Going Mainstream: Amazon API Gateway Integration with 3scale

Amazon’s recent launch of the Amazon API Gateway is a clear indication that the idea of opening up access to digital assets through APIs--and using API management to gain visibility and control--is becoming more and more mainstream. As companies think about cloud strategies, they increasingly need to think about API strategies, too.

The Amazon API Gateway and the 3scale API Management Platform are two very different but complementary products. We took a close look at the Amazon API Gateway and implemented an integration with the 3scale API Management product to give API providers the best of both worlds.

The Amazon API Gateway represents a classic API gateway, providing a controllable access point for API services. As such, the Amazon API Gateway offers technical operations functionality with features like access control through API key management, logging, caching, or basic rate limiting for example to provide protection against distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. It also offers a few features beyond a typical API gateway, including support for various stages of the API lifecycle, API request/response transformation, and generation of SDKs for iOS, Android, and JavaScript platforms.

The 3scale API Management Platform offers API business operations functionality, which allows API providers to devise and execute a strategy to fully leverage the concept of exposing assets through APIs. 3scale offers:

• Fine-grained API analytics, reporting, and alerts to get full visibility
• Integration of end-to-end billing processes to monetize access to APIs
• Support for all essential developer-related processes like onboarding, application or account management
• Developer portals which are fully customizable to an API provider’s brand standards
• Interactive API documentation to increase API adoption rate (embeddable into the developer portals)

Amazon API Gateway and 3scale API Management Integration Details

You can achieve the API service implementation behind the Amazon API Gateway using AWS Lambda, a compute service provided by AWS that runs code in response to events and automatically manages the required resources. Alternatively the Amazon API Gateway could refer to any other Web endpoints either hosted on Amazon or anywhere else publicly accessible. The diagram below illustrates this setup.

You can extend the Amazon API Gateway with the 3scale API business operations functionality by having the Amazon API Gateway authorize API requests using 3scale and report the API traffic to 3scale. At the bottom of the second diagram below, we show the interaction path between the Amazon API Gateway and the 3scale API Management Platform for API request authorization and traffic reporting.

The API service will be made accessible and through a 3scale developer portal with interactive API documentation. In addition, API providers will be able to create application plans that allow for more fine-grained access control and rate limiting to the various API service endpoints hosted on AWS.

Benefits of the Amazon API Gateway Integration with 3scale for API Providers

3scale is the leading provider of a self-service API management platform, with unmatched scalability and availability and the shortest time-to-value. 3scale has a razor-sharp focus on API management. This allows us to provide best-in-class API business operations functionality, a key ingredient for an effective API strategy.

AWS is the market leader and de facto standard IaaS solution with massive adoption. Service providers on AWS can now easily adopt the Amazon API Gateway and become API providers, avoiding switching costs by staying on the same platform. The Amazon API Gateway provides great API technical operations functionality, especially for the various API lifecycle stages, and very comprehensive logging.

By using the integrated solution of Amazon API Gateway and 3scale API Management, API providers who are already on AWS don’t have to switch solutions. They get top API gateway features, including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack protection. Through 3scale, they get rich API management business operations, providing fine-grained API control, visibility, and features for API adoption and promotion (developer portals and interactive API documentation)--all necessary cornerstones of a successful API strategy.

Learn more about the Amazon API Gateway integration with 3scale. Read the brochure or check out the docs.