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The API Management layer provides full control over the API lifecycle, from design and development to publishing, monitoring, and retirement.

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APIM value proposition

Full API lifecycle management

Complete API management from creation to retirement, including versioning and deprecation

Backend system abstraction

Route APIs to different backend systems with easy configuration and management

API analytics and insights

Comprehensive usage metrics, performance data, and error monitoring

Security and authentication

Enterprise-grade security with comprehensive authentication and authorization

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APIM architecture components

The API management platform consists of three core components that work together to manage the API lifecycle.

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Control plane

The control plane provides centralized management for API publishers:
  • Centralized management portal - provides API publishers with tools to define APIs, policies, and subscriptions through a unified interface.
  • API definition - enables creating and managing API specifications, endpoints, and documentation. Publishers can design APIs using OpenAPI specifications and manage multiple versions simultaneously.
  • Policy management - configures security controls, rate limiting rules, transformation logic, and routing policies. Policies are reusable and can be applied at different scopes (global, product, API, or operation level).
  • Subscription control - manages API subscriptions, user access, and entitlements across different API products. Access keys and tokens are provisioned automatically with configurable expiration and rotation policies.
  • Analytics dashboard - monitors API usage, performance metrics, and system health. Real-time dashboards provide insights into API consumption patterns, error rates, and performance bottlenecks.

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Developer portal

The developer portal gives API consumers self-service discovery and testing:
  • Self-Service Portal - allows API consumers to discover APIs, subscribe to services, and access development resources without requiring manual approval processes.
  • API discovery - enables browsing and searching available APIs with detailed documentation. Developers can filter APIs by category, version, or functionality to find relevant services quickly.
  • Subscription management - provides self-service API subscriptions and access key management. Developers can manage their own subscriptions, regenerate keys, and monitor their usage quotas.
  • Documentation and samples - includes interactive documentation with code samples and tutorials. Documentation is auto-generated from API specifications and kept synchronized with API changes.
  • Test consoles - offer interactive API testing and validation tools. Developers can test API calls directly from the portal without writing code, inspecting requests and responses in real-time.

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API gateway

The API gateway runs as the runtime proxy between clients and backends:
  • Runtime proxy and policy engine - acts as a proxy between client applications and backend services, applying policies and routing calls. The gateway handles all incoming API requests and enforces configured policies before forwarding to backends.
  • Request routing - provides intelligent routing to appropriate backend services based on API specifications, load balancing rules, and health checks.
  • Policy enforcement - applies authentication verification, rate limiting controls, transformation logic, and routing rules at runtime. Policies execute in a defined sequence with short-circuit capability for failed checks.
  • Load balancing - distributes requests across multiple backend instances to ensure high availability and optimal resource utilization.
  • Request monitoring - captures real-time monitoring and logging of all API requests, including request/response payloads, headers, performance metrics, and error details.

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API lifecycle management

The APIM platform provides comprehensive lifecycle control across four key phases:
The design and develop phase includes the following:Policy library - 50+ built-in policies including the categories below.Traffic management - available capabilities include:
  • Rate limiting and throttling
  • Quota management
  • Load balancing strategies
Caching and performance - options include:
  • Response caching policies
  • Request/response compression
  • Performance optimization
Transformation - supported transformations include:
  • Request/response transformation
  • Protocol conversion (REST ↔ SOAP)
  • Data format conversion (JSON ↔ XML)
Validation - validation capabilities include:
  • Schema validation
  • Parameter validation
  • Content type verification
The secure phase covers the following:Authentication methods - supported methods include:
  • API Keys and tokens
  • OAuth 2.0 / OpenID Connect
  • JWT (JSON Web Tokens)
  • mTLS (Mutual TLS)
Authorization - controls include:
  • Role-based access control (RBAC)
  • Scope-based permissions
  • Custom authorization policies
Identity providers - integration options include:
  • 1st party identity providers
  • 3rd party IDP integration
  • SAML and OIDC support
Network security - capabilities include:
  • IP-based access control
  • Geo-blocking capabilities
  • VPN and private connectivity
The publish phase includes the following:Version management - capabilities include:
  • API versioning strategies
  • Backward compatibility
  • Deprecation management
  • Revision control
Product management - options include:
  • API Product creation
  • Bundle management
  • Pricing and monetization
Access control - controls include:
  • User groups and roles
  • Subscription tiers
  • Access approval workflows
Documentation - documentation features include:
  • Auto-generated documentation
  • Interactive API explorers
  • Code samples and SDKs
The monitor phase provides the following:Observability - capabilities include:
  • Comprehensive logging
  • Real-time metrics collection
  • Distributed tracing
  • Performance monitoring
Analytics - analytics features include:
  • Usage analytics and reporting
  • Performance dashboards
  • Business intelligence integration
  • Custom metric creation
Alerting - alerting options include:
  • Real-time alert configuration
  • SLA monitoring and enforcement
  • Automated incident response
  • integration with monitoring tools
Debugging - debugging capabilities include:
  • End-to-end request tracing
  • Error analysis and reporting
  • Performance bottleneck identification

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Industrialized APIM capabilities

Grand Central provides enterprise-ready APIM capabilities out-of-the-box:

Self-service onboarding

Automated developer registration, API subscription workflows, access key provisioning, and documentation access

Security controls

Multi-factor authentication, certificate management, threat protection, and compliance monitoring

APIM Helm charts

Kubernetes-native deployment, configuration management, scaling and updates, and environment consistency

GitOps CI/CD

Infrastructure as Code, automated deployments, version control integration, and rollback capabilities

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Integration with observability

APIM integrates with observability tools for logging, metrics, and alerting:
  • Structured logging - captures comprehensive request/response data in a structured format for easy analysis. All API interactions are logged with correlation IDs, timestamps, user context, and detailed request/response payloads.
  • Log aggregation - provides centralized log collection and management with powerful search and filtering capabilities. Logs from all APIM components are aggregated into a unified logging platform for cross-component analysis.
  • Performance metrics - track response times, throughput, error rates, and availability measurements. Real-time dashboards display latency percentiles, request volumes, and error rate trends.
  • Business metrics - capture API usage patterns, developer adoption rates, and business KPIs. Track API consumption by product, customer, or endpoint to understand business value and usage trends.
  • Distributed tracing - enables end-to-end request tracking across microservices and system boundaries. Each request receives a unique trace ID that follows the request through all components, making it easy to identify where latency or errors occur.
  • Performance analysis - identifies bottlenecks and optimizes request processing paths. Trace data reveals which components contribute most to overall latency, enabling targeted optimization efforts.
  • Real-time alerts - provide immediate notification of API issues, SLA breaches, and security threats. Alert rules are configurable based on thresholds for error rates, latency, or custom metrics.
  • Alert management - handles alert routing, escalation, and integration with incident management systems. Alerts can trigger automated remediation workflows or notify on-call engineers through multiple channels.

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Benefits summary

Developer productivity

  • Self-service API discovery
  • Interactive documentation
  • Automated testing tools
  • Faster time to integration

Operational excellence

  • Centralized API governance
  • Automated policy enforcement
  • Real-time monitoring
  • Simplified troubleshooting

Business value

  • API monetization capabilities
  • Partner ecosystem enablement
  • Reduced development costs
  • Faster innovation cycles

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Next steps

Integration platform

Explore the low-code/pro-code integration development capabilities

Connectivity architecture

Learn about secure connectivity patterns and implementation