API Connect

Quick Question:

I see that APIC v5 is EOS in 2022.  Does that include v5c?

I've now seen this question coming from more customers, so I'm adding a short blog post to clarify.

The Question

First understanding the question:

General API Connect lifecycle is explained on this page.  It says:

API Connect V5 has announced End of Support (EOS) for April 30, 2022.  Support Extensions are available for purchase through December 31, 2022. Contact your account rep to request a support extension quote.  While the support extension is less than a typical 12 month period, a longer initial notification of 18 months from EOS was provided for planning.

Many customers have already moved from APIC v5 to a more recent version.  The more recent versions include two Gateway options:

• DataPower Gateway - also known as the v5 Compatibility Gateway, or v5c for short.
• DataPower API Gateway - also known as the Native Gateway or APIGW.

The APIGW is a new implementation, optimized and customized for API traffic.  It has many advantages:

• Delivers substantial performance improvements
• Unleashes unparalleled access to over 20,000 gateway configuration objects for supporting features from integration with MQ, to RBAC, to Kafka, and many more.
• Provides a high-fidelity direct implementation of API Connect features, enabling easy debugging, maintenance, and profiling of your APIs.

The backwards-compatible v5c Gateway provides significant performance improvements over the v5 Gateway while maintaining full backwards compatibility so that there are no changes needed to configuration for migration.  It is intended for v5 customers to use for any APIs that don't require the new APIGW features.  New APIs should, of course, target the new APIGW.

The new APIGW (aka DataPower API Gateway) itself also provides a number of compatibility features, so your choice is not all-or-nothing, but when you want 100% backwards compatibility on all corner cases then v5c is the Gateway with that strong 100% guarantee.

So the question I've received has been:  When v5 is End of Support, does that mean that v5c is also End of Support and we need to have already migrated to the APIGW?

Explanation

• v5c is not a feature on APIC v5 at all because you don't need compatibility with v5 when you're on v5.
• v5c is a feature on APIC v2018 and APIC v10.  Therefore, the lifecycle for v5c is inherently linked to the lifecycle of the releases that include it.
• To date, every APIC GA has included v5c — including the newest APIC v10.0.1.x releases.
• For any new API, it is of course best to use the optimized native APIGW.
• For any old API that is migrated and does not require the new features, you're safe with the v5c Gateway.  When you decide that you want to move up to the APIGW for a particular API, there are also a number of compatibility features within the APIGW that allow parts of your API to be compatible with v5 even while accepting many of the benefits of APIGW.

The Answer

v5c is not a v5 feature, and v5 EOS does not affect v5c at all.