What is API Connect Reserved?

Managing the API lifecycle in API Connect

API Connect enables you to manage the lifecyle of your APIs with a set of integrated features. Use the API Connect Reserved plan to host your APIs in the cloud and easily complete the tasks needed for all phases of an API's life:

• Develop APIs, bundle them into consumable products, and deploy them to production environments.

• Administer API publication and security with development catalogs, access gateways, OAuth, and execution policies to control access to your APIs and back-end systems.

• Manage API products with a Developer Portal where you can make them available to application developers, and a robust set of analytics so you can monitor API usage and performance.

Who does what in API Connect?

In API Connect, users are grouped into provider organizations, and are assigned permissions that control access to resources based on the job that each person typically performs.

Jobs can be assigned to people based on their expertise; for example, administering users, developing APIs, and monitoring event analytics. In a company with only a few employees, one or two people might perform all of the work in creating and managing APIs. In a company with many employees, a different person (or even multiple people) might be assigned to each job. When you read the API Connect, you'll see that information about tasks and features is often organized based on the following jobs that people are typically assigned to perform:

• API Connect Administrator

  Everyone who has administrator privileges in your company's IBM Cloud account is automatically assigned the role of API Connect Administrator. The Administrator provisions and manages your company's API Connect Reserved plan. The Admin adds users to API Connect and configures services such as the gateways that control customer access to your APIs.

  One of the Admin's main jobs is to set up provider organizations and add users. A provider organization is a group of people who use the API Manager component of API Connect. Members of the provider organization create and manage APIs, products, and related assets. API Connect Admins create the provider organizations, add members, and define the roles that control user access.

• API Developer

  An API developer creates new APIs and updates existing APIs as needed. The API developer can configure policies that define security restrictions, logging rules, and quotas that control access to your company’s resources.

• API Administrator

  After an API developer creates a set of APIs, the API administrator manages the distribution. The API administrator defines plans that determine access to the APIs, bundles a set of related APIs and plans into products, and publishes them to the developer portal where customers can find them. The API administrator also manages the catalogs and spaces where API developers create and test APIs.

• Product Manager

  A product manager controls access to the Developer Portal where consumers can subscribe to APIs, which they use in their applications. For each group of customers, the product manager creates a_consumer organization that controls access to the Developer Portal. The product manager uses the Analytics feature to track API usage and performance, which helps determine when APIs should be updated or retired.

• Consumer

  Consumers are your customers, and are not members of your provider organization. When your organization publishes products that contain APIs, consumers subscribe to the products so they can use the APIs in their applications. A consumer can subscribe to use APIs and products that are developed by different provider organizations. Each provider organization assigns one or more Product Managers to manage the relationship with its consumers. The Product Manager creates consumer organizations and adds customers to give them access to the developer portal.

For more information on working in API Connect, see Understanding API Connect in the extended V10 Reserved documentation.