@narendra nath paruchuri ,
Great Question, To answer your question, First, Let me explain how Apigee Platform Works,
Company X - Would like to expose APIs to their developers (Internal Employee who will be building in-house APP, Partners who will be integrating Services, APP Developers who would like to build innovative solutions) so that they can build APPs using APIs.
Company X - See below problems in exposing APIs
- Company X APIs (Services) are legacy like SOAP based but they want to RESTify them
- Company X APIs might be REST but they don't have latest API Security mechanism like oAuth, Keys, Tokens to securely expose APIs
- Company X might not know what kind of traffic flowing through APIs, they might not have visibility of API data
- Company X APIs might be hardly coupled with server code where exposing individual resources of APIs to different stakeholders like Employee, Partner , Public Developer with different permissions & securely will be time & resource consuming
- Company X services are so complex that adding a new feature will take months & few quarters to maintain, make it stable.
- Company X want to innovate faster in today's business & become a digital company like Uber / Facebook by exposing services as APIs.
- Company X would like to go to market with new services (APIs) by implementing faster with out of the box solutions & scale as per traffic demand with least downtime , maintenance.
- Company X might be looking for a way to expose their API Documentation & give access to their APIs by allowing developers to register for the APIs by creating APPs just like developer.facebook.com or developer.twitter.com
Company X - Don't want to scrap their existing services to adopt to new platform experience instead they would like to build an API Management Layer on top of their existing services. They heard about Apigee as API Management Leader & considered Apigee as their API Management platform to expose their APIs securely, gain visibility through Analytics, Monetize APIs, OnBoard APP Developers using Apigee Developer Services, Use Apigee BaaS as datastore, Use Apigee Sense to do bot detection, use Apigee Test to monitor APIs etc etc.
Developer X - just like you - Would like to Access Company X - APIs so that he can build a Mobile APP / Web APP / Desktop APP / Some other Application that talks to Company X services through APIs.
So,
Developer X Question is "How do I access Company X APIs " ?
Company X Question is "How do I Expose My APIs securely to Developer X" ?
Let's say, Company X API is " http://mocktarget.apigee.net/json" , As you see it's not secured, anyone can access same. Now, Company X would like to expose this API securely to Developer X.
Company X ,
- Uses Apigee Edge Platform to create a API proxy for above API
- Adds security to API Proxy using Apigee out of the box policies like Verify API Key Policy
- Creates an API Product which is package of above API Proxy for API Access Restrictions.
- Uses Apigee Developer Portal to publish API documentation & allow Developers to register to get ACCESS to API Proxies.
- Company X API is secured using last mile security mechanism in Apigee so that Company X API " http://mocktarget.apigee.net/json" what we call backend API is accessible only by Apigee Edge.
- So, If anyone wants to access COMPANY X API, they have to go through Apigee Edge API Proxy & security policies implemented on top of Apigee API Proxy.
Developer X,
- Registers in Company X Developer Portal
- Creates an APP to get KEYS
- Reads Company X API Documentation in Developer Portal to find out how to make an API call & how to send keys to get API Response.
So, to summarize,
Developer Portal is NOT A TOOL to make an API Call. It's a way to get access & find out what request needs to be sent. If information is missing on how to make an API call, contact the Company X who built APIs in Apigee Edge.
If I am not wrong, You belong to Company X & trying to find out how you can access your own API Proxies.
If You belong to Company X
Step 1 : First build API Proxy in Apigee Edge
Step 2 : Secure API Proxy using simple policy like verify api key policy
Step 3 : Create an API product and add proxy created in step 1
Step 4 : Make sure your developer portal is connected to your Apigee Edge Org
Step 5 : Register in developer portal
Step 6 : Create an App & choose API product created in Step 2 - You will receive keys
Step 7 : Call the API Proxy created in Step 1 by sending the key in queryparam / formparam which ever is configured in Step 2 while adding verify API Key Policy.
You will make the API call using tools like browser / curl command line / postman / a simple script which makes http call.
Hope my long story of Apigee Edge journery for your short question didn't make you bored & tired. Hope it's helpful 🙂
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