What is Apigee Edge?

Apigee Edge is a platform for managing and developing APIs. By providing services with a proxy layer, the edge gives the back-end team of APIs and gives the ultimate security, analytics, rate limiting and quotas, and many more.

This blog on “What is Apigee Edge” will give a detailed overview of Edge.

What is Apigee Edge - Table of Contents

What is Apigee Edge? Features Key Capabilities Elements Flavors Tips to Develop API Proxy

What is Apigee Edge?

It is an API portal management tool, and it was discovered in 2004 in Santa Clara, California, known by the name Sonos System, and in 2010 it was amended as Apigee. In 2016, Google acquired Apigee, and it is used to organize and develop APIs. For providing data feeds, various websites and applications are linked together with APIs.  The Apigee Edge will provide extraction for backend service APIs, and its functions are price limitations, quotas, security, measurements, and other API's features.

For accessing backend services with well – a defined API, the Apigee Edge will provide a safe path. Any application can use this API, or even data and backend changes won't affect the API. When app developers or applications access the APIs, they are accessing it as a proxy created on edge. The API intermediary performs as a planning of the HTTP endpoint to the backend administration. The edge will manage all security and authorization to support the backend service.

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Apigee Edge Features

• Apigee Edge is a convenient portal that provides the user a facility to design, publish, analyze, secure, check and monetize the APIs.
• The updates and fixes arise fast.
• API versions are supported at various levels.
• It offers the analytics capabilities like dashboards, GeoMaps and custom reports, etc.
• The Apigee Edge supported multiple languages like JavaScript, Java, Python, and Node.js for API management.
• It allows configurable policies like API essential verification, Access control, OAuth, JWT, etc.
• It is a cross-functional portal for both in the cloud or on-premises.

Key Capabilities of Apigee Edge API Management

1. Protocol Transformation

Protocol transformation is required to reuse an existing system or connect with the legacy system. The edge will help the existing API transformations and allow the API developers to configure rather than code their solutions. The configurable solutions include SOAP to REST, JSON to XML, or XSL, XML to JSON transformation. 

2. Developer Portal

The business will deploy the Portal to establish a community for the developers with the required resources to learn about enterprises' APIs and quickly become registered developers and collaborate with colleagues and the company. It designs a structure for publishing interactive SmartDOCs API documentation and Smart essential management application for safe registration, key generation, and enlisting of developers whether they are from internal, external, or partners. 

3. Analytics

An edge analytics service gives many visualization tools that include a dashboard (that provides an overall view of your whole API program), custom reports (to select, combine, filter, and specify into particular API metrics), GeoMaps (it tracks all the traffic patterns, quality services across geographies and error patterns). Additionally, the tools that allow you to plot trends in traffic, feedback time, and other metrics for an API's individual resources. 

4. Security

An API management solution will secure and mediate all the traffic between the enterprise's APIs and clients, employees, partners, and developers who are using those APIs. Apigee Edge provides configurable policies for security like OAuth, API essential verification, XML/JSON threat protection, JWT, Access control, and SAML assertions.

5. Support for Java, Node.js, Python, and JavaScript language

An Apigee Edge provides support to Java, Node.js, Python, and JavaScript languages that increase the functionalities of API management solutions for the developers who choose to code over configuration. Using annotation strategies, code written in these standard languages is executed as part of the request pipeline, just like any out-of-the-box strategy.

6. Monetization

An Apigee Edge monetization provides the following ability:

• Setting limits
• Plan Rate
• Monetization related content
• Billing and Reporting

7. Traffic Management

Configurable policies allow API to augment its API with the facility to control and create traffic without demanding it write any code or change backend services.

• Spike Arrest – It will protect the backend system against server traffic spikes and contradiction of service attacks.
• Caching – Enhance API and application performance by storing information from backend resources in a cache from where they can recover quickly.
• Quotas and rate limits limit the no. of connections apps that can create via the API to the backend. 

8. Deployments

An Apigee Edge provides various functions that ensure the highest level of distribution and availability. The Apigee platforms are multi-tenant in both on-premise and the cloud. A multi-tenant management infrastructure means that updates and fixes can be done quickly and smoothly to all tenants; however, custom scripts and java Codes are isolated in specific nodes.

9. Versioning

Versioning is supported at various stages, and the backend service version is hiding behind the API façade. All policies and configurations are secured in the XML and versioning system.

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 Elements of Apigee Edge

Elements of Apigee Edge has Three Parts

1. Edge Monitoring and Analytics

Apigee edge gives the entire instrument to develop data to present to the uses trends of your APIs. Multiple types of information are collected like URL, user ID; IP when the information is passed through Edge, without affecting the API limitations, the user can easily modify this to gather the data such as query parameters, a section of feedback, and headers. This data helps make detail for error data, latency, etc. However, all this information is shown in a browser-based control panel.

2. Make Developer Edge Ecosystem

The edge ecosystem will provide the developers with facilities like SmartDOCs, Customizable portals, and self–service. It allows the user to channel their relationship with external or internal developers. The users will control the application developers that are using this service. The edge user can build a designer portal in the cloud or on-premises. The application developers can link to the platforms to retrieve API documentation. The edge clients will create two kinds of portals:

• Drupal-based Portal - a completely customizable portal.
• Integrated Portal - fast and convenient portals for the developer.

3. Edge API Runtime

It is the stage where the PIS is built and used, and it includes all the services like API Gateway, functionality, connectors, security, federated runtime, and API first. The user can design API proxy, install API products, and manage developers and customer apps. It marks the primary concerns that are related to API management. The nature of API proxy can be customized by using custom scripts.

Flavors of Apigee Edge

Flavors of Apigee Edge is of three types:

1. Private Cloud: The users need to build their atmosphere and move ahead in administrative processes like installation, maintenance, and upgrade. 
2. Public Cloud: A fully Apigee provides the SAAS category of atmosphere lets users easily create APIs without stressing about the design.
3. Hybrid: APIs can organize on the Google Cloud platform or on-premises, or both. It allows the users to manage both the inner and outer API with Google cloud, efficiently leveraging the established local rules and government regulations.

Related Article: Apigee vs API Gateway

Tips to Develop API Proxy

• You can check the API proxy execution flow by using testing, debugging, and trace tools.
• Apigee Edge will elaborate on the way of processing logic inflow, and also, at the platform of the processing path, you can apply logic and behavior.
• You can mention the limitations of the API proxy state, and on this basis, you can execute the code functionality to process the request.
• You can organize the policies in a row within a flow to perform them in sequence. 
• The fault of an API proxy can be customized by configuring an error handler.
• In response to the request, design a step as an API proxy. An API proxy includes material ways, an HTTP verb, and body requirements.
• You can get an entry to the change that constitutes the implementation stage of an API proxy, and also you can get the entry from the XML that configures API proxies and rules. 

Conclusion

Organizations need to build a backend team that makes accessible easily online and available for mobile and web programs. Apigee Edge creates it smoothly to code or construct API policies and redesigns API behavior visually. It protects your information from different attacks, and users can detect live API calls, traffic surges, and API traffic data with actual insights. It additionally reduces the present time to treat (MTTD). Apigee Edge presents a continuing client experience to partners, customers, and application developers.