Building on the foundation of our previous Private Connectivity experience, IBM API Connect v12 takes enterprise API management on AWS to the next level — delivering more intuitive private connection management, greater flexibility, and the ability to scale across multiple gateways and connections for your API Connect SaaS instance.
Understanding Private Connectivity and Public Connections
Private connectivity allows you to create an AWS PrivateLink connection to enable private access to your APIs from your AWS account and vice versa. This means your API traffic flows securely between your API Connect instance and your backend services without traversing the public internet, providing enhanced security, reduced exposure, improved performance, and compliance support.
Public connections control whether your API catalogs are accessible over the public internet. When enabled (the default setting), you can manage which APIs are publicly accessible versus those that require private connectivity, giving you granular control over your API exposure.
What's new in v12
Private connection configuration for multiple gateways
IBM API Connect SaaS v12 now provides enhanced flexibility for configuring private connections for multiple gateway types deployed in your organization. This powerful new capability allows you to tailor your private connectivity setup to match your specific gateway architecture. This private connectivity feature is available exclusively to Premium subscriptions.
Connection type selection: Choose between inbound or outbound connection types for your gateway, giving you full control over the direction of your private connections. Each gateway supports up to 1 inbound connection and 3 outbound connections, providing flexibility for complex networking scenarios.
Multi-gateway support: When multiple gateways are configured (Nano Gateway, DataPower API Gateway), you can now select which specific gateway should have the private connection configured. This is particularly valuable for organizations running hybrid gateway architectures or those transitioning between gateway types.
Default behavior: For organizations with only the default Nano Gateway (provisioned automatically with Premium subscriptions), the private connection configuration automatically uses the default Nano Gateway in your organization—no additional selection needed.
Enhanced multi-gateway UI: Connections are now displayed alongside their respective gateways, giving administrators a clear, at-a-glance view of which connections belong to which gateway — reducing complexity when managing multi-gateway setups.
- Nano Gateway: Provided by default with v12 Premium subscriptions
- DataPower API Gateway: Available to add to your Premium subscription self-service if required
The gateway selection option is only available to Premium subscription customers who have provisioned additional gateways beyond the default Nano Gateway. This ensures that the feature is available to organizations that need the flexibility of multiple gateway types.
Getting started with v12 Private connectivity
To configure private connections with the new multi-gateway support:
- Navigate to your Instance Settings panel
- Access the Private connectivity section
- When creating a new connection, if you have multiple gateways configured, you'll see a gateway selection dropdown
- Choose the gateway that should use this private connection
- Choose the type of connection - inbound/outbound
- Complete the connection setup as usual.
For detailed step-by-step instructions on configuring private connections end to end, including inbound and outbound connection setup, please refer to following:
Multi-Gateway public connection management
The latest enhancement to API Connect v12 brings multi-gateway support for public connections, allowing organizations with multiple gateway types to manage public access at both the organization and catalog levels.
Organization-Level public connection control: The org level toggle allows you to enable or disable public connections for the entire organization, affecting all catalogs across all gateways. The toggle applies uniformly across Nano Gateway and DataPower API Gateway provisioned in your organization.
Catalog-Level public connection control: Block individual catalogs from public access regardless of which gateway they're associated with. You can block multiple catalogs at once across different gateways. You can even block a catalog that is associated with both Nano Gateway and DataPower API Gateway.