How to Build an API using Apigee Edge

[#1]

Does Apigee Edge have capabilities in building an API by itself?

All I've seen is, you start creating an API Proxy with a given URL or an existing API and then you create a product, register it for apps and you can do the API LM. Does this mean, I create an application or a service (be it REST or WS) and then expose it as an API to the rest of the world?

Could you please elaborate on "Build an API" using Apigee Edge?

am new to API LM and hence the trivial question,

Thanks

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hello Magesh,

Using Apigee Edge, there are two common ways to expose APIs.

1. Using Apigee Edge as a proxy over an existing API. In this case, you need to have an existing backend service - either REST or WS - exposed via HTTP. This backend service can be built in anything - .NET, Java, nodejs, Python, or whatever you like. Then, within Apigee Edge, you configure an API Facade or wrapper over that, adding security, quota enforcement, caching, payload transformation and other qualities. Callers invoke the endpoint exposed by Apigee Edge; Edge calls your backend system.
2. Using Apigee Edge as a proxy over a new Nodejs API. In this case you build the API logic in nodejs and bundle that nodejs logic in the API Proxy. The API Proxy works the same way as above - you can add security, caching, and so on. But the "backend" is really co-located with the API Proxy logic, so there's no network hop to invoke it.

There is a separate project called Apigee-127, which allows you to build and run nodejs APIs on your desktop. For more on that, See the doc.

Apigee-127 projects can be created locally and be uploaded to be hosted in the cloud.