kamran sharief The past few years have seen increased adoption of APIs (Applications Programming Interfaces) in a bid to innovate and digitize business operations. Today, we have developer portals, internal and external APIs, partner marketplaces. And developer platforms all working together to power the functionality of applications. This is something that has played a major role in the increased adoption of APIs.
The increased adoption of APIs has led to the introduction of different tools that aid in the management and usage of the APIs. These tools play a major role in making sure that API owners publish their APIs as fast as they can and fight any competition thrown at them easily.
If you look at the professions of the future that are most likely to survive for long, technology is the foundation to success in all of them. This means that we are going to see more evolutions into APIs and the tools that aid their usage.
What is IT management: It ensures that all technology resources and associated employees are utilized properly and in a manner that provides value for the organization
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API Management and API Gateway
One of the most important functions of these tools is API management. API management is the process through which developers create and publish APIs. While at the same time making sure that their (APIs) usage policies are enforced, they have controlled access to the APIs, collected and analyzed the API usage statistics, reported on the performance of the APIs and nurtured their subscriber community. As you can see, it entails a lot of functions, something that might not be possible if done manually.
On the other hand, an API gateway is an intermediary that sits in front of the API. And through which all requests and responses go through before getting to their intended targets. It can also act as an intermediary between different internal services.
Distinguishing API management from API gateway is not easy for all developers. Even though some people might use these two together, they are quite different. The API gateway is used to refer to an individual proxy server while API management is used to refer to the entire management of APIs from the time they are conceived to the time they are rested. So, where does API analytics fit in these two?
What is API Analytics?
API analytics refers to the process of getting the required reporting and visibility into the usage of an API. This includes things such as how your API is use, who uses the API, and why they use the API. In addition, API analytics comes with real-time monitoring to make sure that one is alerted. When there are any issues that might interfere with the performance of the API.
API gateway and API management solutions are develop to handle the reliability and infrastructure of APIs. On the other hand, API analytics are develop for both non-technical and technical users such as engineering, product, and support teams. Due to this, it is advisable for organizations to handle API analytics as a separate entity. Not part of API management or API gateway. However, this depends on the requirements of the organizations building and implementing the APIs.
Functions of API Analytics
API analytics performs many functions, key among them include;
API Debugging/Logging
There API analytics offers organizations ways through which they can investigate. And debug any performance and functional issues that their APIs might be experiencing. They offer logs that organizations can use to inspect the API responses and requests to see if they have any issues. This way, organizations are able to address any issues arising.
Product Analytics of APIs
API analytics come with product analytics that makes it possible for organizations to track some important metrics .Of the API such as the number of active users available in a day and the endpoints used by the active users among others. Depending on the analytics tool that one is using, you can get more detailed reports with regards to the analysis of your API.
Monitoring of APIs
Organizations need an API analytics tool that is able to monitor the performance of their APIs and alert them when the API is having any performance issues. This kind of monitoring is able to detect any differences in things like traffic. Drops in the activity of the API among others.
Conclusion
API monitoring and analytics are very important for developers and organizations that implement an API. They make it possible for one to make sure that their APIs work well. And any issues are report and addressed accordingly. Having said that, do you think API monitoring and analytics should be part of API management or API gateway? It should taken as a separate entity use to make sure that APIs perform their functions.
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