level in the hierarchy.
• When you open a Task in an API version, you cannot change it to Scheduled (not visible). Also, the Task dialog window displays the Snaplex, but it cannot be modified.
• In Designer, when you open a Pipeline in an API version, the Snaplex selector in the Edit Pipeline dialog window only shows the Snaplexes from the global shared folder.
• In Designer, if you open the Snap dialog window from a Pipeline in the API Management - /apim space, the asset or account selectors display only the assets from the global shared folder, in addition to those in the current version.
• You can change the Snaplex for an unpublished API version. To do so, go to API Manager, choose the API, go to the Versions tab, choose the version, click Edit Details, and choose from the Server dropdown. Note: This field is disabled if the API version is published or if the Snaplex is down.